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September 2003 Table of Contents
Off The Top Of My Head
Passing This Way And That
By Jerry Evans
 This morning as I sat in Sunday school, the lesson came from the book of
James where he talks about controlling the tongue. From there I went to the worship service, where the Pastor is preaching a series of sermons from the book of Joshua. Now don't leave me yet, I know that Joshua didn't spend a lot of time talking about controlling the tongue and James didn't lead God's people into Canaan, but God used both of them to speak to me about a subject that was in neither the lesson nor the message. Our study in Joshua has, at this point, brought us to the third chapter and the Children of Israel are about to cross Jordan and proceed into the Promised Land.
Permit me for a moment to chase a rabbit. I found it interesting that as our Pastor spoke of the Ark of the Covenant representing Jesus to those of the Old Testament, the priests stepped into the water the river began to back up. Some are beginning to say, Jerry, anybody with one eye and half sense can see that. But look, it backed up to a town named Adam. I've read Joshua a bunch of times and never thought of that before. Is there a symbolism there? Someone smarter than me needs to expand on that and see if that is more than a coincidence. That's for another time; I told you I was chasing a rabbit.
Back to what God was saying to me. In the fourth verse of the third chapter, the writer says "Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before." There, that last part, that's what rung my bell (it had nothing to do with the sermon). As I read it my mind wandered back to the sixties, (You know, that time right after the dark ages when most of you think we were all "hippies") when one of the songs I loved to sing was called, "I May Never Pass This Way Again." (Never been this way before, never pass this way again, control your tongue, Jerry, get to the point.) The point is, we are all every day put into places that we have never been before and in many cases will never pass again, that being the case, we need to understand the importance of controlling more than just our tongues but our entire lives.
Jackie and I travel a lot in doing what we do in the business. We meet dozens of people for the first time ever every day, and in most cases we will never see them again. Now I'm not given a great gift of patience, but as I look back I wonder how many of those "new people" can look back at their first experience with me and see a reflection of Our Lord. Too many times, I'm afraid, the tongue started something that there was no way that Jesus could have been proud of. I'm afraid also that on too many occasions, I used the excuse that "he or she doesn't know me ("since you have never been this way before") and I will never see them again ("I May Never Pass This Way Again.") as an excuse to allow myself to do as James says, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be." (James 3: 9, 10)
Maybe I'm the only person you know with the problem of patience with people, if so, pray for me. However, I'm convinced as I look around at "God's likeness," far too many of us have made our Christianity exclusive as opposed to the inclusive love Jesus speaks about.
I hope next week my Sunday School Teacher and my Pastor will pick on somebody else and let me rest, but I have this sneaking suspicion that already God is pointing out to them another of my problems. If that's the case, we've got a long way to go before they get to somebody else.
Jerry
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