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There are lots of people digging into their family tree these days. In fact, we've done some of our own. A lot of digging around to find out where your roots are. You know, where my grandfather came from and my great grandfather, and which king or famous person I'm descended from. Of course I would be descended from someone famous, right?
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There's nothing quite so precious as a little child screaming on an airplane. You're a captive group; what are you going to do? A couple of people might have a suggestion for what to do with the child, but you're stuck. It happened to me on a plane not long ago. Actually we hadn't taken off yet; I guess we could have left. But here's this little five-year-old and his mother's trying to get him to sit down.
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Well, it's got to be the Christmas season! I keep seeing the UPS trucks going up and down our street like a fleet, and those drivers are busy! They must collapse into bed at night after those long, long hours they work. But their job could be worse. What if they had to shop for all those packages, and buy them, and package them and deliver them? Well, fortunately it's not up to the UPS man to create the package; he's just got to deliver it. It's kind of like you and me.
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Well, for several years in a row our town was pretty lucky. We had a winning football team every year in high school. And every year the parents had a dinner in the team's honor, and everybody came. I mean, even people who had nothing to do with the football season suddenly showed up: the politicians, the board members, a variety of seemingly unconnected dignitaries. Oh, I'm sure they were there to honor the players.
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I approached our local McDonald's manager with an idea for using his restaurant one night. I asked him if he would let our Campus Life group have it for a candlelight dinner at McDonalds. He said, "Well, that sounds creative, but we can't close and just shut the public out. But we can allow you to come in."
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Boy, when our family was growing up, if you were planning to take our oldest son somewhere, you'd better have all your details or you may not go. See, he was never a great fan of surprises or mystery rides; that kind of thing. In fact, ever since he was little, he wanted a detailed itinerary before he could feel good about any trip.
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There's this disease that hits college campuses in the spring every year. It's called "senior panic." You arrive at college as a freshman with this sneaking suspicion that you might just meet the person you're going to marry while you're there. And as you go through college, that suspicion becomes an expectation.
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Five thousand miles in one month! That's not too bad if you're in an airplane, but that's how far I drove one summer and still often do. (Although I should say my wife does a lot of the driving these days.) But back then I just about ran the wheels off of our van driving from one conference, or speaking assignment, or college trip to another. Let's see, if I averaged 50 mph, that means I drove for 100 hours. Oh, man!
Well, it was a great time, it really was. You know why? My wife was with me. We finally got to be together for extended blocks of time with no phone, no errands to do, no people to take us away. We didn't talk all the time, although we had a lot to catch up on. We probably could have been catching up for about 100 hours. Right?
Sometimes we just played music, or occasionally we would just spontaneously pray about something together. Or a lot of times we just enjoyed the silence or some of the beautiful scenery. And then every once in a while you'd hear the silence punctuated with an occasional comment or just an "I love you." I think my wife spoke for both of us when she described what was so nice about all those 5,000 miles. She said, "It was just so great being in your company; just the two of us."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Just the Two of Us."
You know, relationships need time together and especially times when there's like no agenda. It really enriched me to have that kind of time with my wife during all that driving. There's another relationship that might be a need, maybe desperate need of some "just being" time.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 42, out of the heart of David, verses 1 and 2. "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God; for the living God." And then he asks this powerful question, "When can I go and meet with God?" That's the cry of a believer for the greatest emotional need he has - to be intimate with his Lord. When is the last time you just sat down with Jesus and enjoyed His company? Or do you only see Him when you have a list for Him?
Jeremy was over at our house with his parents, and he'd been downstairs playing. Suddenly he came into the living room and kind of sat down in his Dad's lap, and his Dad liked that. His Dad kind of wrapped his arms around him, started to cuddle him, and Jeremy didn't settle down; he just kept wiggling. He looked up at his Dad and he said, "Daddy, you know I'm not sitting here just because I want to be with you." Great! Yeah, he needed something.
Wow! How often is that me with my Heavenly Father, or you maybe? In fact we say, "Well, I'm not here just because I want to be with You; I've got my list. I need something." But you're growing up as a child of God when you want to be with God just to be with God. You say, "Ron, I don't really feel that way yet." Well, that's okay. Tell Him that. Ask Him for the desire for His company; this passion that David had just to be with Him. "When can I go and meet with God?"
We have the indescribable privilege to cuddle in the lap of the King of the Universe; to call Him "Daddy"; to let Him comfort our battered emotions; to speak new ideas and insights into our quiet heart. He can't do that while you're talking to Him. To be real, real close, you can't just run in and run through your "pleases" and "thank yous" and then run out. You can do all that, but then stay a little longer.
I think you and Jesus will feel the same way about it. It's like my wife said, "It was so great just being in your company, Lord, just the two of us."
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There's a 7-Eleven store owner in Texas who won my respect some years ago. Never met the man, but I really respect his creativity. He had this particular problem every night in his parking lot. A bunch of teenagers would gather there and their rock music would blare from their cars and then they kind of took over their neighborhood with decibels. And when they left, they'd leave a trail of litter and broken bottles.
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We were zipping down the Interstate, and we saw this long cloud of thick blue smoke ahead of us. When we got close, we saw that it was belching out of the smoke stack of this big old semi, and the smoke was so heavy you could hardly see as you passed it. In fact, it was a very good time to hold your breath. Now, as we passed him, I looked through the smoke into the cab, and I saw two men inside and they were just kind of laughing and they seemed oblivious to the smoke and the smell that they were spreading down the Interstate.
