This will probably seem random, as I myself am feeling random and scattered in my thoughts. This most likely won’t be my most widely read blog ever, but that’s okay. Sometimes it helps to let those thoughts out so that the rest of your mind can settle.

It was a good day, mostly due to the fantastic weather here in Nashville and the most excellent caramel flan latte I had just over two hours ago.

I’ve learned that you do better when you stop trying to figure out how the rest of your life will play out and simply enjoy the moments as they come. It’s a lot less stressful that way.

I’m not saying don’t plan. I am saying that most of life is what happens when something other than what you had planned happens.

I think Oswald Chambers said that faith means not knowing every step of the road ahead of you but trusting the One who does. Or something to that effect. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting closer.

I had Three Dog Night playing in the car today and was immediately transported back to my days as part of the puppet ministry under Darlene Buckner at Ridgeway Baptist Church.

I’n fuzzy on the time frame, but I think it was either junior high or high school. I remember Mrs. Buckner had quite the collection of old records (before those became hip and trendy again). 

Music does that for me. A certain song at the right moment can trigger long buried memories like nothing else. I can recall instantly what I was thinking and feeling when I first heard the song.

Maybe that’s why music is such a part of faith. Music reminds us in a way that nothing else can about God’s faithfulness and fidelity to us. It reinforces God’s promises to us and helps us recall past victories in the midst of current battles.

Both hymns and modern worship music can do that. I’m all for traditional AND contemporary IF both stay scriptural and spirit-filled. On a side note, if you truly worship God in spirit and in truth, it won’t matter if it’s a piano and an organ, a 100-piece orchestra and full choir, or a rock band with amps turned up to 11. It will be true worship.

So, I like music because I’m forgetful and it helps remind me why I’m alive and what I’n living for. Plus, it has such a groovy beat. 

If you’re like me, you will sometimes smile and even wave and say hello to a total stranger. I suppose that it’s a a Southern thing, or maybe it’s just a Me thing. Sometimes the person smiles back. Sometimes they look at me like I’m from Mars.

But you never know that maybe someone needed your smile. Perhaps that person felt invisible and unwanted and you just validated their whole existence.

It could be that the person you waved at was having a really crappy day where everyone was rude to them and you just made their day.

You have no idea of the power of a small gesture like saying hello to someone. You’re saying in essence, “I see you. I am a witness to your life in all its beauty and ugliness, joy and pain. You will not go unnoticed, because I have noticed you. You matter to me.”

I heard someone say that some people can never believe in God’s love for them until they see your love for them not just spoken but lived out in flesh and blood reality. They will never believe that they are lovable until someone proves them wrong by loving them.

I’m not suggesting that you start intimate conversation with total strangers or walk up to people and declare your undying love for them. That would probably creep them out.

Just treat them like you want to be treated. A smile and a nod and a polite greeting is all it takes to change the world for one person. And when you change that one person’s world, you change the world.

Tonight’s post is from a guest author. I read this a few years ago and it blew up my world. I hope and pray it does the same for you:

“There are times when things look very dark to me–so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence–that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane. There is no patience so hard as that which endures, “as seeing him who is invisible”; it is the waiting for hope.

Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father’s will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own.

Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, “To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still.”

I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope”
(George Matheson).

I bet that thief on the cross next to Jesus had one heck of a mid-life crisis as he hung from those three nails. 

He probably thought, “I’m about to die, and I have nothing to show for it. My life is nothing but one long series of mistakes and poor choices. Truly everybody will be better off without me.”

Ring a bell?

Does your life seem wasted? Do you feel that nothing you do makes any difference? Do you have the feeling that if you were gone tomorrow no one would even notice?

Look back at that thief hanging next to Jesus. He didn’t get much right. In fact, he may only have made one right decision in his entire life, but he got the one right that really mattered in the end.

“Lord, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom.”

He chose to be with Jesus, even if he thought it would only be for the next few breaths. He looked over and saw something that he couldn’t define or understand but something he was prepared to give up everything for and follow with what little time he had left.

In the end, he won. He’s just as much a part of the legacy of the Kingdom of Heaven as anyone else who made it in. Not because of a lifetime of service or faithfulness but because He chose Jesus.

His legacy isn’t in who he was or what he did, but in Whose he was. And that’s the best kind of legacy to leave.

I found this little piece of history while I was rooting through one of my junk drawers. Just seeing that plastic square card automatically sends all kinds of memories flooding into my mind.

I remember plenty of Friday nights spent at the local Blockbuster store, looking for anything that might be halfway decent to watch. Of course, all the good new releases would have been long since checked out and all that would be left were the older movies in the middle of the store.

I always am reminded of the friendly “Be kind– Rewind” signs on all the VHS tapes. I’m 98% sure I always followed this rule and dutifully rewound each movie after watching it.

I always think of the time when I rented Home Alone and somehow managed to lose it without ever having watched it. I had to buy the movie to keep in the good  graces of the good folks at Blockbuster.

I got nostalgic looking at my rental card. Sure, I love Netflix and Redbox, but it’s just not the same. At least not to me. Part of the fun was the adventure in wading through a whole store and coming away with the perfect rental, plus some Milk Duds to enhance the home viewing experience. 

I built my movie collection from the previously viewed movies for sale at very reasonable prices and will always be thankful to Blockbuster for making my growing up years so memorable.