I never understood why they officially removed the Do Not Drive into Smoke signs on the highways of Oklahoma unless maybe they scared the tourists. Controlled burns for the farmlands are a routine chore of crop management. Appropriate drought and wind warnings and precautions from meteorologists are widely broadcast. There were days of national warnings of the dangers anticipated for past Friday’s multi-state cyclone. Yet the magnitude of damage from fallen trees and power lines, fed by gale force winds and flying ashes, continued past Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, across the nation turning into thunderstorms and tornadic destruction. The Oklahoma statistics of 170,000 acres burned, countless structures destroyed, and 4 fatalities, with more than 200 people injured, leaves all of us shaken, saddened, and grieving. Rebuilding and recovery will take months, if not years. One cry was reported often, we had no insurance. 

The state of Oklahoma has averaged about four multi-million-dollar disasters each year for the last five years. Insurance companies are reluctant to provide affordable coverage. Our church insurance package proclaims wind, hail, fire, and water damage to be in a special category, requiring a 2% deductible based on their unrealistic value of our property, which at $8 million dollars, gives us a deductible of $160,000.  The property insurance crisis in Oklahoma is not being addressed by our elected officials. A lot of petty personal pet peeves seem to take priority over the true needs of our citizens. When the government expects the generosity of neighbors to make up the deductibles and losses without legislative action, pain and poverty deepens in the hearts of Oklahomans. Our church will continue to do its part in ministry and service to those in need, regardless of corporate and political neglect.  

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

I enjoy looking at the baby pictures of friends and loved ones.  I especially like to view the albums that show the ever-growing and physically changing young life becoming a future adult. Sometimes we see these kinds of pictures as part of the celebration of a life at the time of the funeral. I am struck by how much of the adult is visible in even some of the earliest pictures. We recognize family characteristics and similarities across generations. In some pictures we spot our younger selves. It is often more fun to look at the old photos than in the mirror, although pictures of anyone in junior high rarely get rave reviews.  

For each of their high school graduations, my mother created scrapbooks for her grandchildren, including our daughters. She intended these scrapbooks to be starter albums. They included most of the pictures she had received over the years in chronological order, and included a few of the girls’ handwritten letters, cards and drawings. The scrapbooks ended with their senior picture, and many blank pages for the rest of the story.

While there were no cameras in biblical times, the psalmist must have been thinking of his earliest days when he wrote, “Lord, you are my hope. Lord, I have trusted you since I was young. I have depended on you since I was born; you helped me even on the day of my birth. I will always praise your name.” (Psalm 71:5-6) The psalmist goes on to reflect on the rest of his life and voice concern to God about growing old. If you ever find yourself feeling melancholy or down, get out a baby album, or better yet, go visit the newborn nursery at a hospital. You will smile, reflect and remember whose child you are—of the God who knows your name.

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

Tell me about your first car, the one you bought with your own money or that was given to you as a hand-me-down. How careful were you with it? How long did it take for you to get a ticket, or a warning? Were you sad to let it go? Do you wish you still had that old car? My first car was a white, two-door 1960 Simca Aronde. My uncle sold it to me for $25, because they were moving out of state. It had a stick-shift with an extra 5th gear. Its other fun feature as a French-made car was its dual horn. The driver could use either the town or country horn to alert people or animals. I owned it most of my college years. After the clutch gave out driving around the mountains of Birmingham, I sold it to the owner of a gas station for $35, quite the tidy little profit! I bought my next car, a Plymouth, from my father for $150, a week before I moved to Texas. They were  moving to Atlanta the next week. 

Do you remember the excitement of getting your driver’s license? First car, first job, first kiss, first house all rank near the top of special memories. Yet life gets complicated and cars break, jobs change, kisses fade, and before we know it we are in a different place. The Apostle John reminded the church at Ephesus, where he had once been pastor, that the church was in spiritual danger because they had neglected their first priority as believers. While working so hard to root out wickedness in others, they had forsaken their first love: loving others in Jesus’ name. Do you remember the first time Jesus became more than a Bible story to you? 

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

I read every day, whether it is current event articles, devotionals, nonfiction, or sermon materials. During the recent holiday season I began reading a few who-done-it novels for relaxation. Fiction, biographies and memoirs are really portraits of people’s character. I like to make deep dives into selected topics, chasing down ideas that may develop into something useful one day. I have discovered that sometimes even the boring or dead-end materials can spark an idea that may lead to an insight about myself, or church life, or personal relationships.

I seek to look for the trends and patterns, the challenges and the frustrations facing us each day. People are living on the edge and finding the times unsettling.  Most folks want to depend on a decent income, live with meaning and purpose in relative peace and safety, and enjoy a good meal with a friend occasionally. While there is always a segment of people who enjoy picking a fight, most of us have enough troubles of our own. That’s why I find books and reading so helpful. Reading is story-finding.

We are a people of stories.  Tell me a story pleads every child. We are storytellers at heart. When we find a story, we step into its world. A story will place us amid any time, in any place, in any person or creature, in any circumstance in or out of this world.  C. S. Lewis once wrote of how the power of reading opens our perspectives: We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own. Stories teach us how to love our neighbors as ourselves. They may even teach us how to love ourselves with respect and compassion. Of course, I also read a very good book of stories that provides meaning, hope and redemption. It has real stories, some are cautionary tales of the pain and struggles of real people in complicated families. Step into the stories of Jesus. People who read the Bible find their own story interwoven with God’s love and grace. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Be a story-finder. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Remember back to the good old days around February 7, 2025, when the temperature rose to 84˚ here in Tulsa? It seems a little mean of nature to trick us like that. In fact, there has been too much mean weather across the land these past few months. Last Wednesday evening’s activities were cancelled because of cold and icy conditions. Last Sunday morning’s service was cancelled because of snow and ice. This week’s Wednesday activities are cancelled because of predicted heavy snow on Tuesday and a high temperature of 9˚ on Wednesday.  Nine degrees for the high for the whole day (or not).

Most years I write something about harsh weather—preparing for it, recovering from it, or what to do in the middle of it. Hot or cold, wet or dry, all of us talk about the weather almost every day, especially to strangers when we don’t know what to say. We have favorite meteorologists. We constantly check on the temperature outside, even if we are not going outdoors. I used to have a weather rock that helped me check the weather before there were cell phones. And we had to call on the kitchen telephone to find out the time and the temperature. How did we ever manage?

We had “thunder sleet” one March Sunday in 2014. That winter we had to cancel one service each month for four months in a row because of the bitter weather. As I have said before, if I were the one in control, the weather would always be beautiful on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights. God and I have had this discussion for years now. Mostly I talk. God doesn’t say much about it. All I ever get is, “It rains on the just and the unjust alike.”  You would think that God would make it as easy as possible for people to go to church on Sunday mornings!  God does not micromanage the weather at all. It’s probably more about strengthening our character, stretching our faith, and learning to depend on God through whatever comes our way. We have been here before. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Jesus will see you through. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.