There’s a connection here with prayer (no, really—I’m serious.) Remember the story of how King Hezekiah was mortally ill with a severe infection and was dying at age 39? He turned his face to the wall and prayed passionately that the Lord would extend his life. God not only answered that prayer, but he gave his ailing king a sign that healing was on the way—the sun’s shadow went backward on his father Ahaz’s sundial staircase.

“Ordinary” Bible miracle, right? Hmmm…God decided to honor Hezekiah’s request with an extension on his life—15 more years. But if God had chosen to say No, it may be that he could foresee some worse things happening. In fact, during that extension to his life Hezekiah sired a son who at age 12 would succeed him. His name was Manasseh, and he was so wretched and evil that God decided to be done with Judah. II Kings 21:10-14 says, “The Lord said through his servants the prophets, “Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols. Therefore…I am going to bring such disaster on Judah and Jerusalem that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle….I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will be looted and plundered by their foes…”

‘Tis good to pray and pray persistently and pray passionately. But ‘tis also good to accept a “No” or “Later” cheerfully from God, trusting that he can see all future outcomes and realizing that we might have been requesting something that would turn out disastrously.

With the benefit of hindsight, have you ever realized that it was a good thing that you didn’t get what you had been praying for?

###

Straight talk  Real hope.

Except today. I have an extremely important project for which I need your help. Today I come with a request.  St. Marcus Lutheran School is recognized as an exceptional place where children from the City of Milwaukee, especially low-income kids, can receive a quality education. It brings us great joy to share with them the precious Gospel of Jesus.

This year we have packed 425 children into a building designed for 300 and have a waiting list of 57. This year alone 36 new families started their children at St. Marcus School, and most of them do not have a church home. We are raising funds for a new building that will allow us to expand to an enrollment of 600+, but we have at least $1 million to go.

There is a unique opportunity available right now through Kohl’s department stores. Kohl’s is offering $500,000 each to the 20 schools throughout America that can get the most votes on Kohl’s Facebook page.   St. Marcus School is currently ranked in the 40s (more than any other school in Wisconsin!), but with help from faithful voters, it could move up in the ranks. We are so close!

You can help by visiting www.facebook.com/kohls, typing St. Marcus Lutheran School in the search line, and voting for us. You are allowed 20 votes, and up to five can be used for us. Ask your friends to help! I hope you will forward this to your family and friends and help support a school that is not only dear to me, but vital to the entire Milwaukee urban community.

###

Straight talk.  Real hope.

I will confess to being of two minds on this one. On the one hand, the site of the proposed mosque/community center is two blocks away from Ground Zero, not in the 16 acres or even fronting it. It is private property. The current building on the block used to house a Burlington Coat Factory, and last week’s attempt to declare the BCF building a historic landmark failed. The lot and building were purchased for $5 million by a real estate developer named Sharif El-Gamel. The proposed mosque’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, had served a mosque in Tribeca, 10 blocks north of the site, for 30 years, so he’s not exactly a newly-arrived interloper.

I hate it when local governments use their zoning and permitting powers to hassle or obstruct Christian congregations when they try to develop churches or schools on land they own. So to be consistent, I should also object when government opposition to an Islamic building on private property seems arbitrary. Mayor Bloomberg agrees—he gave a speech on Governor’s Island defending his decision to allow the project to continue. Short of claiming eminent domain, what were his options?

That being said, it still seems like a lousy idea. Newsweek states that Imam Rauf has asserted publicly that he thinks American policies abroad inspired the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (in other words, the twin towers disaster is our fault.) . In fact, the assaults of 9/11 were all committed in the name of Allah. Building a house of worship for Allah in that particular spot when there are many other available lots does not strike Christians and Jews in general as an honest effort at reconciliation. It looks like just another step in Dawa, the Muslims’ duty to Islamicize “infidel” societies. The original name for the project was “Cordoba House,” perhaps a Freudian slip or perhaps deliberately chosen. Cordoba, Spain, was the center of power of the Muslim caliphate in Spain and North Africa. Imam Rauf may think that “Cordoba” suggests to Americans a happy time in Spain when Muslims and Christians got along nicely. I think it more likely that such a name would stoke American fears that Rauf and his fellow imams wish to impose Islamic Sharia law in America.

Some Carmelite nuns built a convent on the outskirts of the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. They meant well, intending it as a place for prayer and reconciliation, but it was a daily affront to Jewish groups whose ancestors had suffered and died there at the hands of “Christians.”  After more than a decade of hard feelings, Pope John Paul II in 1993 ordered the nuns to relocate.

If Imam Rauf is sincerely interested in improving Muslim/American relations, he could accomplish that goal better with a different site. If, however, he wants the Muslim world to see the mosque  as an in-your-face to America, he will stay with his site plan. Do you have an opinion?

###

Straight talk  Real hope.

Last week the Milwaukee teachers’ union, the MTEA, filed suit in Milwaukee County circuit court because the Milwaukee School Board will not pay for Viagra in its drug benefit coverage. The union alleges gender discrimination because various remedies for female sexual dysfunction are still covered. The district views Viagra as a recreational drug whereas the MTEA views it as “medically necessary.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that school board consultants estimate the additional Viagra cost at $786,000. Gracious! We have an ED epidemic in our faculties. Who knew? Among the many ironies in the suit is that MPS recently had to lay off 482 teachers in June because of budgetary shortfalls. I wonder what those laid-off teachers think about faculty Viagra. Perhaps the simplest solution is for the district also to stop paying for female remedies.

Here is the real irony: the State of Wisconsin (led by Milwaukee) leads the nation in the educational performance gap between black and white children. If you are an African American male, you stand less than a 40% chance of receiving a high school diploma by age 18. Call me insensitive, but in my opinion this is where every ounce of MTEA’s extra energy should be directed.

###

Straight talk.  Real hope.

You know what they are—two-foot-long plastic “trumpets” capable of only one note, which musicologists estimate at B-flat below middle C. They have been around for years at baseball and football games, but the generally more genteel American fans would only let loose a blast once in a while. Soccer fanatics in South Africa blow on them continuously throughout the whole game (did you catch any of them?) It sounds like the game is being played surrounded by tens of thousands of very large and very angry insects. “Annoying” doesn’t begin to describe the experience of trying to listen to the sports commentators over the steady din.

St. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 13 about the racket of “unmusical” musical instruments as a metaphor for the noise of philosophical or religious talk when there is no love for people. Loveless talk, even when theoretically true, is just noise, like someone steadily crashing cymbals all by himself.

What do you think people hear when you are talking? Noise or poetry? What do I sound like to you? Vuvuzelas or flutes?

###

Straight talk.  Real hope.

First was the tragic case of the Cadillac Escalade that was swallowed by a sinkhole on Oakland Ave. Thursday the city was overwhelmed by torrential rains. The entire car dropped into a neat twenty-foot hole that suddenly opened up. To its credit it ran for 12 hours before running out of gas. The shaken driver was helped to safety by a kind passer-by. R.I.P. ‘Sclade.

Another driver during the storm was not so fortunate. His car was found in Lincoln Creek, where it must have been swept off a bridge by the rapidly rising water. His body was found a mile downstream. He was a 19-year-old college kid with a lot of friends and a bright future. I have four kids around that age, and I cannot begin to imagine his parents’ grief. R.I.P.

Then there’s the helium. A 79-year-old retired physician and his 78-year-old wife decided that they had lived long enough. They were worried that they were getting too frail to live at home, and the wife was exhibiting early signs of Alzheimer’s. They had been reading literature on suicide for years and left behind a signed letter explaining their actions. They were terrified of the loss of control and indignities that would come in a nursing home, and so they decided to “die with dignity.” They went out into the garage, sat in their car, put plastic bags over their heads, and managed to fill the bags with helium, effectively asphyxiating themselves. R.I.P.

Murder of the self is still murder. What is really sad to me, though, is that these two fine citizens apparently never found the sweet joy of knowing that their lives could have been in God’s hands. Their last days on earth were filled with dread instead of the joyful anticipation of restoration and reunion with the Savior and loved ones of earlier years.

Here’s a better way. Last week a friend lost her husband to cancer. His brother had come to give support in the final illness, but his idle chatter was not wanted. “Don’t talk about the Brewers,” he said. “Read me the Gospel of John.” What a great idea. Would you do that for me in my last days? Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” What do you want people to talk about when they come to visit you in your last days?

###

Straight talk.  Real hope.

The month after Christmas can be a difficult time for people. Especially those who live far away from loved ones and may have had a chance to see people they really care about, enjoying it all so much, and then they’re gone — leaving you feeling kind of empty.

Those presents that brought people such joy and all the shopping you did leaves you now with some pretty depressing looking charge card bills. Also, the weather in the northern part of America and even part of the Southwest has had some bitter temperatures. The deep freeze sets in January and just seems to be a chill, not just the outside but on people’s insides too. And property tax bills come due and it just seems like why was last month such fun and this month so difficult?

Until we get to heaven this earthly life promises an intermingling of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain, of victory and frustration all mixed together, and we move from one to the other. Pain and depression and disappointment are part of life which cannot be avoided. They can be overcome, and the Gospel of Jesus gives us optimism. It will lift us up from our hard days and ultimately lead us to a new world where pain and depression will truly no longer exist.

####
Straight Talk. Real Hope.

In the military they call it “friendly fire.” It means that your wounds (or death) were caused by ammo from your own comrades.

This has been a grim season for the GOP. The party has been knocked back not only by the Obama tidal wave, but has suffered damage inflicted by its own leaders. The Republican Party for many years has tried to portray itself as the party of family values, based on Christian principles. Generally Republicans oppose abortion, gay marriage, and divorce. One might expect that they would also oppose adulterous affairs, but there has been a steady drip-drip-drip of erosion in family values in the “family values party.” In 2006 Congressman Mark Foley resigned after e-mails of his surfaced that showed inappropriate relations with a page. In 2007 Sen. Larry Craig was caught trolling for sex in a men’s bathroom in Minneapolis. This spring Sen. John Ensign admitted to an affair with the wife of one his closest staffers.

And then there’s Gov. Mark Sanford. He admitted a years-long affair with an Argentine woman and hinted that there may have been other flings. But in his rambling apology in late June he confessed not only to weakness of the flesh, but he called his mistress a “dear, dear friend,” his soulmate. That’s emotional adultery.

An atheist acquaintance of mine has personal business cards that say “No God, no master.” In other words, when you’re an atheist, you can make up your own morality and live any way you want without guilt. When Christians make up their own morality and live any way they want, they make a powerful statement about how seriously they take their God.

Advocates for monogamous heterosexual marriage are bleeding right now more from friendly fire than from enemy fire. Somebody please lead.

###

Straight talk.  Real hope.

This past weekend we who live in the United States celebrated our Independence Day.  I am reminded of how blessed Christians are to live and worship in countries that are free. How expensive were our freedoms, and how precious they are! How can we not send a bushel of prayers to our God for his wonderful blessings upon our country and the people who live in it?

God is blessing our work together here at Time of Grace so that not only are we reaching out to more and more people in North America, but through satellite and Internet technology we are lifting up the name of Jesus around the world; even in places where Islam makes Christian evangelism difficult or impossible.

I thank God for my Savior Jesus. I thank God for America. And I thank God for you.

###

Straight talk.  Real hope.