Second-Wave Responders

Harry Smith and Brian Williams of NBC news stated clearly to the nation tonight something that many of us have known for many years--when a crisis occurs, churches and Christian people respond compassionately and courageously. Call them 'second-wave responders' but there is nothing second-rate about the way Believers put their faith quickly into action, assisting the dying, the hurting, the confused. Be it a force 5 tornado, a terrorist bombing, or a fertilizer plant explosion, faithful Christ-followers demonstrate unmistakably that knowing Christ changes everything. These are difficult days, but there is bright hope for any situation because the Body of Christ will be there, caring tangibly and embodying the Lord's prayer--"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Photo: darkroom.baltimoresun.com

Something That Matters

"Tim Tebow is America's most famous unemployed athlete." Since his release from the New York Jests, the Heisman Trophy winner has been without a team. Most individuals would be devastated and perhaps even be bracing for ultimate disaster. But not Tebow.

Last week, during a speech at Lake Michigan College, the jilted quarterback said this about his future: "What I want to do with my life is impact lives. When a kid in a hospital is fighting for his life and I'm trying to win a football game, what really matters? This game isn't as important as a lot of us make it out to be. If I can give him a little bit of hope, I can do something that matters. That's what I want my legacy to be about. That's how I want to be remembered."

He may already be getting his wish. A published survey recently named him America's most influential athlete. Forbes explains Tebow's significance: "His clean living and public religious values make him a role model for many, even if they render him polarizing in some quarters."

Tebow commented on the survey: "That's a huge honor. I see it as a great responsibility to be a role model for future generations. That's something I care about more than winning football games. If I can take the game of football and can transcend football—go to hospitals and make kids smile—I'll be doing things that matter."

I applaude the young man's spiritual maturity and higher undertanding of what's important in life. And it makes me ask myself, "What lesser things do I allow to push their way into the spotlight of my life?" "What am I doing to advance the Kingdom of God?" Am I investing the best of me in something that matters for eternity?

Slow-Motion Crisis

According to an article in today's New York Times, a crisis of epic proportion lurks beneath a large portion of the country in the diminishing returns of the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers. And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.

The same may be said of spiritual drought--it is a slow-motion crisis. Born of long periods of neglect, we find ourselves bereft of any joy associated with our relationship with God. Prayer seems futile, Scripture falls flat, and worship is hollow. We never get to such a low place suddenly. Instead, what St. John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul" develops gradually, but the result is deadly.

How should we respond when we become aware of the low level of our spiritual state? Refuse the temptation of turning to resources that tell about God, and accept no substitutes for seeking God himself. The remedy for spiritual drought is nothing less than a person--a personal encounter with Christ. When everything is stripped away and you find yourself clinging desperately to Christ like Jacob did the wrestling angel, then you will experience the torrent of spiritual desire and satisfaction rising. When He is everything and when He is enough, the spirituals clouds will form laden with life-giving droplets that will fall as refreshing rain upon your soul. In short, the remedy for spiritual decline is nothing less than a relentless return to God Himself.

Turning Anger Into Prayer

Prayer is the proper resting place for all human emotion. I confess that I do experience emotionally charged reactions, especially when exposed to such arresting images as we saw from yesterday's terrorist attacks at the Boston Marathon. My emotional reaction is usually followed by deeper observation and intense discussion. When channeled appropriately, I begin to pray for God to show himself mighty in the midst of circumstances that will inevitably cause many to question his goodness or his existence altogether. Next, I prayer for the victims and their families. Correspondingly, I pray for the Church to respond well and be the obvious presence of Christ in the chaos and catastrophe. Finally, I pray for myself. I pray that my heart will remain tender and that damaging emotion may give way to constructive emotion that will make me even more sensitive to pain in the world, hurting people, and the activity of God all around me. Most often, the appropriate prayerful resting place sounds something like this. . .

"Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Regret

Regret incapacitates, robbing physical strength and emotional resolve. Grace invigorates, restoring vitality of every sort and most importantly, hope.

A New Year's Proverb

Here's a tightly packed proverb worthy of daily attention this year:

"Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is."

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, p. 2)

What Imprint Will I Leave?

Reject the myth of the self-made man; each of us is a collage of influences. As M. G. Fray put it, "I cannot be 'just me.'" We are a divinely stirred mixture of others that imprint us with their own unique reflection of the Triune God. "There is a sense in which I have become like those who discipled me--I have become the people I have known and the (authors) I have studied and read" (M. G. Fray, "It Is Enough", 2000).

Anything good seen in me carefully resembles my mentors, both the ones I walked with and the ones that continue to mark me by written expression. There is really no such thing as 'Dane Fowlkes' except in that a name is given to denote this curious montage painted by Henry Fowlkes, Lois Fowlkes, Katie Richey, T. H. Harding, Bill Clark, Bill Malin, Donald Potts, Ira Cooke, Bud Fray, Al Fasol, Vance and Cherry Kirkpatrick, St. Francis, Brother Lawrence, Frank Laubach, Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, A. W. Tozer, A. B. Simpson, Henry Blackaby, Stanley Mwongella, and the list goes on.... There is no such thing as a self-made man.

What imprint will I leave on those who follow me?

Thanksgiving Reminiscences

Thanksgiving affords the perfect opportunity to say "thank you" to special individuals, living and deceased. Here are a few of my Thanksgiving reminiscences:

- Thank you Jo for allowing me to see God's grace in your eyes every morning. You will always be the most beautiful and incredibly special woman in all the world to me.
- Thank you my daughters for overlooking my shortcomings as a father and loving me in spite of disappointments along the way.
- Thank you Melody for loving a brother who has always been something of a maverick.
- Thank you Mandy and Missy for allowing me into your lives and blessing me with that proud designation of 'Papa' with your precious children.
- Thank you to my students from the past decade that found something beneficial in my musings along the way about what it means to be a Christ-follower and servant leaders.
- Thank you to generous Kingdom-minded business people that have taught me volumes by allowing me to listen and observe.
- Thank you to good friends that validate the axiom that a true friend is someone who walks in when everyone else walks out on you.
- Thank you Mom and Dad for granting unconditional love from beginning to end and everything in between. I miss you more than I can say.
- Thank you to churches along the way that taught me the importance of living in community (Trinity, Midyett, New Faith, Lily Grove, Memorial, Parkway, Bel Air, Crossings).
- Thank you my Kenyan brothers & sisters for softening the edges of my own ethnocentrism.
- Thank you Father for grace and infinite love that changes everything.

When Good People Disagree

Today a good friend confronted me over my latest blog containing strong political opinion and expressed his concern that my post painted him into a moral corner inappropriately. He insisted on a direction diametrically opposed to my own insistence and was both gracious and courageous enough to own the difference out loud so as not to allow the differences to nullify the common ground of relationship. In other words, we reaffirmed our convictions and our friendship at the selfsame time. Could this be the proper tact when good people disagree? Is it possible to hold conviction and another's heart with equal sanctity? This is a good reminder to me that authentic friendship allows honest debate and substantiates relationship as a cardinal virtue. No doubt more debate awaits our next conversation, but the sharp edge of opinion will be softened (not dulled) by grace and mutual respect.

Saddest Day for America

If projections hold true, we are witnessing the saddest day in American political history. This is far more than a narrow electoral victory for a Democratic incumbent; this is a statement of how deeply America has embraced the catastrophic downgrade into Socialism. With this election result, America rejects her democratic New World heritage and rushes headlong into the failed ideologies and economic policies of socialist Old World Europe. Bill O'Reilly got it right tonight when he said America is clearly now a majority that wants "stuff" from a government, regardless of how far in debt that government must go to provide the "stuff." So, where do we go from here? Tragically, the only way for this beloved country to go is down. We race headlong over a fiscal cliff, the economy will collapse into depression, and the "stuff" so many feel entitled to receive will soon be unaffordable for a bankrupt nation. But far worse than the growing economic chaos is the moral collapse that this election evidences. Obama's re-election means that America has embraced same-sex marriage, will arrogantly pay for abortion on demand, and legalizes the removal of religious liberty.

This election was a moral as well as ideological one and the outcome is that America is now a secular, liberal, socialist nation where "one nation under God" no longer applies.