Pastor's Ponderings Jason Yarbrough First Baptist Church of Glenpool: 2013

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Life is busy- just look at your calendars leading up to the new year (if not your calendar then come take a look at mine). Life is full of stress- again look at your calendars with so many things to do and not enough time or funds to do them all. Life is full of choices- oh wait look at your calendars once again. Read this story that focuses on enjoying the coffee. (This from a guy who is not yet old enough to drink coffee-- Ha! So for me it's enjoy the tea...)
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life, being too busy to enjoy life and do all the things they would like to do, etc.. Offering his guests some coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

After all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said, "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it's normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that's the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that in most cases the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee, just more expense, and in some cases it even hides what we drink. "What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups ... and then began eyeing each other's cups.

"Now consider this: Life is the coffee: the jobs, the money and the position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life. The type of cup we have does not define nor change the quality of Life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us."

Here's a takeaway: God brews the coffee, not the cups. Slow down, take a deep breath, relax and enjoy your coffee (or tea).

God is Good All The Time!

Jason Yarbrough

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Do you ever wonder what the story is behind some of the songs we sing? As we approach Thanksgiving let me share with you a story that comes from the book, "Then Sings My Soul," by Robert Morgan. It's about the hymn, "Count Your Blessings," written by Johnson Oatman.

Johnson was born in New Jersey just before the Civil War. His father had a powerful voice which some people claimed was the best singing voice in the East. That's why, as a boy, Johnson, Jr., always wanted to stand beside his father in church. As a young man Johnson stood beside his father in another way. He became a partner in Johnson Oatman and Son, his dad's mercantile business. At age 19, Johnson joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and was ordained into the ministry. He preached often, but never entered the fulltime pastorate. He enjoyed the business world and it paid the bills which gave him the freedom to minister without cost.

In 1892, with his father's voice undoubtedly ringing in his memory, Johnson began writing hymns. He averaged 200 hymns and gospel songs a year - 5,000 during the course of his lifetime. Among them: "Higher Ground," "No, Not One," "The Last Mile of the Way," and "Count Your Blessings," which was published in a song book for young people in 1897. It reflected Johnson's optimistic faith and the fact that he believed it is impossible to be thankful and, at the same time grumpy, cantankerous, critical or ill-tempered.

Grab a song book and find the hymn, "Count Your Blessings," (or Google the title) and read the words. Then spend some time doing what it tells us to do: "Count your many blessings name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done." Don't let another day go by without spending some time in thanksgiving to the Lord!