52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #35 – Pearson and Pepper Liddell

Liddells and Lucketts

In Week 35 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for Pearson and Pepper Liddell.

“Melissa and I are calling to see what divorce lawyers you would recommend. We want to end this as quickly and amicably as possible.”

This picture was taken less than 24 hours after that call.

The call was made to Pearson and Pepper Liddell, a couple who hosted a Christian marriage ministry that Melissa and I had been a part of for the last five years. During their ministry, they urged each couple to commit to a pact: to take divorce off the table. I was always reluctant to do so because I had a line in the sand. There were things I felt I deserved. There were certain things I wasn’t going to tolerate. There was only so much I was going to endure. I was only willing to go so far.

“Can you meet with us?”, they replied. Early the next morning they drove 4 hours from Georgia to meet with Melissa and I in a location they prepared at New Horizon’s Church in Starkville, Mississippi.

They labored with us in prayer and in the Word for almost 8 hours. It took that long, mostly because I’m pretty familiar with the Bible and was craftily twisting scripture to justify my position. Pearson was definitely no novice, but most importantly, while I was in the flesh, he was in the Spirit and said to me, “The problem with your logic and interpretation of scripture is that it’s built on the basis of what you want. But what does God want?”

Check.

Grasping at this point, I retort, “He wants my peace -1 Corinthians 7:15.”

Pearson and Pepper jointly replied, “Does God want that more than He wants to redeem and sanctify your wife and children through the ark of His holy institution? More than He want’s to make Himself known through your ministry to your wife as Christ’s to the church? If peace is primary, what about Jesus’ peace, that of His only begotten Son?”

Check and mate.

The fact that was indisputable is Christ’s purpose from before creation is redemptive. He came to seek and save that which was lost -Luke 19:10. That is what God wants. This is the ministry that Jesus took upon Himself and He was obedient to death, even the humiliating death of the cross -Philippians 2:8. From the beginning, God instituted marriage to point to Christ with His redemptive purpose in view.

I had been led astray by a focus on my own selfish purposes and desires. Pearson and Pepper were the shepherds that led us to repentance and back to the heart of the Father.

They reminded me that marriage is not mine for my pleasure and purposes. Marriage is God’s, made for His purpose and I am humbly just a minister in it. Marriage is a great and wonderful mystery and, as with most things, when done His way results in outcomes that far exceed anything I could even hope to achieve.

You can’t tell at first glance, but if you look closely at the picture, you can see the tint of red in all of our eyes from crying. This is what has characterized our walk with the Liddell’s. They don’t play church. We deal with real life. They are transparent about their own struggles and are therefore able to help us with ours. We confess our sins to one another and are healed together. God’s grace toward us through the Liddell’s has tremendously blessed us, our children and people we didn’t even know that God was using our marriage to reach.

I have since taken divorce off the table, for any reason, come what may. Christ gave it all so that we may have the true riches and pleasure of being one together with God in Him. The Liddell’s through word and deed have demonstrated that, when done right, marriage is a model of that.

I’m grateful. #52WoG

Originally posted to Facebook on August 27, 2021.

52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #34 – Rosemary Luckett

Rosemary Neal Chris Family Picture
Apartment complex where the Luckett family lived during seminary training at ITC Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia
Rosemary Luckett
Rosemary Luckett at Ribbon Cutting Of Master The Machine Computer Learning Center

In Week 34 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for my mother, Rosemary Luckett.

The place was remarkably clean as I remember.

It’s my Dad’s first year at ITC Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia and we’ve not long moved into the apartment. My brother’s a baby and I’m between first and second grade.

Sterile seems a more accurate description. The walls were stark white. The ceiling is white. The floor is white and black speckled laminate. The only thing breaking up the monotony of the space was a thick, dark grey rubber border running along the bottom of the walls. In the living room, there’s a large window that spanned the height of the wall, sitting just above a motel style air conditioner.

It’s quiet, too. It’s Saturday morning. At our old house, the neighborhood would already be bustling with the sound of lawn mowers and playing kids. But here, it’s dead quiet, aside from the muffled sound of city traffic due to being some way off in the distance. I’m looking out the living room window onto the spacious, grassy courtyard dotted with large trees and thinking perhaps I’ll play out there.

And then, it started as the sound of gentle arrhythmic taps against metal -like salt being slowly sprinkled on aluminum foil. It was the first droplets of rain hitting the coils of the air condition unit. The window began to collect a few drops making a circuitous path toward the sill. Then, what began as a sprinkle became a thunderous shower and sheets of rain are now streaming down the window.

There was suddenly static, like a TV without a clear channel. And then the sound alternated between music, then voices and music again, each electronically garbled between transitions. My mother had gone and gotten the radio and brought it to the front room. She was turning a large silver knob, searching for the right station. When she found one playing a song, she bent forward toward me with her arms stretched out and hands open, motioning for me to dance.

She took me by the hands twisting, jumping and skipping about as we danced to Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and the music of that day. My brother was on the couch in his diaper and she’d occasionally scoop him up so he could dance with us too. A dreary, lonely day was suddenly filled with light. All I remember was the brightness of her countenance and the fullness of her smile as her full, black untamed hair bounced exuberantly upon her shoulders. This is my mother; my wonderful, beautiful, incomparable mother. It is a moment that perfectly encapsulated her as a person. Over and over throughout my life, she took a cold, empty husk of an existence and filled it with joy, hope and love.

I don’t remember the music ending. I hope it never does. If I could relive that moment for eternity, that would be heaven.

I thank God continually for you, Mom. I love you.

I’m grateful. #52WoG

Originally posted to Facebook on August 21, 2021.

What The Storm Taught Me About Jesus

Stormy Sea

“Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”

These words of Jesus recorded in Mark 4:40 always perplexed me. What do you mean, “Why am I so fearful?!” We’re in the middle of a deadly storm! (Mark 4:37) Don’t you feel the ship being tossed violently about? Don’t you see that the ship is filling with water and that we’re about to sink?! What does faith have to do with anything? This is not a matter of attitude or perspective. This threat is not spiritual. The danger is real! So, what do you mean, “Why am I so fearful?!”

The questions seemed absurd. That is, until I had to face a storm of my own.

Like the storm in Mark 4:37, mine came upon me suddenly, unexpectedly and violently. In one great swell the waters crashed on my life, threatening to tear everything apart. After barely surviving its impact, I was then hammered with wave, after wave, after wave. I lived in constant fear of the blow that would finally end it all. This went on for years.

But, Jesus was in the boat the whole time.

I was so focused on the storm, I lost sight of who He was. And, I didn’t realize the effect that Jesus was having just being there. While He seemed to me to be “sleeping”, He was the reason I had not perished. It was His presence, and not all the things I was clinging to, that was preserving me and providing for my need. What I see now, that I didn’t see then, is that He had angels encamped all around us -real people, who ministered to my real needs. As I reflect on those years, I clearly see people God sent that provided precisely what I needed both spiritually and materially in their due seasons. Why? Not because of what I had done, but because of who I was with. I was with Jesus –Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God who was sent according to the love of God for this very purpose: that those who believe in Him would not perish but have life everlasting.

That last part –Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.

This view of Jesus as God incarnate is what I believed or at least conceptually understood at some point, but lost sight of. And this is why, I believe, that Jesus asks, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” Because, if I am with Christ in the boat, do I really believe the Christ will perish? Do I really believe that He will fail to do what He came to do? Do I really believe that any promise made concerning Him will go unfulfilled? Oh Father, grant me the faith of Abraham who believed so steadfastly on your Promise because he believed God to be so faithful that He’d never go back on His word and believed God to be so powerful, that He could raise the son of Promise from the dead. (Genesis 22:1-14; Hebrews 11:19) Lord, help me to see You and to allow the reality of who You are to loom larger than the reality that I’m wrestling with!

When I believe Jesus, my hope and expectation is in the furtherance of His purposes: reconciling creation to Himself and the full coming of His kingdom. This, by faith, becomes the desire of my heart that I can be fully assured that God will give to me. (Psalm 37:4) Furthermore, if He can command even the storm, I can have confidence that nothing concerning me is beyond His control. If I live, He is in control. He has work for me and as I walk in it, no storm, no circumstance, no power in Hell -nothing can prevent it. If I die, He is in control. I can depart knowing that He is faithful to finish the work He began and that nothing that I have committed to Him will be in vain. So, whether in life or death, He is in control, His purposes will prevail, He will be glorified and my desire in Him will not fail.

As I look back from the other side of the storm, I see that the whole time I spent being anxious, frantically flailing about, I could have been resting confidently with Jesus.