The Blessing Goes Both Ways

I had the opportunity to participate in an event today that was meant to bless those who attended, but as these things go, I came away blessed as well. My friend, Shane Wood, is youth pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church here in Centralia, WA. It is near to the school year again and something that this church does every year is an event called "Kids Closet' where they give away all kinds of supplies to kids as they are getting ready for the school year. This much I knew before i got there. Once i got there though, i was blown away by the magnitude of this project.

The church has this large gymnasium that they used as a large "assembly line" if you will, that allowed each of the kids to collect 2 pairs of new underwear, 2 pairs of new socks, 1 new shirt, 1 new pair of pants, 1 new pair of shoes, 1 dontated (used) sweatshirt or coat, 1 packet of toiletries and 1 packet of school supplies. The Gideon's were also there handing out new testaments in English or Spanish.

My job was to be a "personal shopper" or "guide" for these families of kids. They came with their parents, of course, and most of the kids were 4-10 years old but there were some that were as much as 18. There must have been about 40 people there from this church and, i presume, other churches there to help with this project. In al, 720 kids came away with the above mentioned items.

What impressed me the most was the heart of love that the people showed to these families that came through today. I was also impressed with need for Christians who love the Lord and who love God's people to learn Spanish! I felt very convicted that i have not learned more Spanish because most of the people i helped today were Hispanic and spoke as much English as i did Spanish. We got through it but it was difficult! I think of the apostle Paul who knew Aramaic, Latin and Greek so that he may win some to Christ. While i am not sure about learning three languages, i could at least learn Spanish!

Thank you to the army of people who came together to make this day possible to bless the people of our community. I am sure that everyone involved was also blessed to help, as i was, and we all felt the blessing go both ways.

A Tribute to Saint Dale

This picture is my dad by my side on my wedding day, June 21st, 2003. Little did i know that 2 years and 43 days later i would be by my dad's side as he passed from this life to the next. It has been two years ago today since my dad passed and it is appropriate that i share some thoughts on my dad, death and sainthood.

For a long time i thought it was so foolish, this Catholic idea that we would pray to saints. How absurd to think that they could take the place of Christ! Then, my dad passed and my view on this took a turn. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my dad is hanging out with Jesus and his angels now. The Bible gives me that confidence. Now about talking to my dad instead of Jesus, well that's easy. I know that my dad is a guy that i can talk to at any time about anything and i know that he would be the one who would put in a good word for me with God Himself. (Bear with me here, i really am going somewhere with this) I actually found myself talking to my dad as if he would talk to Jesus for me instead of the other way around. It sounds weird now, looking back, but at the time it seemed quite rational. I missed (and still do) my dad very much and wanted to connect with him again and to somehow restore that relationhship. However, this was not the way to do it, as it was revealed to me.

Last year, we had our family reunion on my mom's side and i had the opportunity to give the Sunday morning service. As i thought about what to say, God lead me to 2 Kings and the story of Elijah and Elisha. Elisha was the servant and student of Elisha, who was a mighty prophet in a hard time of Israel's history. It was no secret that it was time for Elisha to go home to be with the Lord and Elisha did not want to leave his masters side. Three times when Elijah tried to leave Elisha so that he could depart and three times Elisha said to him, "As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you!" I can relate to this attitude because when my dad was getting weaker and weaker, i did not want him to leave. My dad has been a spiritual mentor for me for so many years. So much wisdom has come from this man and if he leaves, then what?

Elisha then asks that a double portion of the Spirit of the Lord that was upon Elijah be placed upon him as well. When Elijah does depart in that chariot of fire, Elisha receives a sign that the thing of which he asked has come to pass. He returns to the villiage and everyone asks if they can go look for Elijah. Elisha implores them not to go look but they insist so he allows it and after three days they come back to tell him that they couldn't find him. Elisha does kind of an "I told you so" and then they carry on. The thing i get from this is that after someone has passed and God has taken them home, looking for them is futile. More importantly, though, is that they were searching for Elijah because they felt that God and His blessing rested with Elijah and without Elijah, where is that blessing going to come from? How foolish! To think that God can only rest in one man! But that is what i was doing by thinking that through my dad's passing that a portion of God's power was also put in the ground with him. God is so much bigger than that!

My fond memories of my dad will always be with me and i look forward to that big hug i am going to give him on "That Day". The lesson i learned from this experience, though, is that my dad is not the only one that can carry the Spirit of the Lord. It was my dad's goal that everyone at his funeral would take the baton and run the race. That is why he had baton's made up to give out to anyone who wanted one that read, "Run in such a way as to get the prize 1 Corinthians 9:24". Hopefully, this is a constant reminder to all who took one that each one of us is to run the race that has been set before us. To each of us kids and to my mom, he had a baton made for us that read, "My race is over now and i pass the baton to you. Run the race in such a way as to win. I'll be waiting for you at the finish line. - Dad"

Dale Max Wilcox was born in Toledo, OH December 13th, 1942 and died in Lynden, WA on August 5th, 2005. He ran his race in such a way as to get the prize. May we all do the same.

Thoughts on Being a Dad

This has been a sweet, sweet adventure. To my right you can see a picture that we had professionally taken last Saturday. Our little Gloria Jane is 9 months old here and completely oblivious to how absolutely adorable she is. Whether i want to admit it or not, i am completely hooked on this little girl. She has kept my busier than i imagined it would be but i have had time to reflect and here are some thoughts on fatherhood after 9 months of practice:

1. Fatherhood is not for the faint of heart - This is not to say that my heart is bigger than the next guys but being a parent in general is highly underrated. The prerequisites for becoming a parent are entirely too easy to come by. Another danger is that parents say that being a parent is "so wonderful." It's like they ar trying to lull you into this false sense of security that it's easier than owning a brand new BMW. Why, who wouldn't want that? While it is "so wonderful", it is also "so hard". If you enjoy sleeping, you had better learn to live on very little sleep. I am told that the military deprives their privates of sleep to teach them strength. I'd like to see anyone of those guys try to take care of a sick 9 month old for a week. They'd have more strength than they could handle!

2. Fatherhood teaches me humility - When you are single, you live your life for yourself. When you are dating, you live your life mostly for yourself but you make room for this other person whom you are learning to love. Then you become married and more of yourself is put on the shelf as you make room for this person that you love. Now comes the hard part. When a baby comes along, you chose to put even more of your own desires on the shelf and direct that last part of yourself towards this precious little baby you helped bring into the world. This is not something that is done out of duty's sake but it is done out of the depths of love in your heart. The love that you have for this little one almost forces you to acts of service to take care of them. Doing something so small for someone so helpless makes you feel so tall even though they cannot thank you.

3. Fatherhood teaches me about my relationship with God - The bible correlates our relationship with God to many different metaphors but the one that is reaching out to me as of late is, of course, the metaphor of God as the Father as we as the child. Gloria doesn't understand that there are things in our house that are ok for her to touch and there are things in our house that are not ok. Climbing up on the couch...good! Climbing up on the gas fireplace... bad! Teaching her right and wrong is something that my wife and i do on a daily basis for her own good. She does not understand that as she looks at us with tears in her eyes wondering why we would possibly deprive her of free reign of the house. It is not that we dislike her that causes us to correct her wanting to touch a hot stove, but rather our love for her that makes us want to help her not get burned. Looking back on my life, i can think of several times that God kept me from different things in life and relationships. What a great Father we have! He knows me better than i know myself. He knows what would hurt me and rather than give some big explaination about why that thing didn't work out, he just shuts the door and we move on. Sometimes this is really tough to take and i think, "What's your probem? I had this all worked out and you ruined my plan! What's the big idea?!". As God is teaching me, the "big idea" is that He is God and i am not. He knows where the dangers are and if i would humble myself a little, i might see that. It also teaches me why He loves me. I love Gloria not because she can do anything for me but because she is mine. God loves me not because i can do all these wonderful thngs for Him but because i am His. That is a comforting thought.

Believe me, being a dad is "so wonderful" as they say, but make sure that you are ready emotionally. There will be sacrifices for sure, but when your little baby looks at you as though you are their favorite person, you know that you are where you need to be.

She completes me

i'm a tough guy. i don't need anyone. People and relationships mean nothing to me because i am an island. i can do it alone and i can do it better when i am alone. Having someone else in my life just slows me down. If i could just have some peace and quiet with myself things would be so much better.

Who am i kidding? i am smitten. i am in deep smit over my wife. See this picture? This is us on our wedding day. Some people talk about how their wedding day was the beginning of the end for them. That once you say, "I do", you say, "Yes dear" the rest of your life. Thankfully, my marriage to Angela has been the beginning of a great life.

This has all been pushed to the forefront of my mind since we have been apart for four days. i know four days isn't a lot but that is the reason for my post. She completes me. i have heard it said before that you need to be a complete person before you can really appreciate the person you are going to marry. That you need to "figure yourself out" before you can really be in a place to love someone until you can do that. To some extent there is a maturing that each person needs to go through before they can be ready but some people complicate it to much. For me, i was 28 when i met Angela and it was not a day too soon. Looking back, i can see that God had His hand in the whole thing.

My whole life i had been thinking that i was going to be an island for the rest of my life and that if i married that we would be co-habitating and working towards similar but different goals. How wonderfully wrong i was. In reality she and i are working towards the same goal and we are team members trying to acheive that which the Lord has set before us. We work in lock step and if the other is weaker that day the other pulls the weight. She completes me.

Tomorrow, i will drive to pick up Angela, Gloria and Bernadette. i love Gloria and Bernie with all my heart but when i have Angela in my arms again, then i will be complete.

Farewell, Falwell

As many of you know, i am a Jerry's kid. I attended Liberty University for two years from 92 to 94. My experience at this university was a very positive one because of the people i met and the friendships i established. There are some things that happened while i was there that frustrated me, but overall, it was a very good experience.

One of the things that i really enjoy are looking at political cartoons on the internet. What was so frustrating for me was that i went to my favorite politcal cartoon website the same day that Jerry Falwell died and there were already some of the most hateful cartoons published about him. People suggesting that Tinky Winky was going to be in the place of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates and others suggesting that he went straight to hell. Jerry didn't always get it right, i admit, but there were times when Jerry got it right.

One of those times was when a student that i knew was caught at an off campus party drinking alcohol, a big no-no for anyone attending Liberty. The policy was that he would be expelled from campus. Obviously, he didn't want to go home in shame to his parents for a night of bad choices so he found Jerry Falwell pulling up in his black suburban and asked if he could talk to him for a minute. Jerry let this guy into his car and this student proceeded to explain how he made this bad choice and that vowed his commitment to making better choices. Jerry sat there calmly listening to him and when he had finished, Jerry asked for this guys name and said that he would take care of making sure he stayed in school. Jerry did know about forgivness and how to give it unlike what people would have you believe.

As some of you know, i love the band U2. I own almost all of their albums, lots of international recordings and some of their fan club recordings as well. One album i do not own now is Rattle and Hum. During this rendition of "Bullet the Blue Sky", Bono goes off about "some preacher on the Old Time Gospel Hour stealing money from the old and the sick. Well the God i believe in isn't short on cash mister." I understand that there are some predatory "ministers" out there that do prey on the old and the sick but Jerry Falwell, whose show is called "The Old Time Gospel Hour", isn't predatory. He does pass the offering plate and he does ask people to give but he is not one of those preachers that lives lavishly off of what people give him. He lived a very reasonable life, as far as i can tell.

One of Jerry's biggest flaws is railing against gays. Now don't get me wrong, i am not saying that gay is ok but should it be a hill to die on? I was listening to a political analyst on msn talking about the death and legacy of Falwell. He is a rabbi and i assume from his ideas a liberal but he said something that i thought was good. He said that something that Jerry should have been going after much harder as a social ill is divorce and how divorce has ravaged our society and even our churches. He said, "Even if he was able to take homosexuality to zero in Amercia, homes would still be wrecked and laid to waste because of the destruction of divorce in our families." I tend to agree with that statement.

There is something else that follows this same logic that i learned in the financial class that Ang and i are taking. (Yes, you will continue to hear about this financial class for at least 4 more weeks) We were learning about giving and the issue of the poor came up. Check this out from Ezekiel 16:49:

"Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

Um...i don't know about you, but i always thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. But here in Ezekiel he says that Sodom (and persumably Gomorrah) had more issues than just that. Another of their major sins was that they had plenty but gave nothing to the poor and needy. When i read that it hit me between the eyes! Jerry would often talk about the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah and about how they were destroyed because of their homosexuality. I am not arguing that homosexuality was part of their iniquity but you can't ignore what Ezekiel says here about another part of their iniquity being that they did not help the poor. Wouldn't that have been a campaign that Jerry could have championed? Would people have gotten behind him on that?

Without question, Jerry Falwell has left his mark on the political landscape of America forever. Some will remember him as a champion of Christians rights. Some will remember him as a hate monger. I will remember him as a man who challenged Christians everywhere to come out of the shadows and stand up for what they believed in. Not with weapons or force but with the ink of their pen on a ballot. Thank you, Jerry, for helping people stand.

I forget, does God get 10% or 90%?

The hour is late so all of you in "blogger-land" get the benefit of a short post by me. I just got done balancing the checkbook and have been reminded again of a fantastic truth that i have had my eyes opened to lately. Angela and i are taking a course by Crown Financial Ministries about how God wants you to handle your money. It has been extremely convicting and has really tested my view on money in general. Again, it is late so i am not going to throw a lot of verses out there but did you know that there are over 2350 verses in the bible that have to do with money? Crazy, huh? The one verse i will quote is one that we had to memorize for the first week of the class, "Therefore, if you have not been faithful with the use of worldly wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?" Luke 16:11. Pretty heavy, huh? We are to be stewards of the things that God has given to us. Sure, we might own it on paper, but if you believe that "the Earth is the Lord's in all it's fullness" then everything you "own" is God's and you are just taking care of it for him. I have never been one of those Christians that thinks that God wants me to be rich but i have been one of those Christians that thinks that as long as i could sell everything tomorrow and come out ahead i am doing ok. What this course has taught me is that i "should owe no many anything except a debt of love". As i got to thinking about this i realized that i am not able to help people as well when i am a slave to this bank or that mortgage company. I really can't move freely according to His will because part of whatever decision i make will at some point come to how it affects my ability to make my monthly payments on time.

Angela and i are not role models for how to manage your money but we are making a concerted effort to "attack" our debt and eliminate it. As i look around my church like i did this morning, i wonder how many other people in my church have this same issue going on. They have taken on debt for either an essential need or an unnecessary want and now they are saddled with a debt that they are struggling under. Why is it that we are never content? Angela and i have coveted a house near us that is gorgeous. It has been vacant since we have seen it so longer than 4 years. Today there was activity there! We went over to see what we could see and there were the two daughters of the owner getting it ready to sell. We asked if we could take a tour of the place and they were happy to oblige. It was just as gorgeous inside as we had imagined. Built in 1935 by the first woman to graduate from the UW school of architecture, it has a spiral staircase, a library, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, lots of little extras and a beautiful backyard. Yeah, and only $425,000.00! What did we do with that information? We promptly went back and tried to figure out how we could afford that house! Could we? No. Did we keep thinking about it? Oh yeah! The desire for more, bigger and better is so engrained in us and that is the first thing that we need to correct. The desire for "stuff".

As i recall, John the baptizer said, "i must decrease and He must increase". The same is true for me, i must decrease and He must increase. God does not have 10% of my paycheck. He has it all. I am just His steward.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the [life] which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

What a wonderful verse Galatians 2:20 is. Really, all of Galatians is wonderful and i can understand much of the book from a very personal standpoint. i have all of chapter 3 underlined in my bible. "O foolish Galatians!", Paul writes. I know many people who have taken God's word and impersonalized it to the point that it is just a book of rules. Such a tragedy! What Galatians says to me is, "Troy, you are to live free from the bondage of the law." I know that in me no good thing dwells (Rom 7:18) but that by faith in the Son of God, Christ lives in and through me. What an amazing thing! Praise the Lord! Now i can stop striving and pursueing some kind of a higher plain of conciousness with my vain works for God. I know people that are striving right now to out-do the wrongs they have committed in their life so that, just in case there is a God, they can appeal to His good nature. As if to say, "I at least lived 51% of my life good...right?" Scripture makes it clear that it is not about what good we do but what God does in us.

"Ah ha!", you say. "So are you saying that there is no right or wrong then, only what we do in the eyes of God?" No because both grace and works exist in scripture. On one hand you have Jesus saying, "No man comes to the father but by me." (Jn 14:6), but on the other hand Jesus cried out against the religious leaders of the day, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matt 23:27-28). Jesus believed in right (people believing in Him) and cried out against wrong (too many rules that had nothing to do with the spirit of God).

i could continue but i will close with this; i choose not to get bogged down with rules of the faith. Far be it from me to add a yoke of bondage to a new believer that even i could not deal with. Therefore i dish out a portion of the grace i was given. At the same time, if i see a believer who is not walking according to the spirit and i have an opportunity to give council i do so. Case in point, in the college age bible study that i have lead for some time now we have have a very "open floor" philosophy that allows people to speak their mind about what a partiticular scripture might say. In the past six years there have been many opportunities for me to say, "Hey that is great!" but there are some things that people bring up that are not ok. My goal is to keep directing people to scripture for in there they will find the words of life. The pastor won't change your life. I won't change your life. A new boyfriend/girlfriend won't change your life. Only having the true living God "tabernacle" in your life with change your life. It is not you who lives, but Christ who lives in you.