Spit Out the Bones

From 1972 until 1976 I worked at Mueller Foundry while a student in college here in Chattanooga.  It was hot, dirty, and heavy work, but it paid well.  Since I was in school, I worked afternoon shift and night shift, depending on what was available.  I had several great foremen who helped mold me as a young man.  One was a black man who wore a blue hardhat all of the time.  At lunch time (which was at 7:30 pm) he would take off his hard hat and his Afro was formed exactly like his hardhat as if the hard hat was still there.  He had a Mason jar of hot peppers marinating in vinegar in the office.  He would bring a fried chicken breast sandwich and sprinkle some of the pepper pot liquor on the chicken to spice it up.  He always puzzled me: the chicken breast had the backbone and ribs in it, but he ate it on a sandwich.  One night I asked him, “John, how in the world do you eat that sandwich without choking on the bones?!”  He replied, “I just eat the chicken and the bread, and spit out the bones and the cartilage.”  Sounded pretty simple.  Hey, I have learned in life to do the same with advice.  Not everyone has good advice all the time.  Not everyone has good spiritual insight all the time.  But everyone has SOME good advice and SOME spiritual insight all the time.  I just have to be discerning.  I must listen, consider, and be able to discern between good advice and poor advice.  And just like John, I use the good advice and spit out the bad advice bones.  So, exactly how do I discern between good advice and poor advice?  Paul told young Timothy how to be discerning when he said in II Timothy 3:16&17, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”  When someone gives me advice, I compare the advice to Scripture.  If the advice lines up with Scripture, I take it; if it doesn’t line up with Scripture, I spit it out.  And that is good advice.

What Smart Phones Can't Do

What a new world we are living in!  With my smart phone, I don’t need anything else.  I can put in an address and drive across the country without a map.  It even warns me if there is a traffic slowdown and provides an alternate route.  It warns me if a speed trap is ahead and I am going too fast.  I can Google anything.  In a moment, I can find out how many children Martin Luther had or when the last Tasmanian wolf died.  I can know the current temperature in Dublin, Ireland or where the Bible verse is that talks about Belshazzar’s writing on the wall (I just used spell check for Belshazzar).  But the smartphone can’t help me to make smart decisions.  Google can’t help me to plan for what’s happening in the world next year.  The internet can’t help me to know how to plan my life.  But God can.  Hey, only the dear Lord above knows the future and can help me to navigate safely into it.  Solomon said in Proverbs 3:5&6, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”  Google can help with facts, but only God can help with the application of those facts to live my life.  Google maps can get me across the country, but only God can help me to make it safely home to heaven.  Trust God: He is really, really smart.

Uncle Glenn

My dad had three brothers.  Two of them lived near us in Maryland and the other, Uncle Glenn, live in Richmond.  Uncle Glen, his wife, and his three children would come up and visit Granny Whitely a couple times a year (Donna, Cheryl, and Aunt Bernice always read my posts.  Thank you).  Since we lived next door to Granny, we would get to see our cousins a couple of times a year too.  Uncle Glenn worked at Reynolds Aluminum company and would bring my mother a big rolls of aluminum foil.  They were much larger rolls than the ones that were sold in the grocery store, so my mother liked them.  They were the leftovers from the end of the manufacturing rolls and were discarded scrap.  But Uncle Glenn had one stipulation with his gift: we had to call the rolls of aluminum foil “Reynold’s Wrap” (because that’s what they really were).  So my mother was careful to do that.  As a matter of fact, I still call aluminum foil, Reynold’s Wrap!  Hey, for free stuff, that wasn’t too much to ask.  And that’s the way it is with God.  Salvation is free to us sinners.  The only stipulation is that we must ask Jesus for the free gift of salvation.  And that’s not too much to ask.  God could have asked us to do any number of things, but He didn’t.  He just wants us to ask Him for our free salvation.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:7&8, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”  If you want salvation and eternal life, just ask God in simple faith.  If you wanted free aluminum foil, you just had to call it Reynolds Wrap … to Uncle Glenn.