When did you last experience a time of serenity? Serenity is defined as a state of utter calm and unruffled repose or quietude. (Miriam-Webster) It is unhurried peacefulness. The familiar Serenity Prayer was first written for a sermon by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) in the early 1930’s. Niebuhr was a Reformed Protestant pastor who came to notice in Detroit as he advocated for the causes of the working man and opposed the forces of bigotry in all its forms. He became a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York for more than 30 years. His writings have influenced many prominent leaders of our time. But it is this prayer for Serenity that has influenced most directly millions of people. Popularized as a key element in the Alcoholics Anonymous movement, it is also known as the AA Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life

 and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen

Like the simple prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, this prayer also begins at a place of personal humility. In the more generic terminology of AA, recognizing a Higher Power and that we are not that power. This is a prayer to slow down emotionally and not get too far ahead of ourselves. To look for the light even in the darkest struggles. It is a call for insight, mindfulness and a clearer perspective of the beauty, goodness and strength within and around us. Niebuhr wrote this prayer reflecting on Christ’s way of the cross and the need to accept suffering as a path to inner peace; the embrace of faith to see us through and the hope that a better life is before us.

 Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Seek serenity. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

August was designated “birthday month” by our daughters many, many years ago. August is their birthday month; August 15, the day. (Which makes February 15 their half-birthday, which they never successfully managed to officially get recognized as a gift-receiving day.) It started like this:

At 3:15 a.m. on August 15, Dorothy woke up to announce a baby seemed ready to be born. After some profound questions like “Are you sure?” and “Really?” I got up, got dressed, and took her to the car. We leisurely arrived at the hospital with plenty of time for our baby to be born.  Dorothy and I were somewhat surprised that her on-call doctor was her friend Saundra’s husband, who had recently joined the partnership of Dorothy’s obstetrician. Dorothy had known Saundra and Charles since their high school days. After the brief awkwardness passed, they settled down to business and Donelle was born at 11:55 a.m. Charles could not wait to call Saundra and tell her the news.

At 3:15 a.m. on August 15, Dorothy woke up to announce a baby seemed ready to be born. After some profound questions like “Are you sure?” and “Really?” I got up, got dressed, picked up Donelle, carried her to the car, and then got Dorothy. On the way to drop Donelle off with a church family, Donelle prophesied, “I’m going to have a pink birthday.” This was before the days of ultrasounds. When we arrived at the hospital every labor room was occupied and other women in labor were waiting on gurneys in the hallway. Dorothy bumped to the head of that line, and was quickly placed in a delivery room that was still being cleaned up. The nurse asked her to wait a few minutes until the doctor arrived, but she respectfully declined. The doctor appeared just as he was needed and Dayna was born at 6:14 a.m. Donelle celebrated her third birthday that evening with a “pink party.”

Do you know your birth story? We all have one. If you do not know, ask someone who might remember. You just might be surprised at what you learn about yourself. Our birth stories have the power to demonstrate just how strong, inside, we really are. What about your other birth story? The one about the time you were born into God’s eternal family? What do you remember? What has it shown you about yourself? How do you celebrate it?

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Celebrate your new birth. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

This is a rerun from the time of Covid.

As the designated adventurer at our house, I am the grocery shopper for more than a year now. I have learned that pimentos are never located on the olive aisle and that Velveeta cheese is located wherever the last tired stocker set them down because it is not a cheese. I have learned to eat my shopping mistakes. Try as I might, apparently chocolate-dipped ice-cream bars do not qualify as a shopping mistake. The actual worst of my grocery mistakes was just a few weeks ago. My assignment was to get a can of old-fashioned quick-cooking steel-cut oatmeal. I honestly thought I did. But I didn’t. I got old-fashioned steel-cut Irish Oatmeal in a can, 1 pound and 12 ounces net weight. It did not say quick-cooking or fast-cooking or 10-minute quick oatmeal. Dorothy noticed immediately. It was decided that we would press ahead. There was a winter storm in the forecast.

Upon reading the fine print on the back of the can, we learned that the shortcut method was to boil water in a pot, add the oatmeal, stir and boil for 5 minutes. Cover the pot and store it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, put the pot back on the stove, bring it to a boil and stir it for another 9-12 minutes. By my estimation, the shortcut method takes about 25 hours. We opted for the traditional method—30 minutes on the range. I also noticed that the recipe kept referring to this as porridge. I remember porridge as something Little Orphan Annie had to eat, with a big frown on her face. Porridge is oatmeal, flax and other bird seeds boiled in a big pot, which is stirred constantly until you are done. It suggests you add buttermilk or honey and brown sugar suitable to taste. Our pot of porridge lasted for days. We tried syrup and apple sauce with cinnamon on it and we tried smothering it with various flavored yogurts. Our final attempt was to use a large amount of pumpkin pie filling. That actually tasted best. By the way, porridge diluted to a thin, watery state is called gruel. It was used to help the sick get well. It tastes worse than it sounds.

We make mistakes. We try to hide them, own them, or make up for them. The best policy is to admit them, deal with them, and learn from them. We still have a pound or so of the oatmeal left in the can. It will keep.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Press ahead.  And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

We have now lived long enough to witness the age of robots learning how to think, and cars learning how to fly. At the local gas station chain, a Roomba-like box cleans the floors. It politely moves out of the way when someone’s path is blocked. At the University of Tulsa, similar timed devices mow the acres of campus grass only stopping to plug themselves-in and recharge. On the campus sidewalks, ice-chest-sized containers deliver meals or supplies to individual students, classrooms, dorms and apartments. The robots are learning how to make decisions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is really programed learning. Teaching a computer to make wise, safe, and ethical decisions at lightning speed is now a moral dilemma for this generation. Good decision-making is very difficult for real people with actual intelligence. People need God’s help with that.

An actual flying car landed at the airport’s Air and Space Museum to be a part of the Route 66 Centennial Classic Car Show. It did not participate in the 3,596-car Guiness Book of World Records Classic Car Parade (and traffic jam) that day. The flying car is a modified piloted Drone, like a large radio-controlled model airplane. 

This week’s news held an announcement of a drone delivery service, Manna Air Delivery, soon to be operating out of nearly 20 locations across the Tulsa metropolitan area.  This drone delivery service is a necessary first step for people to pioneer personal flying cars.  According to the Tulsa World of July 21, 2026, Manna Air Delivery has made over 400,000 accident-free deliveries from their home bases in Ireland. They will deliver shoe-box-sized packages of restaurant meals and other things. The drone will hover 50 feet above the destination, lower the package on a cord to the ground, let it go and return to its base. Cameras, radar, and real people are to guide everything. I suspect that prayer may become a part of the process also. Welcome to the future!

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Keep looking up. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

As a teen I had a pastor share with me a simple formula for discerning the will of God: Step one, ask what is not the will of God in this situation? (You already know many things that are not what God desires, ever.) Step two, ask what is the right and loving thing to do? Step three, do the right and loving thing.

I grew up when a popular question to ask yourself was what would Jesus do?  This question assumes people already know the stories of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. The reality of today’s world is that children and teenagers are not exposed to the Bible at home or most anywhere else.  The Bible is more available now to anyone than in any other generation. It is available in any form of media, in any language, yet the biblical question asked by Paul is still just as true as in ancient days, …‘Everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.’ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? (See Romans 10) Paul reminds us here that saving faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Moral training comes through conversations reflecting the teachings of the Bible. Intentional discipleship is the imperative of the Great Commission. So, who are the influencers of right and wrong today? Are you?

The early chapters of the book of Proverbs are lessons on righteous living addressed to young people. Chapter 6 contains a brief list of detestable things that today’s leaders and influencers display openly as glorified examples for all to admire. The Bible says, There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.  What are the right and loving things that Christian influencers model?

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Do the next right thing. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

A trillion of anything is more than we can really imagine. After Elon Musk surpassed the one trillion-dollar mark in estimated wealth, many compared it to the Gross National Product (GNP) of the nations of the world. Or how high a stack of money that would make. Or spending a million dollars a day would take 2,740 years to spend a trillion dollars. But the article I read that helped me the most was comparing it to seconds. One thousand seconds was 16 minutes and 40 seconds ago. One million seconds was 11 and a half days ago. A million to a billion is a mighty big jump. One billion seconds was 31 years and 8 months ago. Some of us can remember 1994. One trillion seconds was 31,710 years ago, also known as prehistoric times. Inconceivable.

And yet the inconceivable is all around us. Every day we wake up in the morning, eat, work, or play, not even aware of how many times we breathe in an hour, or blink, or react to something automatically. Unless something breaks down somewhere, or a pain cries out, we sleep or laugh or digest our food oblivious to the work of the 35 trillion cells in an adult body. Look at a thunderstorm, a peach tree, a sunbeam through the window. What do you see? How does your eyeball show you what you see? 

The Psalmist sang, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful him, or the son of man that you care for him? …O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8) We worship the Creator of the unfathomable, the Conceiver of the inconceivable, the Lover of our soul.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. See the incredible. And let’s experience the love and power of God together. 

Share this webpage:

How does an airliner land at the wrong airport? An unfortunate incident came to mind this week while watching some of the reserve military fighter jets undergoing their training exercises at Tulsa International Airport. You may remember the incident from January 2014 of a Southwest Airline flight headed for Branson, Missouri. They landed eight miles away from the appointed runway. The pilots apparently noticed their mistake, hit the brakes very hard and stopped their plane at the very edge of a disaster. Everyone was shocked. The pilots were not only shocked; they were deeply embarrassed.  They soon learned that the runway they had chosen was too short for their large commercial airplane to lift off to get to the right airport. Eventually the plane had to be towed to its true destination.

The pilots landed in the wrong place because they insisted on their own way. When preparing to land, the Branson control tower told them they were 18 miles away from the right runway. Recognizing the runway light configuration, the pilots insisted they could see the runway in front of them and requested to override the control tower and their instruments. The passengers were not happy about taking a bus with all of their possessions to the correct airport. 

There is an old saying, Seeing is believing. But not everything we think we see is real. Some people reverse the saying, Believing is seeing. But not everything we may want to believe is true. The pilots needed to trust the control tower and their own instruments. The pilots decided to trust what they were seeing instead. They made an embarrassing mistake that could have quickly turned tragic.  Did you know there is a verse in the Bible that speaks to these kind of situations? It is found in Proverbs 14:12, There is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to destruction. It comes down to trusting what is real and true. Trust God. Trust God’s Son. Trust God’s Spirit. Trust God’s Word.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Land in the right place. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

This week Pope Leo XIV issued his treatise on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Magnifica Humanitas is a theological and philosophical teaching concerning the hopes and fears of this technology as it impacts our individual lives and its ethical demands for all humanity. I did not know I would spend part of Memorial Day reading the 82-page document. Each paragraph is numbered for easy reference. The Pope begins with the imagery of The Tower of Babel from Genesis. Will this become an ultimate Tower of human pride and god-like power that leads to global chaos, or can it be harnessed with a moral framework for the common good?  The Pope compares this generation to those of the Industrial Age of the 19^th century, and the Technological Age of the last century.  What happens within a person when society begins treating intelligence as something that can be manufactured, built to scale, outsourced and manipulated by the economically powerful? 

Here are some key quotes from this document that have been highlighted by others in my readings this week:  Technology takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it. (#9)  The world once again will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell. (#16)  It is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. (#99)  Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a “limit”– incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability—tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. (#118)

In His conclusion, the Pope summarizes with these clear points: Let us remain faithful to the truth!  Let us invest in education, beginning with ourselves!  Let us cultivate relationships!  Let us love justice and peace!

As your pastor, let me encourage you to use all technology with caution and discernment. At the beginning of the common use of the computer, programmers echoed the truism—”Garbage in, Garbage out.”  It still applies to all of us. Use your God-given actual intelligence.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Honor Truth. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

What a  difference a few decades make. I have realized that 2026 is a milestone year in the shaping of my life and faith. I shared Sunday morning that 1956 was the year I prayed for Jesus to become my Lord and Savior. He answered that prayer with a sense of peace and assurance. Our pastor shared with my Sunday School class what it meant to become a Christian in the deepest sense. He talked of God’s love and forgiveness and sin. I already knew what sin and guilt looked and felt like. He talked of God’s forgiveness, not just when we got in trouble. He talked of prayer and trust and everlasting love.  I opened my heart to God and prayed. What a meaningful life these 70 years of walking with Jesus has provided me.

On May 15, 1966, I was Licensed to the Gospel Ministry by the Northwest Baptist Church in Miami, Florida. Our pastor was Homer G. Lindsay, Jr. Becoming a Licensed Minister meant I was recognized by the church to preach and lead the church ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It also meant I am legally certified to officiate at weddings. Sixty years ago this week, I completed my freshman year of junior college. I spent the rest of the 1960’s at Samford University, the Baptist college in Birmingham, Alabama. I regularly was called upon to travel early on Sunday mornings to preach at various, mostly rural, churches around the state. I also spent a couple of years, when needed, as a revival song leader for the full-time evangelist, Bob Posey.

During my seminary days in Ft. Worth, Texas, I chose to join a very good church and become a fifth-grade boys Sunday School teacher. I wanted to experience the inside of a serving church for a few years before one day becoming a pastor. I also wanted to share the story of God’s love with those boys just like my pastor did with us. Dorothy and I met and married at that church. We sang in the choir and taught the junior high youth on Sunday nights. Then one day in 1973, the Lord called us here to Tulsa, where we have witnessed the difference God makes in the lives of those who trust Him.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Open your heart.  And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

Myrtie Fleming profoundly influenced my spiritual formation as a believer. She did not like the name Myrtie, so she called herself Myrtle. We called her Gram. She was my mother’s grandmother and was born in 1882. One of my earliest memories of her was her 50^th Wedding Anniversary in 1953. I had never seen her so dressed up, with a fresh hairdo from the beauty shop and wearing a corsage. My family gathered at my grandmother Jerry’s house, which Gram and my great-grandfather Papa shared. I especially remember the professional photographer in the living room to pose the whole family. I had to sit on the boney knees of Papa who was not used to hugging or holding children. For years afterward my family would go to Jerry’s house to have Sunday lunch after church.

  I spent many weekends at my grandmother’s house after Papa died. Jerry spent a lot of her time reading. I hung out with Gram. Before I went to bed at night, and again in the early morning, I would get into her bed and listen to the family stories. After a couple of unfortunate instances, I learned to watch out for the hot water bottle hidden in her covers. Sometimes she would reach for the black leather Bible on her nightstand. In it were listed the names of her family members and closest friends. She had written down their birthdates and when they had died. Sometimes a wedding date had been added. My name was in her Bible, and so were my sisters and our parents.

  Gram’s favorite song was Rock of Ages because it was the song her minister father always requested that she sing. I learned nearly as many hymns from Gram as I did in church. She listened to me and sought to answer my questions about God, sorrow and the hard places in the Bible. She taught me about the power of God’s story and the high calling of a minister. I was talking with her the night she had her first stroke. She was the first person I ever stayed with overnight in an emergency room. Hers was the first funeral I ever attended. I still have her Bible. This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I cannot help but ask: Who have been the women of faith that have helped shape your life?

  Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Thank God for women of faith.  And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage: