Lock Down!

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope that you all had a great weekend and are looking expectantly for good things to happen in this new week.  As I went out and about over this last weekend, I noticed that things seem to be quickly returning back to normal in the Tulsa metropolitan area.  On Saturday morning I took a quick trip to our local PetSmart to pick up another bag of Fiver’s Purina Pro Plan.  The store was a buzz with happy shoppers and dogs on leashes or carried in people’s arms!  I’m not sure, but I think one older lady was trying to pick me up!  While I was standing in line (still with 6 feet distancing), I noticed a lady holding a small (kind of scraggily… to be honest) dog a few feet away from me looking at some doggie treats when she suddenly looked up and caught my gaze.  

So, I smiled at her and said “Hello” and then looked aside.  But after a few seconds, I uncomfortably noticed that she was still staring at me.  When I looked back her way, she nodded to her pooch and said, “She’s my baby!”  So again, I smiled and retorted that “Mine is 70 lbs” and she just kept staring at me with a weird sort of smile…  Thank God that I was saved by the moving line of customers at the cashier and could give my undivided attention to the young gal at the register who almost immediately started asking me what kind of dog I had.

From there I made a beeline for the car and headed off to the nearby Neighborhood Walmart. At times like that, I truly miss having my savior Piper around.  Whenever that happened in the past, Piper had a way of snuggling up to me with a big smile that let everyone know that I was private property… Another of those privileges of marriage that one doesn’t often think about! 

Well, like I said earlier, Walmart was also fairly crowed as well as the gas station I stopped at before returning home.  On Sunday afternoon, I had a delicious lunch with JoAnna, Jeremiah and Sarah Piper.  I had bought their practically new Weber gas BBQ from them a month or so ago when they realized that they hardly use it anymore being as they smoke most of their meats now.  My older Weber was needing some replacement parts and I decided to forgo the sentimental value of the family BBQ that my folks bought us many years ago and buy theirs for less than it would cost me to fix mine!   

So, after lunch we packed it in their truck, dropped it off in my backyard and then headed to Bass Pro.  The big sportsman’s store was packed with a lot of happy, smiling folks who looked… and many said… were glad to be out after being in, as they termed it, “Lock Down” for so long!  I was finally able to get myself a new pair of hiking boots and a compact lantern/bug zapper light for the upcoming camping trip the kids invited us on next weekend.  The one interesting part was all the empty displays where canoes, kayaks and some fishing boats were normally displayed.  At first we thought that there was a boat show going on somewhere and then we realized that all the missing items are manufactured in China and not available right now! 

All in all, I had a very enjoyable weekend.  I also had an enjoyable spiritual time this weekend.  I recently picked up an old, well-worn paperback copy of Oral Roberts’ autobiography entitled “Expect A Miracle, my life and ministry.”  Piper and I followed the ministry of Oral Roberts from a distance for many years.  His calling and ministry is very similar to Rhema and Oral and the Hagin’s were personal friends.  

Oral Roberts University in nearby Tulsa works closely with graduates of Rhema Bible College who want to continue their education at the school which is considered to be one of the largest, most influential Christian liberal arts universities in the world.  I’ve toured the university and drive by it fairly regularly and am always impressed by its modern architecture & it’s over 300-acre beautiful and well-kept grounds.  It is a highly regarded and respected Christian establishment of higher education out here in the south.

We have numerous books written by Reverend Robert’s in our personal library, but I had not read his life’s story.  Once I opened the book, I found it hard to put down.  I was heartened to discover some of the close personal similarities, not only toward the types of things that he faced as he began to step out in following the calling on his life, but also in the ways and words in which he “heard” the Lord directing and explaining His path, the how-tos,  and many times, the best ways to stand strong in the midst of the persecution (as Oral put it, “from both bad and good people) that was sure to come from those who didn’t agree.*

Jesus touched upon this very subject in Matthew 5:11 when He taught the crowds during His Sermon on the Mount declaring: “How ecstatic you can be when people insult and persecute you and speak all kinds of cruel lies about you because of your love for me!” (The Passion Translation)  

Brother Roberts also explained one of his signature terms that had become very endearing and truthful to us, early on in Piper’s and my marriage and ministry.  It was the unmovable belief of “knowing that you know” when God speaks to you and having that surety in “knowing” Him and His Word as a force that kept him as well as Piper and I, going when it seemed like everything and everyone around us was coming against us. 

I have often told of my personal revelation of Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:19 where he prayed for the church that “you will know Christ's love, which goes far beyond any knowledge” (God’s Word ©)  And how many times, it was the single source that kept me going in the midst of my spinning world when Piper got sick.  It was the understanding that Paul was describing a most intimate and very personal and experiential “knowing” of Christ’s love for me that gave me the strength and unwavering dedication to follow and believe His Word… even when others around me strongly and angrily disagreed with me and were in effect (according to Matthew 5:11) arguing with God.

I guess that we all find ourselves facing things in life that we may feel are unique to us.  It is of great relief to me to discover that even those who have received significantly greater callings face the same things that we do!  It is comforting to me to find out, that I wasn’t and NEVER will be alone in the things I face in this life!  How about you?

Have a great week!  Get out and enjoy life and continue to put your trust totally, and unmovably in God and the truth of His Word!  (Get to the place where “you know that you know!)”

*I would be quick to notate here, that I am in no way, shape or form trying to equate the things that we felt the Lord had directed us to do as being anywhere near the scope and extent of Oral Roberts’ world-reaching ministry and the literally hundreds of thousands of people that his ministry touched.