Several years ago Frank Court told the story of a student at Iowa State University who took to selling magazine subscriptions for additional income. He determined that a likely customer might be the president of the University. The student was greeted at the door by the president's wife who was able to resist his sales pitch by saying that her husband already received more magazines than he could read. The student assured her that he understood and turned to leave. It was then the president's wife saw something she had not noticed before. The student was crippled. She felt bad that she had turned him down, and probably out of a twinge of guilt called out to him and said, "I did not know you were a cripple." The student responded that his being a cripple was a result of having polio when he was a child. The woman then said, "My, how being a cripple must color your life." The young man brightly responded, "It certainly does, but, thank God, I can choose the color!"
Dr. Court said, "How indebted we are to those radiant individuals who bring a perspective of hope and life into a difficult situation...Such persons are not born that way but choose to become that way as they pick their attitudes."
The colors we choose to paint the picture of our lives determine whether we will be a victim or victor. The colors we choose determine whether we will quit when the first roadblock and detour of life comes upon us, or whether we have the courage and commitment to go the extra mile and distance to reach our destination.
What will grab our attention and help us focus our life's direction? Will it be energy and enthusiasm or will it be discouragement and disillusionment?
Eugene Patterson, in his book A LONG OBEDIENCE IN THE SAME DIRECTION, shares a penetrating insight when he writes:
"Our attention spans have been conditioned by thirty-second commercials. Our sense of reality has been flattened by thirty-page abridgments.
"It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the Gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate...In our kind of culture anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness."
It seems that so many people start the journey with a great bolt of lightning which fades as quickly as the headlines in the morning newspaper. What happens to these fellow pilgrims on the road of life? What has happened is that they run head on into unexpected detours, dead-end alleys, and rugged roadblocks. They become disappointed, disillusioned, depressed, and defeated. They raise their hands in despair, turn around, and go home.
They experienced hardships or were ridiculed or received unwarranted criticisms and attacks which turned their dreams into nightmares. Can you identify with any of these circumstances I have mentioned today? How have you allowed them to "color" your life? Now you find yourself in church, and in the silence of these few moments your soul cries out with anguish and hurt, "IS THERE ANY WORD FROM THE LORD TODAY FOR ME?"
I am very glad that you asked that question! For our Bible is filled with pages of those faithful biblical characters who traveled the road of life before us and who also experienced broken dreams, crippling roadblocks, and major disappointments that seemed to have the tenacity of a junk-yard dog.
Seated before me today and within the sound of my voice are those who have experienced the roadblocks of life. Real folks whose jobs have been terminated or they have been fired or released. These persons have families to feed and financial commitments to meet. Young people who feel an agonizing awkwardness as they face the challenge of being a teenager in the modern era ” so much peer pressure and so few who really understand them or care to listen. Parents who have been called in for a special conference with the school guidance counselor and principal. Also, parents who have been called to pick up their children at the police station.
The doctor's office calls and the yearly routine tests show results that are not the ones that you had planned for. The real estate agent calls and your home is not worth what you expected it to be.
These are just a random sampling of some of the roadblocks that we face periodically that threaten our dreams and seemingly can provide the evidence to color our lives in the most negative ways.
There is hope for our lives. Today I want to share with you the story of St. Paul, one of God's finest servants and role models who overcame broken dreams, difficult moments, and numerous roadblocks in life.
Let me share with you today a reading from II Corinthians 11:24-28 which describes just a few of his difficult moments:
"Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches."
I think you could safely say that Paul is certainly no stranger when it comes to life's roadblocks, detours, and dead-end alleys.
The scripture lesson from Corinthians was not written from the Hilton Tower in Rome but from a dingy cell in a Roman jail. It might both shock and surprise you today that about one-third of the New Testament was written from various jail cells. JUST THINK ABOUT IT ” JUST THINK ABOUT IT ” how these various moments of great difficulty could have "colored" Paul's life in the most detrimental of ways. However, instead of quitting like many people do when life deals a harsh hand, Paul declares "I count it all joy."
Paul writes further encouragement to all of us today when he shares in some of his other sacred writings the following words:
"Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary." (Galatians 6:9)
"Therefore...be steadfast, immovable...your toil is not in vain in the Lord." (I Corinthians 15:58)
Yes, instead of complaining and moaning when life's roadblocks and detours force a change of plans, Paul never forgot the ultimate goal of his life, which was to preach and teach the saving Gospel of Christ Jesus.
It is correctly said that the difference between a piece of coal and a diamond is pressure. The difference between an admirer of Jesus Christ and a faith-filled servant of Jesus Christ is how we handle the pressures of life and how we allow them to "to color" our lives. Christians are those who can cope with the changing circumstances of life because of the constant presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives.
Today, I want to share three points for your consideration on how to response to the roadblocks of life.
FIRST OF ALL, KEEP THE DREAM ALIVE. I looked the word "dream" up in Webster's second college edition dictionary. One of the many meanings of the word "dream" is to have a "fond hope" or "aspiration", or to think of something noble in life, to be at all possible and desirable.
Yes, dreams are hopes and ideas that inspire us and motivate us. Dreams can be the most powerful and pervasive force at work in our world. Dreams of freedom and religious liberties propel countless persons to move across oceans and unknown lands. As long as the dream was alive, so were the people who pursued them.
Never underestimate the power of an idea. I don't believe you can explain the recent changes in our world without the power of dreams and the people who were claimed and shaped by them.
How else can you explain how an unknown shipyard electrician in Poland could begin and sustain a movement of reformation in his native land ” a movement they tried to crush and control but without success. You look at Lech Walesa and you see a dreamer.
God takes a "nun" from the safe environment of a school teacher and uses her dreams and visions to be the leading spokesperson for the cause of the helpless, hopeless, and homeless persons in the world. Mother Teresa is a dreamer. Her dreams propelled her into the world to be salt and light and leaven for the Kingdom of God. Her dreams are what fuel the flames of her witness.
For years we saw right before our eyes on television how they tried to beat down and even imprison the dreams of Lech Welesa. The Polish regime soon learned that you cannot imprison dreams behind locked doors and iron bars. If dreams are from God, they are too powerful "TO BE CAGED AND SHACKLED".
What kind of ideas and dreams do you entertain in your very being today? How do these ideas and dreams move and inspire your activities today and in the future? How do these dreams and ideas measure up with God's dreams and visions for our world and for our shared life as a community of faith?
What are your dreams and visions for our church family? Do you want us to be a Bible-believing, soul-winning, Gospel-preaching church in total surrender to the Lordship of Christ? The New Testament is filled with many different but authentic role models for our church's ministry in the name of Christ. The scriptures picture the church as the fellowship of the redeemed, also the beloved community, the body of Christ, the salt of the Earth, the light of the world, the leaven in the loaf, and the list could go on. What our church needs to do is to response to just ONE OF THESE BIBLICAL ROLE MODELS AND THEN ALLOW IT TO BE THE FOUNDATION OF ALL THAT WE DO. The creeds of the Church have always said we are to be "holy, apostolic and universal".
As the dreams of our forefathers and foremothers propelled them across oceans and continents, how will we respond to the dreams and visions that God is placing upon our hearts to claim new territory for the King of kings?
We are fortunate that we live in an area that is growing rather than declining. I believe that the fields are white unto harvest, as the scriptures proclaim. What God needs is a church that is willing like Abraham to get out of its comfortable existence and by faith go into a new territory that God is preparing. According to recent census statistics, thirty-seven percent of the population is unchurched and undiscipled. As a church, we need to respond to the cries of God's people when they ask, "IS THERE ANY WORD FROM THE LORD TODAY?" As God's people, we are always pilgrims on a journey to answer the call of God.
Yes, God always offers a larger, greater,and grander dream and hope for the fellowship of the redeemed than the secular world will ever offer. God has promised that if we are faithful to His leading, He will guarantee a harvest in due time, even when the weeds grow side by side with the wheat. ALL WE NEED IS THE FAITH TO RESPOND.
Yes, please keep on dreaming for our Church, even when you feel your dreams have been shattered or broken or temporarily put on hold by the roadblocks of life.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a very powerful sermon titled "Shattered Dreams" shares how we are to deal with those times in our lives when we experience shattered dreams. He says our capacity to deal creatively with shattered dreams is ultimately determined by our faith in God. Genuine faith imbues us with the conviction that beyond time is a divine Spirit and beyond life is Life Eternal. However dismal and catastrophic may be the present circumstance, we know we are not alone, for God dwells with us in life's most confining and oppressive cells. And even if we die there without having received the earthly promise, He shall lead us down that mysterious road called death and at last to that indescribable city He has prepared for us.
The Christian faith makes it possible for us nobly to accept that which cannot be changed, to meet disappointments and sorrow with an inner poise, and to absorb the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope, for we know, as Paul
testified, in life or in death, in Spain or in Rome, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
My closing words for today are from Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rogers
who penned these famous words: "CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, SEARCH HIGH AND LOWFOLLOW EVERY BY-WAY, EVERY PATH YOU KNOW CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, FORD EVERY STREAM FOLLOW EVERY RAINBOW, TIL YOU FIND YOUR DREAM.
Let us follow God's dreams for our church family.