I stopped in for one of my favorite lunches, the Whopper Junior, and a small Coke, and I always say grace before shoveling the food into my mouth no matter where I am. (It’s the least I can do for such a mouthwatering treat.) Just as I finished with my short prayer of thanks, an elderly man tapped my shoulder as he passed to retrieve his order at the counter. He was sitting right behind me, and I had already made up my mind to ask him if he had eaten lunch since he looked haggard and sad and possibly hungry.

The man said, “It isn’t very often you see someone giving thanks in a public place. You were giving thanks, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was. How about you? Have you eaten?”

“I got my food ordered. You don’t very often see anyone giving thanks anymore.”

The old man picked up his food and shuffled back to his table as I began to chow down, content in knowing he was going to be alright – at least for today.

I was relishing my meal when God intuitively spoke to me, “Talk to the man.”

“Ok, Lord, but let me finish eating first,” I thought.

It was high noon, and the place was filling up with workers in their uniforms and school-age young people – black and white. As I took the last sip of my Coke that by now was bottoming out (the straw making that slurping noise that tells you the sweet fizz is over), God reminded me again, “Talk to the man.” But again, it was the old man who initiated the conversation.

I looked over my shoulder, and the old man had just finished his meal too. He had been drilling a hole in the back of my head with his eyes. We stared at one another for a moment, and he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Jim,” I replied.

“I’m Tony.”

Noticing that I wasn’t wearing work clothes, he asked, “What kind of work do you do… or should I say did you do?”

“Well, at the moment, I am doing some writing, but I used to be in the film industry.”

“Do you mean movies?”

“Yes, I was a character actor, but today I write screenplays that may never see the light of day or even the dark of the theater.”

Excitedly, he began to quiz me. “Which movies!” he inquired excitedly. (He apparently loved movies.)

I named the movies for him, and he asked trivia questions about some of the top stars. He was making a fuss, and we were beginning to draw attention from people sitting around us, but he nonetheless continued. He apparently didn’t have many friends and seldom talked to anyone.

“SOOO, I take it you were in the union?”

“Forty years.”

Then something was said, and the conversation took a somber turn. Naturally, it was about his state of affairs.

Tony said he lived alone in a small apartment close by and had a lady friend who visited him occasionally. Other than another male friend, that was it. His two daughters had drifted away after the death of his wife; they were very young, and his only boy now lived in San Diego. The three siblings had gone to stay with his mother-in-law. She had blamed him for her daughter’s death of cancer – no less, but at least she raised the children as her own while he suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized.

At the telling of that story, he looked ready to cry, and it took all the willpower he had to keep from doing so.

“I know you are a religious man, Jim, but what kind of God lets us suffer like that?”

He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “My father left my mother with three kids to raise.”

“Well, then you should know that Jesus warned us that in this life we will have trials and tribulations and that we should cast our cares on him.”

“Please don’t preach to me, Jim. I was raised a Catholic…. and how about the soldiers with post-traumatic syndrome.

“People suffer because they don’t believe in God who cares for them. Today, many don’t look to God for conciliation, strength and hope.”

By then, I realized Tony had a lot to get off his chest. Again, his eyes began to brim over with tears, and he began choking on his words.

Tony blurted out, “I even had electroshock therapy in the hospital. It was a nightmare. My life has been hell on earth, Jim.”

His eyelids were by now rimmed with red, and I was having real empathy for the man. Now I knew why God insisted I talk with Tony. So in spite of his resistance, I plunged ahead – knowing that this conversation was what God would have me pursue.

“Tony, I go to God with all my troubles and fears and haven’t missed a good night’s rest in over forty years. I leave all my troubles in His good hands,” I said.

After a few more minutes of conversation during which I quoted scripture to encourage him, I wrapped up our conversation with, “Tony, I’m going to pray a short prayer with you across the table. Father in heaven, help give Tony peace of mind, hope and strength. May he have an encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ and receive Him into his heart and life… Amen.”

By now, the patrons were finishing up and going about their business. My voice carries, and today I’m glad it does because someone else may have gotten something to take home from my admonitions to this most sorrowful man.

As I got up from the table, Tony arose at the same time and came over to thank me and give me a hug with tears in his eyes. “Thanks, Jim …Thanks,” he blurted out.”

People from all walks of life are hurting with no one to lend an ear. You could be that somebody who takes the time to do so.

YBIC

Jim Towers

Write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit www.dropzonedelta.com or visit my website, www.propheticsignsandwonders.com

 

 

It was Sunday morning, and I couldn’t wait to meet the day. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, and I felt refreshed and ready to meet it. My dad had always been a sharp dresser, and I just followed suit (no pun intended) — white shirt and jacket — early on, a suit and tie. Ahh, those were the good old days.

Sundays were special; the workweek was over, and it was time for rest and giving thanks to God. The song “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from the musical “Oklahoma” was on my lips as I prepared for morning worship. With Bible in hand, I made my way to First Baptist Church. Everyone there seemed to know how to play the game of propriety and decorum. Still, there were troublemakers and those who were there only to be a part of the social scene, but at least they had the good sense to play the “religious card.”

I’ve been around long enough to have seen every atrocity and weakness named in the church. The love of money tops the list today; sex, adultery, pedophilia, and homosexuality have reared their ugly heads in this once holy place.

No more pretentions – no more facades. Everyone does as he pleases. Lies and jealousy are rampant. Loud music, smoke and mirrors. Loud music begs young people to attend, but young people have their own rock bands and strobe lights to entertain them. What they really need is authentic Christianity, not entertainment.

Since leaving my former church, I’ve found it almost impossible to find one where there is a degree of decorum and solemnity. Frivolity and course jesting dominate (you know how men are; the small talk between them before the Sunday service is rife with nonsense and things that matter not one whit in the grand scheme of things).

Today there are more pressing issues facing the “church.” Take, for example, these recent headlines, and I quote:

“Two months after leaving Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr. is suing the school for defamation. The former university president alleges Liberty officials accepted “false claims” against him to force his resignation and then “engaged in a campaign to ‘tarnish, minimize, and outright destroy the legacy of the Falwell family and Mr. Falwell’s reputation.” Falwell has been reportedly granted a 10.5 million severance package under his contract.”

Pastor Tavner Smith of Venue Church was caught with chili on his shorts; it seems he and a church worker were cooking something up at a hotel together.

Perry Stone was recently accused of manhandling the female workers in his congregation (I hope it’s not true). He says it’s because he is “Italian” that he likes to touch women. (What normal man doesn’t like to touch women?) I don’t put men on a pedestal no matter how special they think they are, and you shouldn’t either.

Alas, in the meantime, it’s getting ever harder to find a good church, one that teaches the inerrant word of God. If you recall, my latest church of twelve years was divided by a cabal of instigators and usurpers (this is the fourth time I’ve seen this happen in my Christian experience). The latest word about that fiasco is that the instigating associate pastor left what remained of the congregation hanging. A year later, there is a New Age pastor in charge and remnants of the WOKE crowd and Cancel Culture people. One of the former teachers began a home church and fancies himself a dynamic preacher imitating TBN’s former and former preachers. Pastor Hayes Wicker – the founder of that church – was an extraordinary person, unpretentious, humble, kind and gentle.

These are trying times when people are searching for solace and hope in a world gone mad. But to try and make sense of things in this world takes stability and faith in the word of God. If you can find a good, doctrinally sound church, stay with it. That’s why I stayed with First Baptist of Naples for as long as I did even though I knew I was surrounded by fallible and often hypocritical people – but knowing people the way I do, I didn’t expect much from them anyway. In some of these churches, there was the deacon with the woody woodpecker hairdo at age sixty-five who apparently needed recognition. There was the associate pastor who wore shoes that were two sizes too long. To make matters worse, he tapped the toes of his shoes as he preached. There was also an effeminate man who pretended to be kind and friendly, but his glazed-over eyes and effeminate demeanor gave him away.

At a recent Christmas service I attended, the program was anything but traditional. The drummer thinks his gift of keeping time gives him license to burst your eardrums with frenzied banging. To say nothing of the young lady with torn jeans trying desperately to carry a tune. The music director is a failed pastor who, when he gets a chance, preaches a way too long prayer when he should be playing the piano and letting the pastor do the preaching or teaching. That same church celebrated Christmas with a video that depicted a coven-like service as two hooded kettle drummers pounded the drums on either side of the podium. Not being able to see their faces, they looked like ghouls from an “Indiana Jones” movie, “Temple of Doom,” which added absolutely nothing to the Christmas story the people were there to celebrate.

I don’t know about you, but something has to be done about calling these errant people out. We need a call for repentance. (I don’t claim to be perfect, but the things I just mentioned are an indication that the church is in freefall, and soon sound doctrine and the Bible will become irrelevant and without meaning.)

We know that things shouldn’t be that way, but we sit on our hands and say nothing. How I long for the good old days.

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; Which in time past were not a people but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: (unbelievers) that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:9-11).

YBIC

Jim Towers

Visit me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com. or www.dropzonedelta.com or visit my website www.propheticsignsandwonders.com