It’s been heartbreaking to watch the conflict in Ukraine. Our hearts break as we’ve watched the suffering caused by a delusional despot wreaking havoc on innocent civilians. Those citizens include many believers and churches. Amid the senseless shelling, the blasts, the refugee crisis at their borders, the hour-by-hour toll of warfare on the people of Ukraine, we have also seen a picture of courage, determination and relentless tenacity.   

And there are lessons to be learned. We’ve seen the difference between true leadership in Zalinsky and an irrelevant, brutal, narcissistic insanity in Putin. The contrast could not be greater. One of the great quotes that we’ll never forget, came when US officials offered safe passage to Zalinski from the missel torn city of Kyiv. When he received the offer, his answer was legendary: “The fight is here. I need ammunition not a ride.” This terse response symbolically reflects the sentiment of every leader that is invested in the mission. Zalinski communicated that the mission was worth living for and even dying for. Against the Goliath of Russia, he stood ready for the fight rather than for the next flight out to Berlin. 

When I heard that statement, I thought about those who have gone before us and have left everything on eternity’s battlefield. Lottie Moon, Jim Elliot, J. Hudson Taylor, Bertha Smith and the thousands of others that sacrificed everything for the sake of Christ. Even now, we have missionaries all over the world who are in difficult spaces fighting a spiritual war for souls. The bombs can’t be heard with human ears but the battle just as real. We carry the banner of the Gospel in an ever-darkening world. We are surrounded by the enemy. 

Like President Zalinsky, I hope we never want a ride. I pray, as Southern Baptists, we aren’t looking to enter safe spaces far from the battle. I pray for our missionaries in difficult harvest fields in Tennessee, North America and around the world who are rescuing people even today. They aren’t asking for a ride out of the spiritual conflict, they just need ammunition. We are honored to forward the ammunition they need through the Cooperative Program. Of course, the ammunition they need aren’t javelin missals, long guns or drones. They conquer Satan’s minions through the love of Jesus. We get to be a part of the story through the funds we send to further the mission. Thank you, Tennessee Baptists for your gifts through the Cooperative Program. Our enemy is formidable, but our victory is certain. Let’s not grow weary in giving or going to where the action is—the harvest field. 

Annie Johnson Flint’s life declares the greatness of God in the midst of confusion and pain. She was orphaned as a baby. She lived in a home that bordered on poverty and spent her days as a caregiver to her adopted mother who suffered from a number of strokes. In midlife, she also fell ill and spent most of her remaining years crippled, bed-ridden, dealing with depression and chronic pain. How could God glorify Himself in all her unanswered prayers, suffering and depression? While most would look at her life and ask this question, Annie focused on all God was doing as she in the midst of every challenge she faced. She didn’t hide her pain. Instead she chose to be an encouragement to the small community around her. Because of her faith, he gave grace to her and through her life believers have sung her testimony for well over 100 years.  In one stanza her life became a wellspring of encouragement to those who face adversity, pain and the anomaly of illness:

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources

Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

I think about her life and I hear this song in the middle of my own questions about suffering. I must trust the same God Annie trusted. He is enough for today’s struggles and tomorrow’s crucibles. He was enough for her. He is enough for us. 

Don’t you love the process of putting all your earthly possessions in boxes and moving across the country? I didn’t think so. Who would?  I’d much prefer staying in one place but for some reason God has other plans. When we move ourselves without the assistance of professionals we look like the Beverly Hillbillies. If you’re too young to understand the reference, go to YouTube. That’s pretty much us, with the exception of Grandma in the rocking chair on the flatbed. But God always shows up in mysterious ways.  

Before we left, my wife had her car stuffed with our belongings and I was in the moving van.  I left earlier than she did and before we parted I asked her to take my laptop bag. It was really the one thing I could not lose. I didn’t want it in the back on the truck where it could be crushed under the weight of a refrigerator loaded by unskilled teenagers. 

Somewhere on a Mississippi interstate I got the call: “Hello, are you Matt Tullos.” I said, “yes” and he continued.” I found your laptop in the middle of Main Street. I thought it was my lucky day. I found a brand-new highfaluting computer! But then I looked closer and saw that Bible of yours, all marked up and I thought to myself, Lordy, it’s a preacher-computer. I’m not a church-going guy but one thing I do know, is that you don’t want the wrath of God poured out on you for hijacking preacher stuff. Your number was in the Bible and so I’m calling you.” 

After I thanked him profusely and we got off the phone. My wife called me in tears. “Something terrible has happened!” Before she got too worked up over the whole thing I told her about the unchurched angel that found it. Darlene’s trunk had popped open a few minutes before I got the call. We were both relieved. In a matter of an hour the laptop and Bible were both safe and sound in the cab of her car. She rewarded him handsomely for being such an unexpected hero in the midst of our pilgrimage.

I’m so glad I wrote my name and number in the Bible. This custom has saved me many times. I’ve mindlessly left my Bibles in places all over the US like an overly enthusiastic Gideon. This time it saved my Bible and a new Macbook Pro. It was a wonderful tap on the shoulder from God in the middle of transitional chaos.  

Years ago, our accountability group had a guy that hadn’t quite made it to the “work-in-progress” level. He was wreck in progress! He’s on his third marriage, second bankruptcy and his first accountability partner. The thing about him was that he’s just out there. Having him in our group made me feel like Billy Graham for about three seconds.  Three seconds pass and then I remember that he’s got nothing on me when it comes to spiritual wreckage. Some messes are just out there for the world to see. Other messes, more insidious issues, hide underneath the surface of our glossy exterior. These hidden issues are especially dangerous because they can slide under the radar; things like greed, resentment, ungodly ambition, and other secret saboteurs of the soul. 

Psalm 130 underscores this ugly truth. We are all a wreck in a thousand different ways. We are wrecks, standing in the need of prayer, a day away from disaster. But the good news is found in the conjunctive sentence that follows: “But with You, there is forgiveness.” (Ps 130:4a) I’m so glad that this is the next line in the song. I’m relieved that it wasn’t something like: “With You I will hide in fear and hope that you don’t see me.” When we can’t stand in our own righteousness, which is basically all the time, we have a Father who invites us to run to him for mercy and forgiveness. That’s what is so powerful about confessing our struggles. All secrets lose their power in the light of their revealing. We are all on level ground in the presence of the Father. That’s why we say that the Jesus way is gospel—good news of GREAT joy. 

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 4 years since I wrote this in my father’s hospital room. I reflect now on the grace of God as he carried us all through this transition. If you want to read more about our families journey. My blog that I created back then is still live. walkingthemhome.com

We are waiting at the station with Dad,

metaphorically of course.

We can hear the whistle of the train.

We don’t know how far away it is.

But eventually it will arrive.

He has no baggage.

No one does at this station

but he knows the Engineer.

His body, weak and weary from the journey…

but this will be the last for him.

A rendezvous with bliss.

He has no appetite for the food here.

He speaks in mumbled whispers and sings short lingering tones.

And we are waiting by the station.

Even as the days pass, the exits are closed

He’s entered a place where only boarding passengers can be… to wait

But I see him through distant glassy eyes.

I know he’s in there.

Waiting, hoping, weeping, silently

until the tickets are torn and He waves to us and sallies forth into the great glass, darkly…

face to Face.

When I think I’ve got it bad, I remember Paul of Tarsus. I’ve had my opportunities to complain but Paul always had it worse than me. Most theologians and historians agree that He was probably on the upper crust of the economic scale in the first century, but then there was that Damascus road experience, when he met Jesus. Sounds great, but I’m sure it wasn’t all that thrilling that the first thing Paul ever heard from the Son of God would be, “Paul, why are you persecuting me?” It was a reality check. He’d spent his life as a religious zealot, only to find out that he was on the wrong team. And then he was blinded. He must have thought, now I know the truth but how do I find my stuff?

They charted his travels in the maps section of almost every Bible I own, but the maps are a reminder that Siri wasn’t available back then and he traveled by foot, or beast of burden or by ship. But the ship sank.  That’s bad. He survived. That’s good! But he got bit by a viper. That’s bad. But he miraculously survived. That’s good!

He rode the roller coaster of a church planter like a cowboy on the back of a two-ton bronco. He was done wrong by a lot of friends, but he kept going. No doubt he was on Jerusalem’s 10 most wanted list and escaped out of a window in a basket, but he kept on going. He was beaten with rods three times, whipped 40 times minus one, five times. (I did the math on that one: 145 lashes!) But he kept on going. He was left for dead, but like a cast member of a zombie apocalypse he got up and kept going. He sang in jails, wrote 28% of the New Testament, caused a ruckus in a market, and lulled a guy to sleep during one of his lectures, and somehow the guy fell out of a window, died, was resuscitated and Paul kept on going. He was the Hebrew version of the Energizer bunny. Oy vey!

Oh, and he made tents as a side-hustle. Just a little detail…

Onesiphorus, a contemporary of his day, described him as short, bow-legged, and bald, with a slightly hooked nose and a unibrow!  Is there any wonder he was single? He had a dual citizenship, but most of the time, he was a citizen of the road. His story falls into the category of riches to rags. He didn’t leave a lot of material wealth when his head was placed on the block, but I can hear him now as the Roman executioner led him to the place of his death, still making conversation: “Did I ever tell you this story? I was a rich, religious scholar. I had everything going for me. I was the cat’s pajamas. Little did I know something better was in store. A crazy thing happened on the way to Damascus.”

In marriage, there’s a rule you must follow. Eliminate the words “always” and “never.” In other words, don’t say to your wife, “You’re never are ready when I’m ready to leave.” That’s a buzz-kill right off the bat. Plus, it’s just not true. “Never” is a very difficult word when it comes to speaking truth. I used to say that the Cubs would never win a World Series and history had my back. The Cubs hadn’t won a World Series since 1908. It hadn’t happened in over a hundred years! But 2016 changed all that. The curse ended and the Cubs were champs. There’s a chance that in your marriage, the universe shifted and your wife waited on you. “Never” doesn’t work.  It’s insulting and it’s just fake news. 

But there are times when you should adhere to “nevers.” These are the good “nevers” of marriage.

Never re-preach a message to your spouse on Sunday.

Example: The wife says to the husband, “That was a powerful message on idolatry. Don’t you think your fixation on your bass boat kind of… well…” Stop right there. He’s got the Holy Spirit to convict him and a wife being a human highlighter pen is not helping. 

Never telegraph your anger in cryptic, coded actions.

Guys, when your wife offends thee, avoid walking around doing huffy things like shutting closet doors a little more strongly than usual, answering innocent questions sarcastically, or in worst cases, throwing the garbage can lids on the roof of your house. Leave the word huffy with the bicycles. After decades of practice, I’ve found a much better communication method: USE WORDS. 

Never assume he’s heard you the first time. 

Most men have an ability to go into completely different universes when performing even the most menial tasks. Most women can text, talk on the phone, change a diaper, and fix a broken piece of china with superglue all at the same time. For most men, it’s like this: “Everybody be quiet and give me room. I’m shaving. Most of us can’t even comprehend the cerebral gymnastics of multitasking. If he’s doing anything, even clipping his toenails, ask him to stop, then grab his face with the palm of your hands and speak slowly.  

There are plenty of “nevers” in marriage, just not the kind of “nevers” you say in arguments. There are also some incredible “always” rules that can make your marriage sizzle. Always encourage. Always forgive. Always put the toilet seat down. Always seek to improve your connection. Always work together in parenting. And always love. And the greatest these is always love.

My grandma always figured a pandemic would happen.  I can just see her now, putting down her needle work next to Martha, Ruth and Eunice in the great sewing circle of Heaven and shouting down to me, “I told you that you needed to keep 5000 potatoes in the crawl space under your house!” I always wondered as a kid why she did things like that. I wonder no longer. She always stocked up for the apocalypse. That country lady knew how to survive, and she would have done just fine in 2020. A quarantine wouldn’t bother her in the least. 

She and my grandfather were never people of means. They never went out to eat. Why do that? No one knew how to cook cornbread, fried okra, field peas and collard greens like she did. She was Whole Foods™ before the franchise existed. And of course, if the cupboard was empty there were always plenty of potatoes under the house. She survived with no wifi, Grubhub™ or Bluetooth. It’s amazing how well she got around without all the creature comforts we have today.

We’ve been getting a taste of primitive living. In March of 2020, we almost resorted to using newspapers and catalogs for toilet paper like she did. Social distancing would be easy for my grandparents. The coronavirus would have a tough time trying to make contact with them. They lived down a winding gravel road in the middle of a North Louisiana forest. You’d have to go over ten cattle gaps to make it to their door. Yes, cattle gaps.  It’s was a thing. Google it. My time with her was always a feast for the senses: Squirrel gumbo, wood stoves, real butter, canned figs and something called mercurochrome (which is banned by the FDA now). I’m amazed that she lived to 90. I guess fresh veggies cancels out mercury poisoning. I never feared bullying, pandemics, or cyberattacks. Those things didn’t exist in Dry Prong, Louisiana. But I definitely had concerns about Big Foot. 

Times were a whole lot simpler there. But who knows? We might return to them soon. We don’t know what the future holds. I might need to purchase a milk cow for the back yard in the coming months if the homeowners’ association allows it. But when life slows down like it did last spring, there’s always some beauty that rises to the surface. My grandparents were dirt-poor, but they were surrounded by wonder. And that’s a pretty good trade-off. It’s amazing how rich life becomes when you’re thankful for simple things like God’s grace, running water, a good meal and lots of time with the people you love most. 

A couple of years ago, I had some equipment for sale and this guy messaged me and asked if I would want to sell it for some Bitcoin. He started explaining it. The words he used were English but my brain could no more process the sentences than it could process Mandarin Chinese. Back then, I hadn’t even heard of bitcoin and the more I looked into it the more confused I got! It was defined as a type of digital currency in which a record of transactions is maintained, and new units of currency are generated by the computational solution of mathematical problems, and which operates independently of a central bank.

It sounds like a cross between monopoly money and my 9^th grade algebra that I had to take twice. A totally bogus proposition if you ask me. And the other part about being operated outside of a central bank sounds like you are working for a part of the mob or you are buying groceries with 1990’s Pokémon cards. I was totally not interested. The only transaction I ever made that came close Bitcoin was buying some throw pillows for my wife with PayPal.  Even then I was nervous. PayPal sounds like that buddy you owed milk money to in the 3^rdgrade. 

But there is a currency that’s outside a central bank that married couples use all the time: BlissCoin.BlissCoins are those investments we make in our spouse that lead to the marital bliss we seek. You may not know about BlissCoin but if you’re marriage you already use it. It’s worth a lot and it’s pretty easy to invest. 

• Remembering and planning way ahead for special dates will get you about 10 BlissCoins. Pretty Sweet! 
• Cleaning up your six-year-old’s vomit of the hardwood floor: 30-3000 BlissCoins, depending on how squeamish your spouse is. 
• Guys, for your wife, really listening to her without looking at your phones is an easy 5 BlissCoins. 
• Listening without getting defensive as she shares a hurt you caused can gain you 20 BlissCoins.  Be carful here, if you can’t do this, it might just land you in the BlissCoin Doghouse and the accommodations are awful!
• Saying I love you first, 2 BlissCoins. 
• Showing you love him or her, at least 8 BlissCoins.
• Praying with your spouse? Well, it’s hard to calculate, but it’s in the thousands.

This matrimonial exchange system varies from couple to couple but it’s always wise to invest in BlissCoin. When you invest in your marriage the interest accrues throughout your life and besides, you might do something really dumb and having the BlissCoins is a handy thing to have around.

Listen to this meditation on the Scattered Feast Podcast!

The mystery of salvation is never more astounding than this moment.

A few feet away from Jesus another man languished under the brutal hand of the Romans.

Just another man whose life would seemingly melt into the thin pages of history…

This was his day to die and be forgotten. And then He spoke these words”

“Remember me when you enter into your kingdom.”

One sentence… a declaration, a cry into the bleak chasm of unworthiness.

“Remember me…”

This convicted rebel could do nothing. 

He couldn’t earn his way into right standing.

He couldn’t grow into righteousness and worthiness of grace

His time was up.

He had no hands for service.

No feet for walking 

Few words left to say in this brief and consequential day

Remember me…

It was almost like a shot in the dark, a wing and a prayer, a last desperate plea to the mercy of a Messiah

Remember me.

Jesus replied to this unnamed vagabond.

“I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” 

There’s never been a more outrageous last minute, death’s door, Hail Mary conversion that this. 

And today you will be with me in paradise.

Paradise-  such perfect word.

It’s a reference to the Garden of Eden before the fall.

Before hiding, shame, war, and death…

Eden, when all was right with the world and Jesus said, today everything will be made right with you. 

The same is truth for all of us. The second declaration on the cross reminds us that it’s not about our nice tidy lives and good living that will usher us into the second Eden when he makes all things new. 

It has nothing to do with us. 

It’s not about the perfection of the man. It’s about the man of perfection. It’s not about one’s glory. It’s about the glory of one. It not about the greatness of your labor. It’s about the labor of his greatness. The gospel isn’t about your story. His story is the gospel. And that’s why they call it GOOD news

And one we’ll see the one who got there first, the one who walked, arm in arm, with Jesus into grand opening of the Father’s house. Because of the words that brought the ugly edifice of self-attained righteousness and works based acceptance crumbing down. 

Today you will be with Me in paradise.