Ron Brunger went home to be with the Lord Wednesday afternoon after a painful struggle with bladder cancer. We don’t know the funeral arrangements yet, but we can all be in prayer for Janet as she makes these plans.
Ron was an interior designer for International Harvester. He was very artistic and made his own Christmas and birthday cards. When we created our Easter set, he was the brains behind the design. Not only did the set look professional, but every stud and dry-wall screw were its place for the construction crew. He was a detail perfectionist, which made him successful in his career.
But more important than that, Ron had a heart for Christ. Some painful experiences in his life made him a sold-out Christian. On his death bed, I asked him what he wanted us to remember about him after he was gone. He thought a moment then replied, “I want people to remember that I loved everybody. There was a time when I had some enemies, but not now.”
What will you remember about Ron Brunger?
Tags: Remembering
I took a couple of days off from this blog to get caught up on some other things. Now back to the work at hand.
The Holy Spirit is the forgotten (or ignored) part of the Trinity. God is a three-part Being: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father is the Creator, the Son is the Redeemer, and the Spirit is the Sanctifier (another form of the word Holy). All three were involved in the creation of the world and man.
Today the Son (Jesus) sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. The Son is the part of God that relates to us today. So, if we ignore the Holy Spirit, or minimize His role in our lives, we are thus minimizing or ignoring God in our lives. The Holy Spirit guides and directs, but only as we seek Him. As we’ve discovered in the scriptures, God loves to hide and encourages us to seek Him out. “Seek and you shall find,” Jesus taught His disciples.
As we seek for God, by searching His Word, prayer (both talking and listening), and meditation, the Spirit of God speaks to our human spirit the steps we need to take. This is what being led of the Spirit is.
We can expect God to lead us as we seek Him. Have you seen this work in your life? Tell us about it.
Tags: Holy Spirit
This is the end of the school year. I attended Kindergarten in Butler in 1951/52. It was the beginning of the baby boom and the school was over crowded, so my class was held at the Butler Carnegie Library, in the basement. I have fond memories of that scarey place.
At the end of the first or second grade, we ended the school year with a field trip. My class all boarded a passenger train at the Depot in Butler and rode to Kendallville. From there we walked to the Kraft candy factory and took a tour of how candy was made. We all got free candy, as well. Then we caught another train later in the day back to Butler.
In all my years in the public school system, that was the most memorable field trip I can remember. What can you remember about a year end field trip in your school days?
This week I am filling in for the DeKalb County Jail Chaplain, who is out of town. I received a request to visit an inmate from Allen County whose pastor was not available to visit him. It was a profitable visit as this young man was seriously seeking God. He had some very good questions about the Bible that I was able to answer.
This young man had made some bad choices and got himself mixed up with some pretty rough characters doing some pretty dumb things here in DeKalb County. Being from a mixed-race ethnic background, these white guys attempted to terrorize him with threats of lynching from a backyard tree. This scared him badly. Fortunately for all involved, the local police arrested him on a substance abuse charge and locked him up.
This eye-opening experience forced him to turn to God. He wanted to change his life and pursue God like he had heard about years ago in the Allen County Juvenile Center (formerly Wood Youth Center). Join me in praying for this young man, that God will give him a plan to carry out his dream, and not fall back into the same thing. Life change is what Christianity is really all about.
Tags: conversion, fear, jail, prejudice
Saturday morning I was asked to speak to Cancer survivors and their caregivers and supporters at the DeKalb County Relay for Life, which is a fund-raiser for cancer research. I was surprised they asked me, because I’ve never been involved with the Relay for Life (formerly known as Walk-for-Life). My first thought was that really didn’t fit my purpose, but then I thought about what an opportunity it was to speak to people facing a life-threatening disease about hope.
So, I shared about some lessons I learned battling prostate cancer:
1. I am Not Invincible.
A. Things Happen That Aren’t Supposed to Happen.
B. To Reevaluate What I’ve Been Taught.
C. To Deal With My Own Mortality.
2. God Will Direct Me.
A. He Arranges Coincidences.
B. Everyone Has A Home Remedy.
3. I Am An Overcomer.
A. To Make the Most of Every Day.
B. To Have Empathy With Others.
C. I Can Encourage Others.
These are things I have learned the hard way. Any lessons you could add that you’ve learned while going through the fire?
Tags: cancer, faith, lessons, trouble
We received word that Jeff Munsey went home to be with the Lord Tuesday morning. Jeff has been attending church for a number of years, coming first with his mother, Sharon, with whom I graduated from High School.
Jeff had an interest in softball and played on our church’s softball team. Jeff had a bit of a handicap and was pretty clumsy out on the field, but he longed to belong. The team members took him under their wing and coached him along the way. He had his turn at bat and worked hard at it, but everyone knew he would get “out”. Jeff was a liability to the team, but he was accepted. After awhile, the opposing teams on the church league, who were sometimes very competitive, saw what was happening and began to cut Jeff some slack, and play along.
Everyone worked together to make Jeff feel like he belonged and was part of the team. That’s what was important, not winning. But they all went home as winners.
Is there someone you know who really wants to belong, but can’t? Give them a hand, make them feel a part, and everybody wins. What will you remember about Jeff Munsey?
Tags: acceptance, help, Remembering
Several years ago I bumped into an old friend at a funeral home visit. I knew he had a reputation for being lazy and living off his girlfriend’s parents. So I asked him, “Where are you working now?” He replied that he wasn’t working anywhere at the time, he was “waiting on my disability.”
There are four ways you can go after money in this life:
1. Borrow it
2. Beg for it
3. Steal it
4. Earn it
The word “earn” is defined as to introduce something new into existence and to harvest the yield that it produces. When you go to work eight hours a day, forty hours a week, you harvest a paycheck for your time and labor. That is God’s law of sowing and reaping in operation.
Conversely, the welfare system gives a man his food and money without his having to work for it. God’s way is to develop His wisdom in your life so that you will always have the ability to earn money, even if the government system fails.
There should always be provision from the masses for those who cannot work, but if a man hasn’t earned it, he loses self respect and becomes dependent upon others instead of God. Agree or disagree? Is there another side to this?
Tags: money, welfare, work