Wild, Wild West

I'm thinking of changing my name to Wyatt Earp.  Or Pat Garrett.  One of the two.  For half the day on Saturday and all day on Sunday I took part in a handgun course called "Tactical Dynamics: Principles, Proceedures and Protocols for 360, 24/7 Security".  I added a bunch of photos from the course just for fun.  It was a great course, and covered both basic handgun safety as well as moving quickly to get to safety, shooting from behind cover, shooting from your vehicle, etc.  I was glad that I didn't shoot a hole in my truck!  There were only eight students the first day and six the second, so we received lots of personal attention from the three instructors.  After the basic course I took two weeks ago and now this one I feel much more confident in handling a pistol safely.  The purpose of the course is to teach someone who plans to carry a concealed weapon how to handle the gun safely for yourself and for those around you, and how to use it for personal defense in the unlikely event that you - or your family - are faced with the threat of death or serious bodily injury.  Am I planning to carry a concealed weapon?  I haven't made a decision.  I will have a permit to carry a weapon in the next week or so, and I wanted to have the necessary training to handle
the gun safely.  After that, I have to make the decision as to whether I would ever find myself in
a situation where my personal security is seriously
threatened (of course, who knows when any of us
might be faced by a mugger or a rapist?).
Anyway, I thought the pictures were fun (that's me in the Auburn hat, by the way).

Daphne and I continue to hike 3.5 miles almost 
every day in the open space park below our house.
It takes us about 45-50 minutes to walk it, and as a result we have more time to talk than at almost any time in our marriage.  We just celebrated our 19th anniversary (it was an inauspicious occasion, as both of us nearly forgot the day!), and one of the things we've talked about is what we want to do to celebrate our 20th next year.  I suggested going to Alaska, and Daphne wants to go to Hawaii; we're both happy to go to either, so I imagine it will come down to which one we can afford at that time (or neither, for that matter).  It's fun to dream, in any case.

I'll be preaching for the next two Sundays at our church, and I've been reflecting a great deal on what to say.  I've always tended to speak about whatever the Lord's teaching me at that time, rather than keeping a file cabinet full of old sermons that I can pull out and re-use.  I was challenged in this area years ago in Senegal when a visiting missionary preached at the church in Dakar; I don't remember what he spoke about (ironically), but I do remember him sharing that the Lord had challenged him to throw out all his old messages and to only preach from what he was learning personally.  If it wasn't fresh and from his own experience, it wasn't worth sharing. This concept really hit me deeply, and before long I'd chucked every old sermon I possessed - and since that day almost 20 years ago I've never preached the same sermon twice.  I'll say one thing for this system:  it keeps you on your

spiritual "toes", because if the Lord isn't speaking into my life on a regular basis I'll be pretty embarrassed on Sunday morning when I stand up and say, "I've got nothing to share this morning."  It could still happen one day, but it hasn't happened yet.

The thing the Lord's been hammering home for me lately, and the frequent topic of my conversations with John or Daphne, is the whole idea of what it means to really, truly rest in the Lord on a daily basis.  By "rest" I mean simply this:  my heart and soul are at peace, and I can go about my day free from worry, anxiety and the need to gain control of everything in my life.  I believe this is what God has promised to every believer NOW, in THIS life and not just when the "Sweet Chariot" come to carry us over the Jordan River into Heaven.   However, I so seldom encounter someone who genuinely lives with this sense of abiding peace, that I have a hard time imagining what it really looks like.  On our walk yesterday Daphne said to me, "You need to paint a picture for the church of what the "Promised Land" means for us today".  When God promised rest and a land flowing with milk and honey to the people of Israel, He wasn't talking about the hope of Heaven; He was talking about a literal land where they would settle and find rest from their 400 years of slavery.  There was only one problem: the people did not believe God.  Even after the spies went into the land and came back with eye-witness accounts of the beauty and richness of Canaan, they still doubted God's promises and spent 40 years in useless wandering in the desert.  Only two of those who saw the land - Joshua and Caleb - actually entered it 40 years later.  All the others died in the wilderness. There is a promised land that God foretold in the Old Testament, and that He fulfilled through Jesus.  It's called the promised land of Freedom From Fear.

"I came that they might have life, and have life in abundance."

Storm Guides & Pastoring

First of all, here are some pictures from our recent camping trip . . . a picture is worth a thousand words.  The view from above the lake was absolutely incredible.  The picture below that is of the girls just after they woke up the first morning; they were so cold, they all went to lie down on the road in the sun to try to warm up.  In their sleeping bags they looked like a bunch of fat caterpillars lying there.

A couple of weeks ago I went fishing at a small lake about 45 minutes from our house, and I noticed a mother duck that was cruising around with 10 ducklings lined up behind her in single file.  As many of the ducklings as possible would race up to climb on her back for a free ride, but only three or four could fit at one time.  I had to walk around the entire lake trying to get a picture of them because the mother was very cautious and she wouldn't let me get more than 30 or 40 feet from them before she would swim towards the middle with all the little ones racing to keep up behind her.

Daphne and I had a long conversation with Michael yesterday (the Pastor of our church) about our role in the church, and how we see my business with Storm Guides developing over time.  I'd been thinking about talking with Mike about the very same subject, so it seemed like a God-given opportunity.  In all honesty, if I look at an average week most of my time is spent in church-related issues.  I do have a number of promising leads in the works with Storm Guides, but in an era of economic recession and churches cutting budgets, this isn't a great time to try to build a new company.  Mike told us about a friend of his who used to work in the fire department with him, but who sold fire extinguishers on the side.  He used to say to Mike, "Thank God for laws", because no one would buy a fire extinguisher unless by law you HAD to have one.  "In effect," Mike said, "You're trying to sell fire extinguishers without any laws."  He's got a good point.  Most churches don't have any crisis contingency plans because they don't see the need.  It's only when they find themselves faced with a crisis that they start asking the right questions, like "Who do we call?"  It's true that to build a new company based on the premise that one day you "might" need this training is a hard sell.  So, do we pursue both pastoring and crisis management at the same time, or do we let one go in favor of building the other?  I don't know the answer.  All I know is that I love doing both, but I'm also a realist and I know that trying to maintain (in effect) two full-time jobs at the same time would become a crazy-maker. . . and If I haven't learned my lesson through one burn-out experience, then I'm the world's biggest idiot.

Thankfully it's now summertime.  Things are slow at Journey Church, and most potential clients for Storm Guides are all busy with their summer missions trips etc.  The Pressure is Off (as Larry Crabb loves to put it), and we are looking forward to a great summer for our family.

I am confident of two things right now:
1. There is no need to get stressed-out because God is in control, and His desire for Daphne and me is to REST in His great love for us and in His many promises to care for all our needs.
2. He will give us wisdom in the weeks and months ahead to know where to invest our time and energy.

In the meantime, I've got five sermons to prepare and an endless list of home improvement projects to keep me busy all summer long.

God is Good.  All The Time.

Smoke Follows Beauty

We went camping from Wednesday to Friday of this past week with another family from our church who have three girls almost the exact ages of ours.  They all get along like a house on fire (that's a positive metaphor, by the way).  While the days were warm and extremely windy, the temperature dropped below freezing at night.  We bought five warm sleeping bags before we left France last year, but somehow we've lost one. . . so Papa ended up with the lightweight sleeping bag, and I just about froze my you-know-what off.  I wore sweat pants, a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt at night, and still hardly slept.  But then, that's part of camping, isn't it?  We haven't been camping as a family for many, many years, and this trip brought back some great memories.  Since I wasn't sleeping, I was up before dawn the first morning and I lit a fire to warm up.  One part of camping that I'd forgotten about, and definitely don't miss, is dealing with the smoke from the fire - which has the uncanny ability of following you from spot to spot as you keep moving your chair to avoid it.  Unfortunately for us, the wind was blowing most of the time for the two days we were there, and it kept shifting direction which meant you just couldn't stay out of the smoke.  Every bit of clothing we brought smells like smoke.  C'est la vie, as we say in France.  The first evening we broke out the Graham crackers, Hershey's chocolate (yeuck) and marshmallows, and proceeded to have a S'mores "orgy" (is there any camping tradition as well known as "S'mores"?)  The only thing that would have made the evening perfect would have been some nice, dark, French chocolate.

We started a list of things we either forgot, or don't yet own:
1. The bag of nozzles for the inflatable air mattresses.  We ended up having only three useable air mattresses out of five, and one of them would gradually deflate throughout the night.  Our second night there I had to blow the mattress up again three or four times during the night, just to stay off the ground.  Needless to say, we didn't get a lot of sleep.
2. Gas cooker.  Our friends own one of those gas cookers that you have to prime by pumping the rod in and out to build up pressure - remember those?  Their cooker is around 40 years old and still works - just like their antique metal cooler and their 50 year-old Envinrude outboard motor for the boat; Some things just never wear out (American ingenuity at its best).   On the way home we stopped at Walmart, and I bought a cooker... except this one works with propane rather than gas.
3. Coffee pot.  This is an essential part of camping for me.  Our friends have an old-fashioned blue enamel percolating coffee pot - one that you can just leave on the fire indefinitely, and just keep adding coffee and water.  The end result is real "cowboy coffee" - nice and strong.

Rick (the other Dad) and I took all our fishing gear in the hope of catching "the big one".  Rick did catch around 20 trout over the two days using his "magical" Tasmanian Devil lure.  I took my fly rod with me, but with wind was so strong that I gave up on fly-fishing after the first morning because I was more likely to hook myself than any fish.  I did catch seven fish using a borrowed spin-casting rod & reel, so it wasn't a total loss :)

We're planning to go camping at least one more time this summer, up in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  It's about a 10 hour drive, so we'll probably spend at least three days up there.  We've never been to Yellowstone, and I am really looking forward to it.  I need some new photos to paint from, and I hear Yellowstone is the place to go.

Get to the bottom of the problem (pardon the pun)

Daphne and I are sitting in the waiting room of the Children's Hospital procedure center in Denver, waiting for Jacqueline to go in for an Endoscopy and Colonoscopy.  We're hoping and praying that this procedure will shed more light on her ongoing abdominal pains, and help us to understand why she remains way below the curve in her weight gain.  She's understandably nervous, but having endured a colonoscopy in Senegal with no anaesthesia, I'm telling her that she'll simply wake up after a few minutes and not know anything has happened.  It's basically a drug-induced nap - which I wouldn't mind having several times a week!  The difference in the admissions system and the care & attention of the staff between here and France is incredible.  While I never doubted the knowledge or experience of the doctors in France, their "bedside" manner and the care of the hospital staff left much to be desired.  Different world, different cultures.  We've already seen five different people (doctor, nurse, anesthesiologist, etc), each of whom sat down with us, explained what is going to happen, answered all our questions - wow, what a difference.  Jacqueline even gets to choose the "flavor" of the gas they'll give her to put her out... she chose Skittles. 

We just went in to the O.R. to be with her while she went to sleep.  Kind of a strange experience, because her eyes stayed open even after she was out.  Hopefully we'll have some helpful news after an hour or so.

Two days ago I drove an hour and a half down to Elizabeth, CO to take part in handgun course put on by Defensive Response Training.  It either rained or drizzled all day long, but I had a blast.  I took my .357 revolver with me, although it is too big to be easily carried or concealed.  I ended up using one of the semi-automatic pistols that the instructor brought with him.  They taught us how to handle the guns safely, how to load and unload quickly, and practiced shooting from several different positions - including one position where we stood with our head against the target, leaned forward, and shot several rounds while holding the gun back and high up against our chest to simulate a close-combat situation.  I was afraid I was going to shoot myself in the foot (didn't, obviously) but the shock wave from firing the guns up close like that was amazing.  The purpose of the course is to teach you how to handle your gun safely, and how to use it in the unlikely event that you feel threatened with serious bodily injury or death.  It was great fun, and I learned a lot.  I am planning to take another, more advanced course of the same nature in a couple of weeks. 

After our last "straight talk" conversation with Karine, we've seen a significant change in her demeanor and her outlook on life.  She's started spending a lot of time at the church building/restaurant, either helping in the kitchen or helping wherever the church team needs her help.  I am very grateful for her change of mindset, and I am praying that this represents a genuine heart change.  Parenting teenagers is a whole new ball-game; somehow I missed it when they passed out the parenting manuals for teens.  We told Karine that our role has changed from that of only a parent, to more the role of a coach.  As a coach we can't tell her what to do, or control her behavior when she's away from us; all we can do is encourage her to make the right choices, and impose sanctions on her when she makes wrong choices (take away privileges, restrict computer time etc).  She calls that Punishment.  I call it Consequences to her choices.  When I consider the problems that so many parents in our church are dealing with (drugs, pregnancies, suicide) I thank God for our girls.  These issues are really insignificant when I look at them in the grand scheme of life.

Signing off for now, as we wait for Jacqueline to come out of the O.R.

Mama Bear

Our pastor Michael and his family moved in next door yesterday, and we're excited to have them close by now.  While the team were unpacking and putting things away in the house, Amy took her two boys and our neighbor's son Jesse to walk to Jesse's house (about a quarter mile down the road).  On the way there, they surprised a mother bear who came up out of the culvert where she'd been drinking, and then two cubs popped up behind her.  Jesse's lived up here his whole life, so he yelled at the bear -- and she looked at him for a moment, then turned and walked down the hill.  So, there ARE bears up here, even though we haven't seen them since we moved in.  This happened only a few hundred yards from our house.  Michael was thrilled to know the bears are here, because he's been wanting to see one ever since moving to Colorado.  Now I expect him to start putting bait out to lure them in!  I will say that knowing the bears are around makes us more hesitant to let Jacqueline and her friends play outside on their own - they would make a nice mid-day snack for a hungry bear.  Actually - I know the risk of an unprovoked attack by a black bear are pretty slim; the greater risk would come from cougars, and they seem to be even rarer around here than bears.  I guess this is all part of learning to live safely with wildlife all around us.

It is now possible to download the sermon I preached at Journey from itunes:  you would just need to do a search for "Michael Cheshire", which will bring up the site for Journey Community Church, and my message is called "Joseph #5".  I'll be preaching again the first two weeks in July, and the first three weeks in August.  I don't yet know what I want to preach on - and it's easy for me to get stressed-out trying to choose a theme for a sermon.  Funny how worried and anxious we can get over things that are of little "weight" in life.  I'm not saying that choosing the right message isn't important (who wants to look like an idiot in front of the whole church, right?), but one of my greatest struggles has always been letting fear and anxiety dominate my waking (and sometimes my sleeping) hours.  My brother John and I had a long phone conversation about this very topic a couple of days ago - of what it means to truly rest in the Lord and His deep love and care for us.  John taught the adult Sunday School class at his church last week, and he asked the class what the opposite of "Rest" is.  Most of them replied, "Work".  But by the Biblical definition, the real antonym of Rest is Fear, not work.  It's fear that robs us of enjoying the rest that Jesus promised us - rest here, now, in this life; all the time, in all circumstances.  He's already clearly promised us that He will take care of what we need to eat, to drink, and to wear (in other words, all of our daily needs).  He's also promised His perfect peace in the midst of trouble, and that He wants to be yoked with us so that He can bear the weight of our burdens for us. But fear is the greatest enemy of our peace.  I worry about how we'll make it financially if Storm Guides in not a success.  I also worry about our girls, and how they are being influenced by the world around them, or how we'll pay for the house renovations we still need to do, or whether I'm really qualified to serve as a pastor of Journey Church. . . and the list goes on.  Perhaps the most disheartening thing of all is that when I look around me, I can't think of more than a couple of Christians who  seem to genuinely experience this supernatural peace on a daily basis.  Most of us live harried, stressful, weary lives that are filled up with activities and busyness... never really grasping what Jesus is offering to us, and what He in fact promised to provide: a life free from worry and anxiety, and full of faith and expectancy for how God is going to take care of all our needs.  "But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS will be given to you as well."

Yesterday was our 19th anniversary, and I would have to call it a day of Walking in the Light.  Daph and I had a difficult and emotional conversation with Karine in the afternoon that ended very well, but it was one of those conversations that you pray you'll only need to have once in your parenting career.  We're realizing that as our girls move into their older teenage years, our role changes from that of a parent/disciplinarian to more the role of a coach.  I am so grateful for how Karine responded, and I can see now that the Lord had been preparing her heart to receive what we needed to share as coming from hearts full of love for her, and as a warning from the Lord for her to make an "about face" now while she can. 

Then last night Daph and I went out for dinner at a quaint mountain Inn called the "Brook Forest Lodge" not too far from where we live.  As we started in on our main course, she asked me a question about how I thought I will be able to handle Mike's (our pastor) strong character - could I stand up to him and disagree without backing down if necessary?  I did not respond well, and our conversation degenerated into an argument . . . and there went our romantic anniversary dinner.  After we got home we talked for a while longer, and I finally suggested that we practice walking in the light, and go discuss the whole issue with Mike and Amy then and there (since they now live next door).  We did, and once again the Lord brought healing, reassurance and a deepening of our friendship with them.  As hard as it often feels to speak the truth to one another in love, and to walk in honesty and light - the end result is the kind of unity that the Lord longs for His children to experience.  It's this unity that gives us the power to charge the gates of hell and to overcome the evil one, and to see the wonders of God's supernatural intervention in the church every day.

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Look How Far We've Come

We made our first trip to the Denver Zoo yesterday.  I think it took me about 20 minutes to find a parking spot - I think all of Denver and half the State of Colorado decided to join us to see some monkeys yesterday.  Jacqueline invited her friend Sabrina to come along, and they are like two peas in a pod - giggling, screaming, chasing peacocks and generally having the time of their lives.  My friend Mike sent me a text message telling me not to throw rocks at the monkeys (inside joke, referring to my "youthful indiscretions" in Africa).  I resisted the temptation.  As I think about it - we spent an absolutely great day together as a family, and the girls didn't even fight on the way there!  We stopped at a gas station on the way home to buy Icees, though after taking one sip I promptly threw mine in the garbage and opted instead to buy milkshakes at McDonalds.  I do have some standards!

We came back home and good friends Tim and Kathy came over for supper (Sabrina's parents).  I grilled hamburgers for the kids and Elk steaks for us; the Elk turned out to be delicious... not bad for road-kill!  I guess anything is good if you marinade it long enough.  Now we only have to eat up 180 pounds of Elk steaks and hamburger in our freezer.

After dinner the kids disappeared and the adults sat around the table talking for another hour or so. Less than a year ago Daphne and I were sitting in the city park next to the zoo - trying to figure out what we were going to do - could we go back to France?  Could I really continue in the same role?  We were so confused, so longing for God to break through and show us what to do.  Well, He did.  Not in the way we were expecting, but He did speak to us, and here we are almost a year later - living in Conifer, in a wonderful home, part of an incredible community of believers, with our needs for the time being provided through our incredible team of supporters who've stood by us for the past 20+ years.  Wow - God is truly amazing.

I've been thinking a great deal about how God communicates with us lately.  I pray almost daily for God to open my heart even more to His Holy Spirit - for my heart to be in tune with His heart.  I find myself so often confused and lacking discernment when counseling others, and I long for God to speak into those situations as well.  Paul exhorts us in 1 Corinthians to "earnestly desire the greater gifts" of prophecy and knowledge to discern His will for His church.  I believe He does want to speak into our lives and into our problems and trials in a supernatural way, to give us special discernment into what is really going on that we may not be able to figure out with our own, very limited knowledge. 

     This morning I read the account of an amazing Scottish Preacher  - Alexander Peden (1626-1686) who was blessed by God with extraordinary prophetic gifting.  You don't usually associate the supernatural workings of the Holy Spirit with the Protestant Reformation - yet the reality is that God was moving then just as He is today; for reasons I don't fully understand, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence on this issue among Christian historians who write about this period of church history.  In any case, this is what I read this morning:

"in 1682, Peden performed the wedding ceremony for the godly couple John Brown and Isabel Weir.  After the ceremony, he told Isabel she had gotten a good man for her husband, but that she would not enjoy him long.  He advised her to prize his company and to keep a linen burial sheet close by, for when she least expected it her husband would come to a bloody end."  
 Even if I sensed this is what the Lord was saying, would I have had the courage to give this news to a new bride?  But Peden did not hesitate to speak what God's Spirit was communicating to him. 

About three years later, Peden spent the night of April 30, 1685, at the Bron's home.  "Peden left before dawn, and as he was leaving they heard him repeating these words to himself, "Poor woman, a fearful morning.  A dark, misty morning."  At 6:00 a.m. John was out in his field when a troop of English soldiers was led by John Graham of Claverhouse, came up and arrested him. John Graham has gone down in history as simply “Claverhouse.” He brought John back to his house and asked him, “Will you repent of your conviction the Christ is the head of the church rather than the King of England?”
Standing beside John Brown was his wife, who was holding the baby, and their little girl. And John Brown said, “No, I will not.”  Then Claverhouse said, “Well, then say your prayers for you shall immediately die.”  John Brown dropped to his knees and he began to pray. Then he stood back up and looked down at Isabelle and said, “Isabelle, you see me, shortly, summoned before the court of our Redeemer, to be a witness in his cause. Are you willing that I should be parted from you?”
Isabelle looked into his eyes and said, “Hartley willing.”  He took her into his arms and he kissed her. Then he kissed his baby boy that was in her arms. Then he knelt down beside his two year old girl. He took her by the hand and said, “My sweet child, always put your hand in God’s hand as your guide. And be a comfort to your mother.”
Then he stood up and he looked up to heaven and said, “Blessed be thou oh Holy Spirit who speaketh more comfort to my heart than the voice of my oppressors can speak terror to my ears.”
This enraged Claverhouse and he order six of his soldiers to shoot John Brown on the spot, but the soldiers remained motionless. They would not draw their weapons. They could not kill someone who love his God that much, who loved his wife that much, who was willing to lay down his life for his God and who had no unkind words for his enemies.
Claverhouse drew his own pistol and shot John Brown right through the head. Brown fell crumpled at the feet of his wife.
Isabelle took off her apron and knelt down and rapped his shattered head with it. Claver house asked her, “Well woman, what thinkest thou now of thy husband?”
Isabelle looked up and she said, “I have always thought well of him, but never more than at this moment.
It was now 7:00 a.m. and Alexander Peden was 11 miles away. He was entering the gate of his friend, John Muirhead’s house. He banged on the door and asked the family to gather around the fireplace with him. He knelt down and said, “Oh Lord, Let the blood of Brown be precious in Thy sight. How long before Thou wilt avenge the blood of John Brown.”
Muirhead grabbed him by the arm and asked him, “What are you talking about?”
Peden said, “This morning, just as the sun was rising, I saw a strange thing in the sky. I saw a bright and shining star fall to the earth. Truly this day, the greatest Christian I have ever conversed has fallen. Claverhouse has been at Priesthill this morning and he has shot John Brown dead and his widow, Isabelle, kneels at his corps with no one to speak comfort to her."

My heart is deeply moved as I read this account - not only by the courage of John Brown and his wife Isabel, but just as much by Alexander Peden who was so in tune with the Holy Spirit that he knew of these events before, and the very instant that they happened.  This kind of supernatural communication is present in every chapter of the book of Acts, with the exception of chapter 17.  I believe God still speaks just as clearly today - the problem is not His lack of communication, but my deafness or unwillingness to hear what He is saying.