Smarter Than a Jeopardy Champion

 

School is starting in these days. Though I have grandchildren heading to school in these days and one daughter who will be working in schools, it has been a few years since I have formally been  a student.  School is different today that it was when I was in school.   The challenges student and teachers alike face are bigger than when I was in school.   I regularly pray for my grandchildren as they are in school and for my daughter as she works in school.   I particularly pray for their safety.   I know that prayer is not a part of the everyday school life of  all schools these days.   Of course, as a wise person said many years ago, as long as students face tests, there will be prayer in schools.   I know I certainly have prayed sometimes before taking a test.    

There is something I pray for my grandchildren as they go to school even as I pray for their safety.   I pray that they may have wisdom.   There are lots of people who have intelligence.  The television screen is filled with such folks every weeknight if you watch the television show “Jeopardy”.   There are also lots of intelligent people in advanced placement classes in high school or who graduate with honors in our high schools, colleges, and universities.    Wisdom is not always synonymous with intelligence.    I know that from personal experience for some of the wisest people I have ever known did not have a high school degree much less a college degree.

In I Kings 3, we read about another who prayed for wisdom.  His name was Solomon, and he was taking on the task of being King of Israel in place of his father David.  Read here the prayer for wisdom that Solomon makes to the Lord: 

⁶ Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. ⁷ “Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. ⁸ Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. ⁹ So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours

Perhaps my grandchildren on their worst days might like for me to pray they pass a test or they have a grade point average that will get them a scholarship into the school of their choice.   I am afraid I do not pray for that, but I do pray for them to have wisdom.   Their lives will be better and this world will be better for it.   A matter of fact, all our lives will be better for it.   The world certainly needs more wise people rather than more Jeopardy contestants.  Have a joy-filled week!-  Pastor Randy Wall

 

PRAYER    Living and loving God, give us wisdom as the face the challenges of our life and this day.   Give us wisdom to discern what is your gracious and perfect  will;   through Christ our Lord.   Amen. 

Their Story and My Story

 

My story begins with their story.  A young man fresh out of high school working in a shoe store.   A teenage woman only 17 years old, still in high school, and looking for a pair of shoes.   I don’t know if he was more interested in a sale or the woman that day but a chance encounter in a shoe store led to a series of dates and finally to a trek  down to Chesterfield County SC where they were married by a justice of the peace surrounded by their family.   She was a rising senior in high school, and tried school for a few weeks when it started again.  However, it is hard for a young woman to be a wife, student, and employee at the same time so she quit school because having a paycheck seemed more important  at that time than having a diploma.

In a few months, that young married woman found herself pregnant.   This was her first pregnancy, and she was excited along with all the family.   A child was on the way.   A few months later, their joy and glee turned to woe and concern.  The doctor said that something was wrong.   Hard choices had to be made, and one of those choices was whether to follow the doctors orders and be on bedrest or continue to work her job.   Even with bedrest, the doctor still thought there was a possibility the baby would be born dead or deformed.  Though it was hard for them to make it on one income, she chose the former instead of the latter.  She spent 7 months of a 9 month pregnancy on bedrest.   In a few months, they could no longer afford  to have their own place and moved in with her parents.  

On a hot, humid afternoon in  August, the time came for the baby to be born  and they made their way to the hospital.  Would the child be born dead or alive?  Would the child be deformed like the doctor said?   To  new parents named Dennis and Shirley,  a child was born in a thunderstorm that August day.   They named the child Randy.  That child was me. And so, my life began.

 

When August rolls around every year, I celebrate another birthday.   But more than that, I remember not only the mother and father who gave me life, but give thanks to God for the gift of life.   In these days I echo these words from Psalm 139: 13-15 which say:

¹³ For you created my inmost being;   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you   when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

 I am “fearfully and wonderfully made”.   And you know what?  So are you.  Have a joy-filled week.-   Pastor Randy Wall

 

PRAYER    Creator God, thank you for giving me life and for the abundant life in Christ.   In times of darkness and gloom, help me to especially remember that I am fearfully and wonderfully made; through Christ our Lord.   Amen.