Chaplain’s Corner

“What is it like to hear a word from God?”

It is safe to say that many of those who attend worship are hoping to hear something–perhaps an insight, a reminder or a word of hope from God.

Several years ago I was at a Pastor’s Prayer Conference with several of my colleagues at our annual meeting which that year was held in Wichita, Kansas. I had decided to attend my friend Don’s 8:15 Sunday morning service hoping to hear some clear instruction from God.

Don is a gifted preacher and I love to hear other preachers, especially someone like Don that I respect for his scholarship and great delivery.

Don’s church had an unusual collection of hallways and rooms adjoining the pastor’s study. Church building committees are famous for construction decisions. At some point in the past it seemed wise to a few people to construct a private washroom for the pastor-one that would have indoor and outdoor access. It quickly became apparent that the outdoor entrance posed a security risk. Outsiders could potentially enter the bathroom from the exterior door. Therefore, that entrance was locked from inside and outside.

To bolster security, the interior bathroom door was also secured from inside and outside. That made it possible for the pastor to be accidentally locked inside. That is exactly what happened to Don before the early service.

Should he hope someone would realize his dilemma? Would someone come to rescue him? Should he go ahead and open the exterior door and set off the loud alarm?

Don, wearing his pastoral robe, had already received his lavalier mic from the worship team. He toggled the power switch and called to Martin his Director of Operations. He remembers that he actually whispered: “Martin I’m locked in my bathroom.”–a message instantaneously broadcast throughout the sanctuary.

God’s people, waiting to hear a word that might change their lives heard instead a plea to be released from a washroom incarceration.

Needless to say, Don and Martin received a standing ovation when they entered the sanctuary a few minutes later.

A funny thing happens when we open our hearts to receive some word from God. Very often what we hear doesn’t sound particularly spiritual.

Like: There’s a single parent who can’t pay her utility bill this month having lost her job because of the pandemic. Could you send a donation to Christian Ministries of Delaware County to help? Or many of our Muncie neighbors are trying to feed their families-maybe a gift to Soup Kitchen of Muncie could make all the difference.
There is a Resident here at Westminster Village that has seemed withdrawn-could you with your mask on make a point of saying hello or calling her on the phone to talk.

It turns out that a few things are more Godly than showing God’s love in a practical way. The Holy Spirit knows how to connect the dots between our deepest yearnings and the world’s most practical needs.

And every time we say yes to such promptings? You’ll be surprised how often you end up unlocking a door to hear The Lord.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Champions”

On a wintry morning in 1956 a riding instructor named Harry de Leyer drove from his farm in Long Island four hours to Pennsylvania to a horse auction. Every Monday as many as 300 horses were auctioned at this auction. Harry had hoped to purchase a gentle horse that could become a training horse for his students.

The auction attracted a plethora of horses. Some of the horses were purebreds. They fetched the big bucks. Some were animals that needed to be trained. Others simply needed to be loved. By mid-day the auction would be over and every horse would be sold.

The last bidder was always the Kill Buyer. He would pay bottom dollar for animals no one wanted. They would be crowded into a truck and sent to the slaughterhouse where they would become pet food or boiled into glue.

On his way to Pennsylvania, Harry’s old car struggled through the snow and blew a tire. By the time he arrived the auction was over. The only horses left were being loaded into the truck to head for the slaughterhouse.

Harry still hoped his long ride was not in vain. Maybe there was a horse he could find in the Kill Truck. The driver was in a hurry but Harry was drawn to an underfed, overworked plow horse covered with mud and manure. He was a grey horse with kind eyes but was missing a shoe, had cuts on his knee and he had been rubbed on his back by a harness.

How much for the grey horse in your truck? “$80 and he’s yours,” said the Kill Truck driver.

When the neglected horse arrived at the de Leyer farm, Harry was captivated by the grey coat against the background of falling snow. He looked like a snowman and Snowman became his name.

Snowman proved to be gentle, especially around children. But he wouldn’t stay in the fence. He jumped numerous fences. Even after building a high fence they thought could corral Snowman, he proved he was capable of real talent for jumping. Gradually, it dawned on the Dutch horse trainer that this might be an extraordinary animal. The horse never again left Harry’s side. He began to train him for jumper events.

People laughed out loud when the old grey plow horse walked alongside the best of the best at the Open Jump Championships in 1958-just two years from being rescued from the Kill Truck. He was named the American Horse Jump Association Horse of the Year in both 1958 and 1959.

Snowman became a celebrity. He was featured in Life Magazine and was on The Tonight Show with Jonny Carson. Along the way he never lost his love for children.

Who knew that for a mere $80 Harry de Leyer had rescued one of the greatest jumpers in equestrian history?

In a similar way God has rescued us from the slaughterhouse. The Apostle Paul minces no words: “God rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption of sin.”
(Colossians 1:13-14)

Many of us are put off by the notion we need to be rescued. But once we have spent some time living under God’s leadership, our lives reflect hope instead of cynicism, grace instead of exasperation, and peace instead of trying to control everything-only then will we grasp the understanding that when God looked at us covered with spiritual mud and scars He didn’t turn us away.

Instead, He saw in us what we were always meant to be: Champions.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“The Mystery of Suffering”

We are seeing some suffering all over the world from COVID-19. But we are also seeing incredible events from nature that are causing people additional strife. The wildfires that are raging in the west are taking a human toll and an environmental toll as firefighters seem to lose ground daily. Then off in the Gulf of Mexico another hurricane heads for Louisiana.

Other tragedies remind us of how unforgiving nature can be. The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 took 227,000 lives. Towering waves, some over 100 feet high fanned out across the Indian Ocean crashing into the coastlines of 14 countries.

In all of these tragedies including the victims of this Pandemic we look for answers. Who is at fault? Ananda Guruge, a Buddhist teacher suggested that those who perished in 2004 were paying the price of accumulated demerits in this life or past ones. Nadadur Vardham, president of the Hindu Temple Society of Southern
California declared, “We all believe too many people were doing too many bad things.”

A number of American televangelists likewise see disasters as the direct consequence of personal sin.

How might Jesus land on this issue? We have a pretty good clue based on a famous exchange in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus and his disciples encounter a blind beggar. This man has been unable to see from the day of his birth. It was par for the course in the first century Judaism to speculate on the source of such heartbreak. There were two primary options: either the man’s parents had sinned (and their son had to pay the price), or the man himself had somehow sinned before birth. Perhaps God knew he was going to grow up to be a whale of a sinner and decided to punish him in advance.

“Teacher who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus doesn’t check either box. He offers a third option.

“You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do”. (John 9:3)

When something disastrous happens-like a tsunami, a wildfire, a hurricane, a pandemic, or an economic collapse-we can look back and try to figure out why it all happened. We will almost inevitably end up wallowing in our own ignorance.

Or we can do what Jesus does. We can look forward. Instead of asking “Why did this happen?” we can ask, “What happens next? With God’s help, where do we go from here?

In John Chapter 9, Jesus doesn’t use the blind man to teach a graduate course on the reasons for suffering—–He Heals him.

Why has God allowed 2020 to become so painful for so many people? We haven’t been granted access to the fullness of that mystery. But there’s something we do know–Followers of Jesus have seldom had a more remarkable opportunity to be his hands and feet to help others in need.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Never Give Up–Pick Up a Brick”

In 1834, the British philosopher, John Stuart Mill approached his friend Thomas Carlyle with a proposition. Mill had signed a contract to write a history of the French Revolution. But he had over-committed himself to other work.

Would Carlyle be interested in taking on the project, along with its handsome payment? Carlyle and his wife were barely making ends meet. He embraced the project passionately.

After completing the sweeping first volume of his literary tour de force, Carlyle brought his one and only manuscript to Mill. Would he be willing to read it and make suggestions?

Mill was delighted. But he absentmindedly left the manuscript at the home of another friend, where the maid-who could not read-used it to start a fire in the fireplace. A few charred strips of paper were all that remained of Carlyle’s masterpiece. And in 1834 handwritten documents weren’t exactly backed up by the Cloud.

Mill was beside himself with shame and grief. Carlyle took the news surprisingly well, at least when Mill told him what had happened. He didn’t want to add to his friend’s despair. But inwardly, he felt his world had come to an end. All that work. Irreplaceable investments of time and research. Nothing left but ashes.

Carlyle later said, “I remember and can still remember less of it than of anything I ever wrote with such toil. It’s gone.”

Some days later Carlyle found himself watching a brick mason building a wall. The work was ponderous. But the wall grew. One brick at a time. Carlyle concluded he could do the same. He restarted the project.

“The French Revolution: A History” was published in 1837. It is a Carlyle masterpiece and has been continuously in print for almost 200 years.

With the current pandemic it may seem as if one of your deepest dreams is in ashes today. A cherished relationship. Your health. Your family’s future. Your confidence in God. The Bible teaches us that hope is often most visible at the place of despair.

Will your story end in hopelessness, despair and futility?

Don’t for one moment ever give in to despair.

Pick up a brick. Start again. Christians have been doing that for over 2000 years.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Your True Identity”

We all have seen the story of the caterpillar that eventually becomes a beautiful butterfly. But recently I saw a picture of a knobby, spiky, multicolored organism that slithers through the forests of Sri Lanka, India and Southeast Asia.

The message this intimidating protuberance effectively delivers is a simple message: “You don’t want to mess with me.”

What kind of creature is it? If you sampled its DNA tissue you might be startled to see the result.

This is a moduza procris, otherwise known as a commander butterfly. Commanders are large butterflies with strikingly beautiful black, reddish-brown and white wings. Yet they begin life as caterpillars that appear custom-designed for horror movies.

There’s nothing about the current morphology of this creature that suggests it will ever take flight. But it is a magnificent flier.

The same is true for everyone who is “In Christ.”–that is for those who have chucked their most valiant efforts of self-improvement and abandoned themselves to Jesus.

Things may look pretty discouraging in the short run. You may feel like a singular unattractive human being. You’ve grown your own knobby warts of cynicism, hypocrisy and spiritual cowardice and have perfected a relational style that says, “You don’t want to mess with me.” And you wish none of that was true.

Take heart.

Your life does not come down to appearances. What matters is your true identity. God says you are a Saint. You have the DNA of godliness. And when the time is right, you will mature into who you really are.

Next time you see a caterpillar remind yourself of what it will become. Then ponder this remarkable assurance:

“What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it-we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are…And that’s only the beginning. When Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see him—and seeing him, become like him.”(I John 3:1-3)

Today we may feel utterly earthbound. Especially in this pandemic we feel constrained.

But one day, by God’s grace and power, we’ll fly.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain