Page 3 – Richard S. Hipps

Responding Well In 2016

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Chuck Swindoll is right. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. As a parent who has buried a child, I am deeply moved by the way Rick and Kay Warren are responding to their son’s death. The first sermon Rick Warren preached after Matthew’s suicide he called, “How to Get Through What You’re Going Through.”

In that sermon he said, “For 27 years I prayed every day of my life for God to heal my son’s mental illness. It didn’t make sense why this prayer wasn’t being answered. When you go through a difficult time, you automatically start to try and find an answer. But explanations never comfort. You don’t need explanations; you need the presence of God.”

Interestingly, both Rick and Kay Warren described having something like a premonition on April 5 before receiving confirmation that Matthew had taken his life. Kay says, “The day Matthew passed away I had this terrible sense of foreboding. Without going into all the circumstances of why, I had a pretty good reason to believe that Matthew had taken his life.”

Kay says that on that day she deliberately chose to wear a necklace with the words “Choose Joy” on it. Choose Joy is the title of the book Kay had written the year previously. She says, “With hands shaking, heart pounding, stomach heaving, not really thinking clearly, but by knowing that by putting it on, I was fighting back against the nightmare that I was pretty sure was going to unfold that day.” Later, as their worst nightmare became a reality, she raised the necklace to her husband. “I raised to Rick,” she says, “in a very tiny, feeble, attempt to affirm that which I really believed to be the truth, that I could ‘choose’ joy even as my heart was shattering into a million pieces.”

Choice, response, is a spiritual discipline we all need to learn. It helps us use life experiences as a curriculum for spiritual growth. Christians will suffer the same hardships as non Christians but we will suffer them differently. We know God doesn’t will evil but he can use it. In this fallen world when our times of trouble come, we don’t ask, “Why did God do this to me?” What believers ask is, “Since this has happened, how can God use it?”

The Apostle Paul models this perfectly for us. In prison, in Rome, cold and hungry, he writes to the Philippians:

“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.” (Philippians 1:12-14)

Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond. I challenge us to remember this as we enter a new year. We can’t control what happens to us but we can control how we respond to what happens to us. Events can give us pain or joy but our spiritual growth is determined by how we respond. Respond well in 2016 to whatever enters your life. Determine to let this be your witness to those who do not know what you know, that God is at work in ways that even we do not fully understand.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Richard Hipps

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Thanksgiving vs. Hopelessness

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John Claypool has been a tremendous influence on my life both as a pastor and as a father who has buried one of his children. Claypool modeled for me resilience in facing the unimaginable pain of lowering a child into the grave. We indeed became fellow strugglers.

Laura Lou, Claypool’s daughter, died at the age of 10 with leukemia. Where does a Baptist pastor go when he, himself, is in need of pastoral care? Claypool turned to a friend, a rabbi, whom he had known for years.

At one point when Claypool was unusually low, he told his rabbi friend, “I think it is hopeless.” His rabbi friend said, “John, come into my office and sit with me. I want to talk to you about what you have just said.”

This is how John Claypool describes what happened in the rabbi’s study:

“I still remember how unhurriedly he lit his pipe and disappeared
for a moment in a cloud of smoke. As the smoke began to dissipate,
he said, ‘I need to tell you something young man. To the Jew, there is
only one unforgivable sin, and that is the sin of despair.'”

He continued:

“Humanly speaking, despair is presumptuous. It is saying something
about the future that we have no right to say because we have not been
there yet and do not know enough.

Think of the times you have been surprised in the past as you looked
at a certain situation and deemed it hopeless. Then, lo and behold, forces
that you did not even realize existed broke in and changed everything.
We do not know enough to embrace the absolutism of despair and,
theologically speaking, despair is downright heretical.”

Claypool concludes,

” That exchange occurred over 40 years ago, yet here I am recounting
these words once again because of the powerful impact they have had
on me.”

This Thanksgiving let’s remind ourselves that we don’t know enough to embrace the absolutism of despair. Rather, let’s begin recounting the many times God has shown himself to be faithful. There’s a lot of wisdom in that old hymn “Count Your Blessings.”

God is trustworthy and will see us through. Please, never doubt that. It’s like what I heard a teenager say once; “God didn’t pluck us out of the river to drown us in the ocean.”

Richard

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God Is Good (All The Time)

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I have been preaching for years that our good God is telling a good story with a good ending. I will go to my grave believing this. Jesus’ whole life was a life lived with childlike trust in his Father’s goodness. You cannot have an intimate walk with God unless you believe God is good.

How many of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus really believe that God is good all the time? If we are honest there are times when we are tempted to doubt God’s goodness.

If God is good….Why did he???
If God is good….Why hasn’t he???
If God is good….Why won’t he???

These types of questions illustrate what the Apostle Paul calls “the carnal mind.” We imagine the best life possible, based on worldly comforts and benefits, and then we imagine it is God’s job to give us those good things.

The carnal mind is the one that hears “God is good” and secretly thinks, “Let me sift through the evidence of my experience and then I’ll decide if that’s true. What we need instead is the humble attitude that says to God, “I am in no condition or position to judge you or your character.”

If we are following the example of our Lord, we will say, “No matter what happens, I will stand on the truth that God is good and I will wait for God’s goodness to play itself out even if I have to wait until I get to heaven.”

Think about it. What helped Jesus accept and embrace the cross? Was it not his unwavering belief in God’s goodness? In Hebrews 12:2 we read, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Friend, are you tempted to doubt God’s goodness because of some unanswered prayer? Some great loss? Some great pain? Don’t fall into that trap. Be like Jesus. He refused to doubt and chose rather a childlike confidence in the goodness of God. It is he who taught us that our God is a good God who is telling a good story with a good ending.

I love what C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, GOD IN THE DOCK. He says, “In Hamlet a branch breaks and Ophelia is drowned. Did she die because the branch broke or because Shakespeare, the author, wanted her to die at that point in the play?” We come close to believing that God has failed in some way when someone dies. But Scripture says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Revelation 14:13).

Why haven’t we come to believe that yet? Revelation 14:13 doesn’t say “Precious in his sight is the death of his saints who live pain free lives and die in their sleep at the age of 100.” It says “saints” and that includes our little 4-year-old Alexandra who went home to heaven in 1993. Was her death “good” in the temporal sense? No, of course not. We have missed her madly these 22 years.

However, because we believe that our God is a good God telling a good story, we will wait in faith for the good ending. The worst thing that happens to us will not be the last thing to happen to us. Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, is the last thing to happen to us. He will write that final paragraph and I can hardly wait to see how things end. Can you hold on with us till then?

Richard

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Sowing Seeds

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Two of our dear friends (Dale and Lueretta Shook) are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this week. They were members of our very first pastorate, Beaver Creek Baptist Church, in Spruce Pine, NC. I went there as pastor when I was in my senior year at Mars Hill University. Beaver Creek prepared me for a lifetime of ministry and I owe those dear folks so much. As church members, Dale and Lueretta were special friends. They bought me clothes (Patricia too), taught me how to trout fish, and encouraged us endlessly.

I look back over my life and I’m so thankful for church members like the Shooks, teachers, coaches, and friends who were used of God to sow seeds into my life that later took root and bore fruit. As a pastor I often wonder about the seeds I’ve planted over these four decades of ministry. How has God worked through Patricia and me both here and abroad? Will our work “follow us” after we have left this world? We sure pray it does.

My favorite preacher, Dr. Fred Craddock, tells about a phone call he received one day “out of the blue.” It was from a woman whose father had died. He remembered that this woman had been a teenager in a church he had served 20 years earlier. He also remembered that this girl never listened while he was preaching and was always passing notes and giggling with her friends in the balcony.

But now, having suffered the loss of her daddy, she was calling her former pastor. She said, “Dr. Craddock, I don’t know if you remember me.” Oh yes, he remembered. She continued, “When my daddy died, I thought I was going to come apart. I cried and cried.
But then I remembered something you said in one of your sermons.”

Fred Craddock couldn’t believe his ears. She actually remembered something he said in a sermon? I have had the same experience over and over. People writing me or contacting me on Facebook to thank me for something I said or did long forgotten on my part. It’s incredible and humbling to be reminded that God is doing all sorts of things through us that have lasting effects, whether we remember it or not.

God remembers! And that’s why our life review with Jesus one day will stun us as to what God can and does through one solitary life. I try to remind myself of the Bigger Story on those days when I am discouraged and “weary in well doing.” You should too. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like sowing seeds and we never know how or when the seed will take root. Since we cannot tell which seeds will germinate, let’s be generous in the way we sling seeds and trust God’s grace to do the rest.

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Delicious Ambiguity

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Years ago I bought a book by Gilda Radner called, IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING. If you remember, Gilda Radner was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live. She begins her book this way:

I started out to write a different book about my life as a homemaker. I
wanted to tell you about my experiences with the toaster oven, the
plumbers, mailmen, and delivery people.

But life dealt me a more complicated story. On October 21, 1986, I was
diagnosed with cancer–a more lethal foe than the interior decorator.

Cancer is perhaps the most unfunny thing in the world. So, this is a
seriously funny book. One that confirms my father’s favorite expression,
“It’s always something.”

I found myself wanting to laugh and cry as I read Gilda’s account of her heroic struggle
with the disease that eventually took her life. In the conclusion of her book she writes:

Some poems don’t rhyme, and some of life’s stories are really hard
to understand. They never turn out the way we set out to write them.
There is just too much delicious ambiguity.

I love the way she describes life’s uncertainties: “delicious ambiguities.” Think about
the meaning of each of these words:

delicious: very pleasing, delightful, sweet, delectable, enjoyable

ambiguity: not clearly defined, obscure, uncertain, incomprehensible

As I write these words I am listening to Christmas music (yes, I listen to Christmas music all year long because Christmas music lifts my mood). I’m thinking of Joseph and Mary and how they experienced delicious ambiguity. Was it confusing when the angel gave them two different names for their son?

The first name, JESUS, means “savior.” The second name , IMMANUEL, means “God with us.” The pairing of these names signals a reversal in our typical understanding of salvation. We don’t usually think of salvation as having God with us. We would rather think of salvation as our being with God. As being “saved from” how it is in this life.

But, dear ones, being a follower of Jesus doesn’t save us from a blessed thing here on earth. God never promised to save us from grief, or illness, or heartache, or injustice.
What God does promise is to be with us regardless of what we have to face in life.

Presence, not protection, is the promise of Scripture. The little story God is
writing for each of us will definitely be filled with delicious ambiguity. Count on it. That’s just a given in this life. But also count on this: our good God is writing a good story with a good ending. And, the ending I’m talking about is not the ending of our little story but the ending of God’s Bigger Story. With Jesus, we are part of a Story much larger than our own.

Richard

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Trusting God’s Good Story

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M. Night Shyamalan’s movie, SIGNS, was on TV the other night and I found myself re-entering a story I had seen years ago. It’s about an Episcopal priest who lives with his two children and his brother in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

When his wife dies tragically, the priest asks people to no longer call him “Father” because he has given up on the faith that once guided his life. He even refuses to ask the blessing before a meal and says, “I’m not wasting one more minute of my life in prayer.”

This fictional priest’s response to his loss is so different from the real life response of a man named Randy Hoyt. Here is his story in his own words:

“Doctors and nurses were doing everything possible for my wife, the mother
of our children, yet I could see the hopelessness in their faces.

Through an emergency C-section during the fifth month of her pregnancy, it
was discovered that the detached placenta had grown through the uterus and
attached itself to her bladder.

Bleeding was so profuse during surgery that Kris was given 30 units of blood.
As the night wore on, her battle for life became desperate.

I cried out, ‘God what do you want? I know you can heal her; why don’t you?’
In the middle of my darkest night, God began to speak. I wanted a miracle.
He wanted to discuss his nature.

‘Do you believe I am a loving God?’, the Spirit asked. Sitting beside my wife’s
bed, amid the chaos of the ICU, I needed to answer that question.

I could have said, ‘No, God cannot be a loving God. Look around here. My
wife is dying. My newborn daughter may die. I have to go home and tell my
six children that their mother will not come home again…ever.

But that night God gave me the grace to see him as he is. ‘Yes,’ I told him.
‘You are a good God. No matter what happens here tonight, I will not question
your nature.’

Kris’ condition worsened. Kris understood that all life is precious and was
determined to give our child all she had to help her struggle to live. In the end,
it cost Kris her life. Little Grace lived 16 days.

‘What about our plans, God?’, I asked. ‘Who will teach the kids, guide them,
and love them like their mother?’

God spoke to a friend and he headed up an effort which became known as
HELP BRING HOPE TO THE HOYT KIDS. In six months, hundreds of people
worked, sent money, donated supplies, and poured love into our family.

Churches provided food daily and I received 500 letters from people who
said they were praying for us.

I am writing this in the house God has given us. The medical bills are gone.
The house is paid for. I am working and my children are doing well in school.

One night I lay awake tormented with the memory of Kris fighting for her life.
I tried to remember her with the light of life in her eyes, but all I could see
was death.

I could feel myself falling into depression when suddenly before me was a
vision of Kris, so perfectly alive in Christ, shining and healthy. No pain, just
pure joy on her face.

‘See her as she is now,’ the Holy Spirit seemed to say. ‘She is alive.’ Someday
we’ll all be together with Jesus and our little daughter Grace.

I asked God for the life of my wife; I received instead a lesson on the nature
of God. God is good… Armed with that knowledge, I have no fear for today
or for the future. God will be enough for any situation.”

Two men; a fictional character named Father Graham Hess and a real widower named
Randy Hoyt. Both suffer the same loss; only one accepts it as part of a larger, more
complete, more perfect plan.

In each of our lives there will come times when disappointment, doubt, failure, pain, and suffering will make it particularly hard to walk by faith.This was certainly true in the life of the Apostle Paul.

Making the best of bad situations, Paul, with the help of scribes, scribbled words on a bit of parchment. Those words, those letters, became much of what we call the New Testament.

Remember Paul when life throws you a detour. Much of the New Testament was written
from a jail cell. If it had not been for Paul’s hardship, we would be the poorer for it.

It all boils down to one thing; we either believe in a Story much larger than our own,
or we don’t. We can either put all our eggs in our tiny little three score and ten, or we
can invest them in something that is much grander and far more important.

Dedicate your little story to God’s Bigger Story regardless as to how your little story unfolds. Have a faith that is eternal and not temporal trusting that a good God is writing a good story
with a good ending.

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Dealing With Our Low Moods

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Feelings or moods can be slight or extreme and, in either case, we are never in one place emotionally for too long. When we are in a high mood, life looks good, doesn’t it? When we are emotionally high, things don’t feel so hard, we don’t take things too seriously, problems seem less difficult, and relationships flow much more easily.

But in low moods, life can look unbearably serious and hard. When we’re feeling low, we often misinterpret that which is happening to us and around us. Some of us fail to realize that our moods are always on the run, especially as we experience the transitions of life. We are all going to experience low moods because this is just part of what it means to be human.

The feelings we have in a low mood are not necessarily a reflection of reality. They are just feelings we feel in a low mood. Most of what we feel in a low mood are negative feelings and what we must teach ourselves to do is be patient with ourselves until our mood rises, which it will. I call this “out-waiting the devil.” You have the Spirit of patience. He doesn’t. In a low mood, you need to have patience with others and yourself. When we are in a low mood, any and every thing seems to upset us, doesn’t it?

It’s like the woman who was walking in front of a pet store which had a lot of animals outside in cages. Looking at the woman, a parrot in a cage yells out, “Hey lady, you’re ugly!” She couldn’t believe what she heard until the bird, again looking straight at her, repeated, “Hey lady, you’re ugly!”

Incensed, she went inside and confronted the pet store owner. The owner was appalled and said, “Ma’am, I am so sorry and I assure you that parrot will never do that again.” Walking out together, the woman and store owner passed by the bird’s cage. Dead silence. The bird said nothing.

The next day, the woman had to pass that way again and wondered if the parrot had truly repented. As she passed by, the parrot yelled, “Hey lady,” and both the pet store owner and the woman wanted to see what he’d say next. The parrot, looking at the woman, said, “You know.”

When we are in a low mood, even what a bird says to us can upset us. So, what are we to do? Let me suggest a 3D approach to dealing with our low moods:

1. You must DISCIPLINE yourself daily, hourly, minute by minute, to pay attention to your thinking.
Christians must think about how they think. Thoughts are the birthplace of every act. Study your
thoughts. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand your unhealthy thought patterns.

2. You must DECIDE to master your thoughts. You must DECIDE to embrace the clear parameters
as given in Philippians 4:8. If your thinking is straying from that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely,
admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy, then you are off course.

3. You must DETERMINE to consciously replace bad thoughts with good thoughts. Jesus taught us
to do this. “Bless those who curse you,” Jesus said. Instead of cursing them, bless them. “Pray
for those who despitefully use you.” Don’t seek revenge. Pray for them.” “Render good for evil.”
“Forgive.”

Starting today, let’s bring every single thought captive to Christ. It takes practice so don’t give up. I love the way THE MESSAGE paraphrases II Corinthians 10:5:

“We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience and maturity.”

I pray for healthy and wholesome thinking for all who read these words.

Richard

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Brother and Sister Anonymous

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I owe so much of my spiritual heritage to people I have never met and know little or nothing about. One of the joys of heaven, I believe, will be seeing our lives from the perspective of God’s Big Story. And in that story there are so many individuals God has used anonymously to fulfill his purposes. How much of our own life’s work has been done anonymously? By that I mean, are we aware of every way God has used our lives or will use them even after we are gone?

Let me give you an example. In the seventeenth century an anonymous elderly nun wrote a prayer. This is what she prayed:

Lord, you know better than I know myself that I am growing older, and will someday be old. Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to straighten out everybody’s affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but you know, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end. Keep my mind from the recital of endless details–giving me wings to come to the point.

I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of other’s pains. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains–they are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by. Help me to endure them with patience.

I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint–some of them are so hard to live with–but a sour old woman is one of the crowning works of the devil.

Give me ability to see good things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people. And give me, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.

When this elderly nun wrote her prayer, she had no idea whatsoever that hundreds of years later a Baptist minister would be writing a blog using her prayer as inspiration. Scripture tells us of the possibility of our works “following us” (Revelation 14:13). This nun’s written prayer has touched millions of lives and she never knew that her small deed would carry such weight.

Neither do we. That’s why each of us should choose our words wisely and walk circumspectly because we have no idea how God will use them to advance his Kingdom. Our little “three-score-and-ten” matter. Each day brings with it tremendous opportunities to make a difference in someone’s life. Even someone who is yet to be born.

Richard

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Shining Shoes

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The late Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators, was visiting Taiwan on one of his overseas trips. During the visit he hiked with a Taiwanese pastor into one of the mountain villages to meet some of the national Christians. The roads and trails were wet and their shoes became very muddy.

Later, someone asked this Taiwanese pastor what he remembered most about Dawson Trotman. Without hesitation the man replied, “He cleaned my shoes.” How surprised this national pastor must have been to get up in the morning to find that the Christian leader from America had arisen before him and cleaned the mud from his shoes. Such a spirit of servanthood marked Dawson Trotman throughout his Christian life and ministry. He died as he lived, actually giving his life to rescue someone else from drowning.

And while we are on the subject of cleaning shoes. One of my favorite writers, Brennan Manning, was waiting to catch a plane in the Atlanta airport. He sat down to have his shoes shined where usually black men shine white men’s shoes. An elderly black man began to shine Brennan Manning’s shoes and while he was doing so, the Spirit of God spoke to Brennan Manning’s heart.

When the black man had finished, Brennan Manning paid him and gave him a generous tip. But he didn’t stop there. Looking at the elderly man who had just shined his shoes, he said, “Now, sir, you sit down in the chair because I want to shine your shoes.” “You’re going to do what?”, the elderly man said. Brennan Manning answered, “I want to shine your shoes. Come on now, sit down, and you teach me how to do it well.” As Brennan Manning began to shine the old man’s shoes, the old man began to weep. He then said, “No white man ever treated me this way.” They parted with a strong hug.

My favorite preacher, Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, caught the practical implications of servanthood: “To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others, to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom, I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory. We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1000 bill and laying it on a table–here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all. But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor’s kid’s troubles instead of saying, ‘Get lost.’ Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of cold water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul.”

Leave home every day with a quarter in your pocket and be sure to look for dirty shoes.

Richard

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I Am Angry

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By now I am sure you have heard that another prominent minister has fallen. Tullian Tchividjian, grandson of Billy Graham, has resigned as pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church because both he and his wife have had affairs. Tullian has had great success as a writer and speaker not just because he is Billy Graham’s grandson, but because he is himself gifted and anointed by God.

I am angry at Tullian for being so selfish and so weak in self discipline. Like other high profile ministers, he has brought shame upon himself, his family, and the church he was called to serve. I am ashamed that his personal sin will have a ripple effect and cause harm to so many. I am sad that his aging grandfather has to endure such pain. I am angry.

I am also angry at myself. I know that I am just as capable of falling into sin as Tullian. There lurks within my heart the same sin nature that I have fought all of my life. I know the power and pull of the dark side and I thank God for the many times I have escaped what others have not. I have prayed for years, “Lord, please let me die before I bring shame upon myself, my family, and your church.” (I’ve also told folks, “If I die suddenly, don’t think,” ‘I wonder what sin Richard was going to commit?’”)

Back to Tullian Tchividijan. I wonder if he ever watched one of my favorite movies, THE APOSTLE, staring Robert Duvall. Sonny Dewey, (Duvall’s character), is an energetic Pentecostal preacher leading a large ministry in Texas. When he discovers that his wife is having an affair with another minister on his staff, he kills his wife’s lover with a baseball bat. He is then forced to flee and resumes, anonymously, a ministry in a rural community where he tries to make sense of where sin has led him.

Early in the film, after discovering his wife’s affair, Sonny goes to God in prayer. It’s a stormy night and he’s pacing back and forth in his room raising his voice as he speaks to the Lord. Conveying his pain and anger to God he cries out:

“Somebody, I say, somebody has taken my wife; they’ve stolen my church! That’s
the temple I built for you! I’m gonna yell at you cause I’m mad at you! I can’t take
it.

Give me a sign or somethin.’ Blow this pain out of me. Give it to me tonight, Lord
God, Jehovah. If you won’t give me back my wife, give me peace. Give it to me,
give it to me, give it to me. Give me peace. Give me peace.

I don’t know who’s been foolin’ with me, you or the Devil. I don’t know. And I won’t
even bring the human into this—he’s just a mutt—so I’m not even gonna bring him
into it.

But I’m confused. I’m mad. I love you, Lord, Lord, I love you, but I’m mad at you. I am
mad at you!

So deliver me tonight, Lord. What should I do? Now tell me. Should I lay hands on
myself? What should I do? I know I’m a sinner and once in a while a womanizer,
but I’m your servant!

Ever since I was a little boy and you brought me back from the dead, I’m your
servant! What should I do? Tell me. I’ve always called you Jesus; you’ve always
called me Sonny. What should I do Jesus? This is Sonny talkin’ now.”

“But I’m your servant!” That’s what I remember most about this movie. Sin had done it’s work in Sonny’s life but he never lost his core identity. He was still a servant of the Lord, knocked down but not knocked out. Our only hope is that the God who is writing our story knows how to bring good out of terrible situations. This was Sonny’s prayer. This is Tullian’s prayer. And, it is certainly my prayer.

We ministers need the faithful prayer support of those who love us and support us. We are under constant attack, both inside and out. We know this is a battle we’ll fight until the very end. We can’t fight alone. Remember that. We can’t fight alone. Remember this too; when we fall, many will fall with us and you could be partially to blame.

Richard Hipps

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