Tag: Atlanta

Posted in communication, Grace, life, priorities, Scripture, Trials

Oops

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

 “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Hebrews 2:1

I should have paid closer attention.  A while back, our church took its annual trip to Atlanta to work at the Operation Christmas Child distribution center.  Samaritan’s Purse heads up this amazing ministry that encourages people to pack a shoebox with toys, toiletries, and the like.  The boxes are then collected and shipped around the world to kids everywhere…10 million of them! To the kids it is the greatest gift ever.  But the best part is that each box contains the story of Jesus and how much He loves them.  Every child loves the gifts but many also hear about Jesus for the first time and love Him too.

So, we take a day and travel on our church bus from Southern Illinois down to Atlanta.  We work a full day at the processing center preparing the boxes to be shipped and then the next day we travel home.  It is a busy three days and frankly the day we work at the processing center is a long, but wonderful, day. 

Well, we left early, really early, Tuesday morning and travelled all day before arriving in Atlanta in the late afternoon.  After we checked into our hotel rooms we loaded back up on the bus and went to a mall that was close to the hotel to get supper.  We went our separate ways but several of us ended up at a Greek restaurant.  It was good.  We took our time enjoying the meal and soon it was time for us to leave.  My wife Judy was going to pay our bill and I told her I was going to go to the restroom.  Having not been there before I looked for the sign and headed in that direction.  It was down a small hallway.  I only saw one sign and it said men, so in I went.

No one else was in the restroom and in just a minute I was ready to leave.  When I opened the door, a lady from our team was just about to push the door open.  I looked at her and she looked at me…something wasn’t right.  My first thought was that she obviously was confused and was going into the wrong restroom.  But then I had a thought.  It was odd that the restroom didn’t have the usual equipment you find in a men’s restroom.  And then it hit me. Oh no!

Well, I blurted out to her, “Am I in the wrong restroom?” And she confirmed my worst nightmare…I was.  Fortunately, I knew her and fortunately no one else was in there, I began to I apologize all over myself.  Crazily, in my 71 years of life, this had happened two other times—both years ago.  Each time, I wanted to die.  This case was no different.  I swore her to secrecy but then realized this was too good of a story to pass by.  The big question is how in the world do you end up where you don’t belong?  That’s a great question.  In my case the signage just wasn’t clear, and I was tired, and I just wasn’t paying attention.  Put those three together and know that social disaster is right around the corner.

Maybe you have never gone in the wrong restroom, but perhaps you’ve headed the wrong way on a one way street. It’s frightening when you’re seeing headlights and you’re supposed to be seeing taillights. It is one thing when we accidentally go in the wrong direction, but too many times we find ourselves in the wrong place—by choice.  The wrong movie, the wrong relationship, the wrong side of the law, or more importantly, on the wrong side of God’s Word.  Truth be known it happens way too often.  And it usually happens when we get tired, or busy, or sloppy, in our faith.  In my case there really were no consequences besides my being incredibly embarrassed, but that is not always the case.  Too often our sloppiness ends up in broken lives, broken marriages, and broken hearts.

The Bible has a lot to say about wisdom and staying on the right path. It says, “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”  If I had been paying careful attention, I would have noticed that the sign was intended for the other door…not the one I took.  If I hadn’t been sloppy, I could have passed on a very embarrassing moment. Well, they say that hindsight is 20/20.  So, what about it?  Are we willing to watch where we go and where we step?  I think you will find that it is just the wise thing to do.  And, by the way, when we do mess up, well, it’s good to know that His grace really is sufficient and to know that always, He’s got this.  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in birthday, Family, forgiveness, friends, Grace, gratitude, life, loving others, Scripture, sovereignty of God, thankful, Trials

Lego’s Mania

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

For nothing is impossible with God.” Luke 1:37

Legos—not my cup of tea.  Legos are one of the hottest things going on. As I write this, part of my tribe consists of my daughter and her husband and three of my grandsons are in Atlanta. They are celebrating the middle one of the grandsons’ birthdays.  You see, there is a place called Legoland in Atlanta and it is a place where you can buy Legos. You can actually buy them just about anywhere, but this is the Mecca of Legos—Legos on steroids. In case you don’t know Legos are little pieces of plastic that snap together.  Now you have two options.  First, you can just buy a bunch of the little pieces and then put them together however you see fit.  Second, you can buy a Legos kit where they provide all the pieces you will need to build something with some instructions to boot. Trust me there are some amazing kits out there…sometimes consisting of thousands of pieces.

I recently celebrated my birthday and my friend and fellow staff member at the church where I serve bought me a Mustang (smile) made from Legos.  It was a kit and fortunately for me he had already assembled it.  It had 544 pieces of frustration—I mean Legos—in the box.  First, I thought it was so cool that he gave it to me, and I thought it was very cool that he put it together.  How incredible.

Well, recently, my wife Judy and I were down in Murray at the home of another part of our tribe. Before we left, I happened to notice that there was a Legos kit box on the dining room table.  This one was a spacecraft from one of the Star Wars movies. Their son, another of my grandsons, is into Star Wars and really into Legos so they were putting this kit together as a father and son thing.  I guess that was so they could go crazy together.  Anyway, I asked my son-in-law if it was hard to put this thing together and he assured me it wasn’t.  He said, “They give you instructions.” At this point I wanted to say, “And your point is?”  I mean all the instructions in the world wouldn’t help me complete this mammoth project.  You see, from where I sit, I know instructions can make something easier, but it can still be hard. I told him that too.

I shared with him how God gives me a great set of instructions, but I still manage to struggle in figuring them out. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong.  I’ve been on this Jesus journey now for 53 years and I try to read the instructions real regularly but, well, it can still be a challenge.  But here is the good news, the big news.  No matter how I struggle with it…He never gives up on me, never gets mad and never get inpatient.  Like the great Father that He is, He just patiently leads me along…sometimes clarifying, somethings explaining and sometimes even stepping into the mess I’ve made.

Does your life sometimes seem like an overwhelming Legos kit?  Do you sometimes seem overwhelmed, confused, or lost?  Don’t worry, your Dearest Daddy is a Legos Master, and nothing is too big or confusing for Him. Go ahead and ask and you two can sit down together and figure it all out.  After all, He’s got this.  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Christmas, Family, forgiveness, friends, Grace, gratitude, life, loving others, missions, Scripture, thankful, travel, Trials, wisdom

Oops

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Hebrews 2:1

I should have paid closer attention.  This past week our church took its annual trip to Atlanta to work at the Operation Christmas Child distribution center.  Samaritan’s Purse heads up this amazing ministry that encourages people to pack a shoebox with toys, toiletries, and the like.  The boxes are then collected and shipped around the world to kids everywhere…last year 10 million of them! To the kids it is the greatest gift ever.  But the best part is that each box contains the story of Jesus and how much He loves them.  Every child loves the gifts, but many also hear about Jesus for the first time and love Him too.

So, we take a day and travel on our church bus from Southern Illinois down to Atlanta.  We work a full day at the processing center preparing the boxes to be shipped and then the next day we travel home.  It is a busy three days and frankly the day we work at the processing center is a long, but wonderful, day.  The travel days are easy thanks to our great bus driver Brent.  Brent is on staff at our church, and He loves people, loves Jesus, and loves to drive!

Well, we left early, really early, Tuesday morning and travelled all day before arriving in Atlanta in the late afternoon.  After we checked into our hotel rooms we loaded back up on the bus and went to a mall that was close to the hotel to get supper.  We went our separate ways but several of us ended up at a Greek restaurant.  It was good.  We took our time enjoying the meal and soon it was time for us to leave.  My wife Judy was going to pay our bill and I told her I was going to go to the restroom.  Having not been there before I looked for the sign and headed in that direction.  It was down a small hallway.  I only saw one sign and it said men, so in I went.

No one else was in the restroom and in just a minute I was ready to leave.  When I opened the door, a lady from our team was just about to push the door open.  I looked at her and she looked at me…something wasn’t right.  My first thought was that she obviously was confused and was going into the wrong restroom.  But then I had a thought.  It was odd that the restroom didn’t have the usual equipment you find in a men’s restroom.  And then it hit me. Oh no!

Well, I blurted out to her, “Am I in the wrong restroom?” And she confirmed my worst nightmare…I was.  Fortunately, I knew her and fortunately no one else was in there, I began to apologize all over myself.  Crazily, in my 69 years of life, this had happened two other times—both years ago.  Each time, I wanted to die.  This case was no different.  I swore her to secrecy but then realized this was too good of a story to pass by.  The big question is how in the world do you end up where you don’t belong?  That’s a great question.  In my case the signage just wasn’t clear, and I was tired, and I just wasn’t paying attention.  Put those three together and know that social disaster is right around the corner.

Maybe you have never gone in the wrong restroom, but perhaps you’ve headed the wrong way on a one-way street. It’s frightening when you’re seeing headlights and you’re supposed to be seeing taillights. It is one thing when we accidentally go in the wrong direction, but too many times we find ourselves in the wrong place—by choice.  The wrong movie, the wrong relationship, the wrong side of the law, or more importantly, on the wrong side of God’s Word.  Truth be known it happens way too often.  And it usually happens when we get tired, or busy, or sloppy, in our faith.  In my case there really were no consequences besides my being incredibly embarrassed, but that is not always the case.  Too often our sloppiness ends up in broken lives, broken marriages, and broken hearts.

The Bible has a lot to say about wisdom and staying on the right path. It says, “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”  If I had been paying careful attention, I would have noticed that the sign was intended for the other door…not the one I took.  If I hadn’t been sloppy, I could have passed on a very embarrassing moment. Well, they say that hindsight is 20/20.  So, what about it?  Are we willing to watch where we go and where we step?  I think you will find that it is just the wise thing to do.  And, by the way, when we do mess up, well, it’s good to know that His grace really is sufficient and to know that always, He’s got this.  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Christmas, Family, friends, gratitude, Holidays, life, loving others, missions, prayer, Scripture, sovereignty of God, thankful, travel, wisdom

Figuring it Out

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” James 1:5

It was a close call, but grace stepped in.  Every year, our church sends a group of missionaries to help process Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes in Atlanta. “Atlanta,” you say?  “I didn’t know they needed missionaries in Atlanta?”  Well, missionaries, at least to some degree, are folks who take a good message or do a good deed to a needy place and trust me that is anywhere and everywhere.  But in this case, it was also an opportunity to be a part of something very big that would impact thousands and thousands of people with the joy of a gift in the shape of a shoebox filled with items of love and the joy of a gift in the shape of a cross and an empty tomb—the message of Jesus.

Well, last year I almost didn’t make it. I almost missed the boat.  The week of the trip, two families in our church lost loved ones and as pastor and friend, I was asked to do the services for their loved ones—two precious mothers.  As it turned out the services would be held almost immediately after my return from Atlanta. Add to that, each service would require more than a few hours of preparation.  I believe each funeral service should be crafted in prayer and made as personal as possible and that requires time.  So, I told Judy I just didn’t think I could make the trip.  It would just be easier if I stayed back and worked.  She wanted very much for me to go but also knew the importance of the task at hand.

After some discussion, the decision was made…she would go, and I would stay.  I had made this trip several times and I knew it was going to be meaningful but easier just sounded easier. But then she said something that caused me to re-evaluate.  It was something like, “Now, don’t be upset when I come back and tell you what a good time we had.”  It was a moment of clarity.  It caused me to remember the times before and that feeling of making a difference, the times of fellowship with the team, and at that moment, I knew I needed to go.  This time easier just wasn’t the best choice.

I began immediately to prepare the services and asked God to multiply the time that I had.  Then, Tuesday morning, the next day, with almost thirty others, I boarded the bus and headed to Atlanta…and it was an incredible trip. The journey, the destination, the work was all just incredible.  We got back in town Thursday evening, and I went straight back to working to finish the two funeral services. In my heart I knew I had made the right decision. The first service was Friday, and it was my privilege to stand before a group of people and share about a life well lived and a great God who loves us—a bunch.  The other service wasn’t till Sunday and, unknown to me, I would not be there for that one.  I would be at home with the flu.  Fortunately, the work for the service was done and someone else would use that work.  God knew all of this and used all of this.  Amazing.

Each day we are challenged to make decisions.  Sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they are not.  Sometimes the choice is between easy and hard.  Ask God for wisdom to make the right one.  Oh, you will miss it sometimes regardless, but I have learned that He has a way of honoring our hearts and intentions.  I just know that this time the easy thing was not the right thing…it was just easy.  I returned from Atlanta not depleted and tired but filled and refreshed.  Helping others has a way of doing that. And, God, well, He always does all things, well!

James, the half-brother of Jesus, says in the Book of the Bible that bears His name, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” You gotta love that.  Need wisdom? Just ask.  Will He be upset because you “bothered” Him?  Absolutely not.  He is like a dearest daddy just waiting to help and the reason why He is like that is because that’s what He is—our Dearest Daddy.  So, as you journey life today and you come to those crossroads called decisions, no matter how simple or complex, just ask and He will be there for you.  Don’t worry, “He’s got this.” Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Christmas, Family, Grace, gratitude, loving others, prayer, priorities, Scripture, sovereignty of God, thankful, travel, wisdom

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” James 1:5

It was a close call, but grace stepped in.  Every year, our church sends a group of missionaries to help process Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes in Atlanta. “Atlanta,” you say?  “I didn’t know they needed missionaries in Atlanta?”  Well, missionaries, at least to some degree, are folks who take a good message or do a good deed to a needy place and trust me that is anywhere and everywhere.  But in this case, it was also an opportunity to be a part of something very big that would impact thousands and thousands of people with the joy of a gift in the shape of a shoebox filled with items of love and the joy of a gift in the shape of a cross and an empty tomb—the message of Jesus.

Well, I almost didn’t make it. I almost missed the boat.  The week of the trip, two families in our church lost loved ones and as pastor and friend, I was asked to do the services for their loved ones—two precious mothers.  As it turned out the services would be held almost immediately after my return from Atlanta. Add to that, each service would require more than a few hours of preparation.  I believe each funeral service should be crafted in prayer and made as personal as possible and that requires time.  So, I told Judy I just didn’t think I could make the trip.  It would just be easier if I stayed back and worked.  She wanted very much for me to go but also knew the importance of the task at hand.

After some discussion, the decision was made…she would go and I would stay.  I had made this trip several times and I knew it was going to be meaningful but easier just sounded easier. But then she said something that caused me to re-evaluate.  It was something like, “Now, don’t be upset when I come back and tell you what a good time we had.”  It was a moment of clarity.  It caused me to remember the times before and that feeling of making a difference, the times of fellowship with the team, and at that moment, I knew I needed to go.  This time easier just wasn’t the best choice.

I began immediately to prepare the services and asked God to multiply the time that I had.  Then, Tuesday morning, the next day, with almost thirty others, I boarded the bus and headed to Atlanta…and it was an incredible trip. The journey, the destination, the work was all just incredible.  We got back in town Thursday evening, and I went straight back to working to finish the two funeral services. In my heart I knew I had made the right decision. The first service was Friday, and it was my privilege to stand before a group of people and share about a life well lived and a great God who loves us—a bunch.  The other service wasn’t till Sunday and, unknown to me, I would not be there for that one.  I would be at home with the flu.  Fortunately, the work for the service was done and someone else would use that work.  God knew all of this and used all of this.  Amazing.

Each day we are challenged to make decisions.  Sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they are not.  Sometimes the choice is between easy and hard.  Ask God for wisdom to make the right one.  Oh, you will miss it sometimes regardless, but I have learned that He has a way of honoring our hearts and intentions.  I just know that this time the easy thing was not the right thing…it was just easy.  I returned from Atlanta not depleted and tired but filled and refreshed.  Helping others has a way of doing that. And, God, well, He always does all things, well!

James, the half-brother of Jesus, says in the Book of the Bible that bears His name, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” You gotta love that.  Need wisdom? Just ask.  Will He be upset because you “bothered” Him?  Absolutely not.  He is like a dearest daddy just waiting to help and the reason why He is like that is because that’s what He is—our Dearest Daddy.  So, as you journey life today and you come to those crossroads called decisions, no matter how simple or complex, just ask and He will be there for you.  Don’t worry, “He’s got this.” Bro. Dewayne