Kids Upstage the Preacher

This has to be every performer's worst nightmare, to be in the middle of a performance and be upstaged by a kid. Vacation Bible School began yesterday evening. Following the parade of classes and the pledges to the flags and Bible, Rev. Tony spoke to the children about Jesus. He used a "rubics" cube of sorts to explain the redemption story.

At the first the cube displayed a picture of a man in the dark and a very bright light, meant to be God. Then he showed Jesus on the cross. Then he showed the tomb with the stone in front of it and the Roman soldiers standing guard. Then he showed Jesus on the outside of the tomb.

Suddenly one of the boys shouted, "Wait a minute! How'd he get past those guards?"

Farther Along

There is an old gospel song called Farther Along, by R.E. Winsett. The words are as follows:

Tempted and
tried we're oft made to wonder

Why it should
be thus all the day long

While there are
others living about us

Never molested
though in the wrong

Monday afternoon, I had to go into the city and decided I'd come back along the river so I could take advantage of the sunshine and take some pictures for another website. Augusta has this one intersection that is really tricky, and if I live here for 100 years, I'll never get it right. There I was sitting in the middle of the intersection waiting for two other cars to make their moves. Suddenly they both started beeping their horns. Then there was a car behind me too, and I'm reasonably certain that poor women must have been deaf because she was using sign language to communicate with me. Finally, after a moment of shear dread and panic, I realized that I was the only person without a stop sign.

Then just as I put my foot on the accelerator and started to make my turn, the car coming toward me decided he had waited long enough and turned right. I nearly hit him and slammed on my breaks. Looking in my rearview mirror, that poor deaf lady was signing me again. You know that sign that said Welcome to Augusta right before I got to that intersection? Well, Augusta really didn't seem all that welcoming to me today.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I drove on down Main Street whereupon I saw the meanest lady in the town unpacking her car. Now this lady, Sandra, opened a new restaurant in town, which I'm sure is excellent. (Just because the lady is mean, doesn't mean she can't cook. I've tasted her food and it's usually very good.) Sandra has a new vehicle. Last year, she drove a Ford; this year, she is driving a BMW!

Why does it always seem like people who are mean to us get so many blessings? Oh I know the answer. It's because their blessings aren't really blessings. They are material things that will bloom and fade, but once they're gone, well.. they're gone forever. As a Christian, I'm laying up treasures in Heaven. Sure a BMW would be nice but I'll never have one, and I'd probably wreck it if I did.

I admit that I have prayed for Sandra for about a year now. I want God to bless her and her family, because at one point Sandra was my friend. I should look at that BMW as an answer to my prayers for her (but I admit I'm not quite there... yet.) I do want those drivers who were impatient with me to have a little more patience in their lives, to have a bit more grace. I want those things for myself.... not patience. I don't want patience.

Farther along,
we'll know all about it.
Farther along,
we'll understand why.
Cheer up my
brother. Live in the sunshine.
We'll understand it all by and by.
.

Lead Us Not IntoTemptation

This morning Rev. Tony preached what he said will be his final sermon on the Lord's Prayer. His text, of course, came from the Sixth chapter of the Book of Matthew, verse 13. "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..." (KJV) Actually, there is another sermon in that verse, as it goes on to say, "for Thine is the kingdom and the glory and power forever. Amen." (KJV) However, Tony ends it here.

Today's premise is that the word temptation is defined in this situation as "test." When temptation comes our way, it is not from God, because God cannot lead us into evil. He can, however, allow tests that will shape our character. We can be tested during emotional highs and extreme lows. When we fall into one of these tests or "traps" (my word,) we do so because of the lusts in our own lives, as he paraphrased Chapter 4, Book of James.

From here, the good reverend explained that there is a very real adversary working against the children of God, and we need rescuing. "Deliver us from evil," is a cry for rescue from that which causes pain and trouble in our lives. When we pray, we are to pray for individuals. The church is brick and mortar, but the people in it make up the body of Christ. He said that when we ask God to keep us safe from those tests of evil, we "win," because through Christ Jesus, we have been delivered.

I told Rev. Tony, coming out of church today that I thought his sermon was concise and to the point. I had to think about it for awhile to really be able to comment, and believe it or not, the only comment I have is as follows:

I agree wholeheartedly with Tony that as Christians we will go through tests, and as such, we learn lessons from resisting temptation, and sometimes greater lessons when we don't.

The Apostle Paul is very clear in the Book of Romans that the Spirit will help us with our prayers. Romans, Chapter 8, verse 26, "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (KJV) We have to be very careful not to burden our brothers and sisters in Christ with expectations of perfection that are not manifest to our human eyes. We should not instill a "fear" into our congregation that if they should "fall prey to any test because of their own lusts, then they would be out of the will of God." That is simply not true. To suggest otherwise is to negate the entire redemption story.

Case in point. When Peter walked on water, where was he in this test? When he took his eyes off Jesus, was he suddenly out of God's will? The answer is clearly "NO." Didn't the Savior reach out His hand for Peter and tell his disciple that he should have more faith? Clearly, the result of this test was Peter learned a valuable lesson about who commands the seas and who is worthy of his service and worship. Most tests that we face are like this. They are tests of faith, and we are reminded over and over that the source of our faith is God.

Sometimes we stumble publicly in ways that embarrass us and call our character into question. Once again, Peter denied Jesus three times. He was, however, never "out of God's will," as Jesus had already told him he would be the rock upon which His church would be built.

We have to remember that God has called us to Him. He will qualify us according to His plans, and even though we may stumble, forgiveness is available to us. Every Sunday, and today is not different, Tony talks about standing in judgement. We cannot say to our fellow Christian, "you will have to answer to God for your sin," for if he is saved (and only God can truly know,) then Romans 5:9 states that the believer is "...now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." (KJV) Our mortal lives may face the consequences of our missteps, but our eternal lives are never on the line when we are covered in the blood.

Rev. Tony was absolutely correct when he proclaimed, "We win!" Those headlines have been written in RED.

Reba Webb Goff

Reba Jerleen Webb Goff was born in Glenmary, Scott County, Tennessee to John Henry Webb and Virgie Belle Webb, nee Grimes. She was the first of three children, born during the depression. She had one brother, James Lonnie (Buddy) and one sister, Shelba Jean. In 1932, the family moved from the hills of Tennessee and the land that had been in the Webb family for generations to Ludlow, Kenton County, Kentucky. Reba is my mother.

When John Webb could find work during the depression years, it was often doing odd jobs such as carrying ice and working for the WPA. John's brother, Will, had moved to Northern Kentucky with the Southern Railroad, and eventually, John worked there too.

Virgie always worked, doing laundry for other people or whatever she could to help make ends meet. She worked in Nell Donnelly's store for awhile and eventually bought it from Nell. She carried groceries all over Ludlow, making deliveries for extra cash.

Reba is a product of the Ludlow Independent School system, having graduated from high school in 1948. She has always talked about Anna Jean Fightmaster, whom she said was her best friend through school. There are photographs of the two of them on various trips.

In 1950, Reba married Paul Goff, in a small ceremony in the parsonage of First Baptist Church of Ludlow. The two set up housekeeping living upstairs over Clarence and Gladys Dunnegan's house across from the church. I came along in 1958, and they had moved to Church Street. By 1960, Paul wanted to move to the country. So they borrowed money from Paul's dad for a down payment and bought a house on Bullittsville Road in Burlington, Boone County, Kentucky.

Paul and Reba immediately began attending Burlington Baptist Church to which they eventually moved their membership.

Reba didn't drive in those years. She worked for Reeve's Drive-in in Florence, and Paul would load me into his Impala and drive her to work at 5:00 and go and get her sometime after 11:00. Somehow, they made that work even though he worked everyday on the Railroad.

Reba's house was immaculate. One could still eat a scrambled egg off the floor of her kitchen and never fear (a weird gene that did not get passed to me.) We had that little bitty house, and every 10 years or so, Reba and Paul would decide to paint the walls and try something different. Yet, it was always simple and neat.

It was sometime in the early 70s that Reba went to work for the Boone County Fiscal Court. Her friend from church, Billie Jo Morris, was beginning a juvenile program in Boone County under the auspices of then County Judge Bruce Ferguson. They asked Reba to come to work, an opportunity for which Reba was always grateful.

Reba is two things: a died in the wool Roosevelt democrat and a strict Southern Baptist. I think she has crossed over in her voting a few times, but never in her spiritual life. She's the rock on a Rock. In the late 60s and early 70s, Reba taught Sunday School. (She was my teacher at least three times. Billie Jo was my teacher four times that I can recall, not to mention my GA leader.) Reba was always the realist in the family too. If someone (I) wanted to take dance lessons, Paul was all for it, but Reba would second guess whether it was right. Paul usually won, and when awards or accolades came as a result, Reba was usually all smiles. Yet, having said that, Reba was usually the one who ended up taking her daughter to all those lessons that Paul decided she should have. Tisk, I regress.

Reba has a million friends. No joke. True Friends. .. At least a million. She knows everybody, and everybody seems to know her. All one has to do is be nice to her, and she'll be their friend for life. She builds people up and defends them. She's very naive, but that's definitely worked for her. Her closest friends have to be Bea & Larky Smith, Mabel & Darrell Reed, Frances Love and Billie Jo Morris. She's also close to her sister-in-law, Dorothy Webb, although she gets frustrated when Dorothy gets snippy. (I don't think she means to get snippy, but she doesn't like to answer many questions.)

Reba is now 79 years young and still works as often as she is needed. She loves working for the county, mostly because she loves being with people. Judge Executive Gary Moore and County Administrator Jeff Earlywine seem to take very good care of her. Daphne Kornblum and Robin Curry also look out for her. They pretty much allow her to come and go as she wants, but Reba would never ever take advantage of that. She'll always agree to work longer hours during vacation season and employee illnesses, even at the chagrin of her family and friends who think she ought to slow the pace a bit.

Reba is my mother. As much trouble as I've managed to give her in my life, I thank God for her everyday. She taught her daughter well and made sure she was well rounded in her life experiences and studies. She taught me about Jesus. She made sure I knew (and still know) that I could always come home. No matter what, I could always come home. That is one incredible foundation.