RECONSTRUCTION

1866 was really a terrible time for Texas. The horrors of the Civil War had dropped the male population to a mere 30% in most areas of the state, including Ft Worth. Now the even darker time of reconstruction would move upon the Lone Star as Northern fortune hunters who held terrible grudges against Texans began to govern positions of authority on every level. Texans were famous for being on the front lines and even if it wasn’t true, it was true that Texans had bragged about it.

In the war between the states, every one had lost loved ones –especially the carpet baggers moving down here to govern our state. They didn’t come with good attitudes or plans of mercy. Their harsh and unjust treatment caused another hundred years of hatred between the north and the south.

President Lincoln was dead. Over 200,000 Americans were dead. The slaves were set free but only to wander and beg without a place to go and without anyone to help them. Our great southern cities had been burnt down. Farms in Texas were left to be run by widows and children while Indians, roaming Confederates and bands of outlaws pillaged and preyed on the weak. It was a mess. A hard and terrible mess.

So if you were living on this side of the world in the late 1860’s you were someone well acquainted with grief, instability, hardship and turbulent times. Who in the world could prosper in a world so messed up? I’m glad you asked - lots of people.

Living In an Opposite Spirit

While the states were hell-bent on being split to pieces, there were people who had a vision for uniting. Those people prospered and did things that still affect us greatly today.

Have you ever considered that it was during these turbulent times the Suez Canal was constructed, or the finishing of the great continental railroad and the transatlantic telegraph cable? Can you imagine what a big deal it was to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea or the east coast with west coast? Try and wrap your head around what a big deal it was to stretch a communication cable all the way across the oceans floor to Great Britain with the technology of 1866.

Most of us suffered in darkness and depression during that time but there were a few people who decided it was the perfect time to go to places no one had ever gone before, and ended up taking all the rest of us with them. They were visionaries, leaders and builders who not only got up but did something great while in a great big mess. They answered chaos with stability and terrible disappointment with incredible vision.

Why Sit Here and Die?

In 2^nd Kings, chapter 7 there is an amazing story about four guys with leprosy. They didn’t ask for this hideous disease but it was what life had handed them. Sitting out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no hope, one of them had a moment of clarity. “Why should we sit here until we die?” Against all reason and in spite of the facts of their situation, all four of them gathered the courage to get up and face life one more time. The story that follows, details God’s supernatural response to people who answer darkness with life and despair with great courage. He’s cool like that.

This week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christians comes freshly brewed with a triple shot of encouragement. While you might have many good reasons for not living life to the fullest, I double-dog-dare-you to find at least one good reason why you should try again. The grace of God gives all of us an opportunity to live life in a totally opposite spirit than how things seem to be going. Listen to your leprosy friend and ask yourself, why should I sit here until I die? Better yet, listen to the Lord, speak to your heart and whisper more life than you can possibly comprehend.

Yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. “But as for me, I would seek God,

And to God I would commit my cause who does great things, and unsearchable,

Marvelous things without number.” JOB 5:7-9

Contact the Brewer at www.OpenDoorMinistries.org

Changing Your Tune

Before Marco Polo was a game kids played in the swimming pool, he was a man who explored the world by developing new trade routes for European interests. He brought back amazing things from Asia…things that changed everything.

One of those things was a sand flea and in it was a sickness scientist would later name Yersinia pestis. The world would call it Black Death, the Bubonic Plague. Within one hundred years of Marco Polo’s trip, over 75 million Europeans would be dead reducing the population by nearly 50%. As they piled dead bodies to burn in places like Black Heath near London, flower holding and wreath bearing funeral attendees would sometimes faint from the terrible grief of such a sight. Street children began singing the anthem of that awful time of change and we still hear it today.

Ring around the Rosies
Pocket full of Posies
ashes, ashes we all fall down.

And the Band Played On
In our own history there have many times where everything changed. Not just the slow, gradual, non-stopping change of advancement and decline. I am referring more to the difference between September 10th & September 12th 2001. You know how to fill in that terrible blank and you know how everything quickly altered.

A paradigm shift and a pendulum swing. It happens and when it does it can’t be ignored or denied. The difference between the 50’s and 60’s was a lot like that. Some kind of a radical shift in culture, economy, communication and entertainment drastically swept through our country a lot like how the plague swept through Europe. It was something you could see the effects of everywhere but couldn’t figure out what was causing it.

Songwriter Charlie Daniels once wrote, “The fifties left town on a crowded dance floor and the sixties came in with a bang and a roar.” By the end of 1959, Elvis had been drafted, Carl Perkins had broken his neck in a car crash, Jerry Lee Lewis had married his 13-year-old cousin and Buddy Holly’s broken glasses lay in field near Clear Lake Iowa.

Within five years of ’59, JFK would be dead, the Vietnam War would be underway, prayer would be taken out of schools and the Ku Klux Klan would be burning crosses on national TV.

The mess and the heartache of the sixties inspired a song writer named Don Mclean to write an anthem for those changing times. The folk-rock song “American Pie” first hit the airwaves in 1971. Eight minutes and thirty three seconds later, it was a number one hit making Mclean a millionaire over night. We have all sang the song of that generation.

So bye-bye, Miss American pie.
drove my Chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey
and rye singin’, "this’ll be the day that I die."

One Hit Wonder
We live in such a day of dramatic change. Like a dream where you try to run but cant because your feet get bogged down, a lot of us fear being able to move forward in such shifting times. The economy, housing market and general stability of all things money related, change as fast as the gas prices do at the pump these days. People wonder what will happen. People wonder how to hope.

It is my privilege to bring you the Good News. I think you are perfect for this day. God could have had you born anywhere at anytime yet He has trusted you with this time. What an Honor!

I refuse to sing, “That’ll be the day” as they did in the fifties. I wont be singing “This’ll be the day” as they did in seventies. I want to have a different song then the world around me does. You and I are not called to live powerless lives and I refuse to. I think Jesus Christ himself gives me the ability and the mandate to live in an opposite spirit than my generation lives. Call me crazy but my spirit-filled prayer for you comes brewing with anticipation for God’s goodness.

Changing Your Tune
If you’re an employer, I pray that you will be hiring while everybody is laying people off. If you’re an employee, I pray you get promoted while everybody else is looking for work.
If you have already been axed, I pray that you get noticed and the favor of the Lord causes you to have choices in where you want to work at. I think this is a year of fruit bearing. I think God has called you to joyous success in a day of miserable failure.

Don’t line up with the naysayers. Don’t partner with the enemy in what you say or how you think. This is a great day to be alive. Change your tune and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and have courage, have courage, Have courage!

He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the LORD.

Psalms 40:3 NLT

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

The Last Word

In this week’s confession of a highly caffeinated Christian, I bring you the last sip from Fresh from the Brewer. It’s the last column for 2008. Being the self-professed weirdo I am, I tend to pay attention to otherwise strange things. About ten years ago I started collecting the last words of famous fictional characters and paying attention to the very end of my favorite movies and books. I like to break those out at this time of year.

Here are some examples of a few you might recognize: A River Runs Through It, "I am haunted by waters." Tombstone, “Tom Mix wept.” John Wayne in True Grit, “Come and visit a fat old man sometime." Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, "Thus, I give up the spear!" Captain James Tiberius Kirk of Star Trek Generations, "Well it was fun, oh my."

Then there are famous last words of real people. Despite the basic graveness, pardon the pun, of the situation individuals face at that moment, there have been those that sprang a joke and some of them really good ones.

King Louis the 14th told his wife he regretted leaving her but at her age he expected to see her shortly. He died before she could slap him. William Palmer, a man convicted in 1920 of poisoning his friend, was silent when they put the noose around his neck. The hangman instructed him to step up onto the trap door and Palmer asked, "Are you sure it’s safe?"

James Rodgers, a convicted murderer executed in 1960 in Nevada, was asked by the rifle squad commander if he had any last request? Rodgers replied, "Why yes...a bullet proof vest, please!”

Oscar Wilde the famous writer, died November 30, 1900 saying, “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” W.C. Fields, after falling to the floor and in terrible pain, calmed down, looked at the person trying to help him and said, "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." Douglas Fairbanks died in 1939. When he fell down someone asked him if he was Ok. "I never felt better," he said with his last breath.

Georges Jacques Danton was a French radical became the leader of the 1789 revolution. Eventually out-radicaled by someone else, he was sentenced to death. As he placed his neck in the guillotine, he gave his final instructions to the executioner. "Show my head to the people. It really is worth seeing.”

One of my all time favorites are the last words of Wilson Mizner who died in 1933. Wilson Mizner was a U.S. writer, gambler and someone who put his trust in Jesus Christ towards the end of his life. On his deathbed, he briefly regained consciousness before dying and found a priest standing over him. Mizner waved the priest away saying, "Why should I talk to you? I've just been talking to your boss."

So here’s the last cup of Jehovah Java for 2008. It’s been a big year of change for all of us. From gas prices to the new president, we are all seeing things transition much more rapidly. It’s the year Michael Crichton, one of my favorite writers passed away. Two of my favorite guitarists, Bo Diddley and Jerry Reed also died as did three of my favorite voices, Don Lafontain, Tim Russert & Jim Mckay from Wide World of Sports. Oh the agony of defeat.

Four of my favorite actors met their maker this year. We lost Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Bernie Mac and Heath Ledger. I’m going to miss them all.

I have personally seen several friends go this year I won’t see again until the great day. But I have also made friends that I think are lifetime hook-ups. I feel like I’ve progressed and was generally a good steward of this crazy life God is trusted me with.

We really are a blessed bunch aren’t we? I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these columns and meeting so many of you here and there that take the time to read it. Let’s do it again next year.

Let me close the same way the Bible does. There are 31,171 verses in the old King James and the very last verse is a great word and the Brewer’s prayer for you and yours,

“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” Revelation 22:21

KEEP THE CHANGE

The Brewer celebrated his 42nd Birthday last week. That’s right, I’m half way to 84.

I am still a ways off from sinking my teeth into a steak and seeing them stay there but I am closer to sixty than twenty now. I know that the days are coming when an all-nighter means I didn’t go to the bathroom once but that’s not here yet, thank God.

What is here is the healthy realization that my days are numbered. At the same time I really feel I’ve got lots of life to live. I no longer feel bullet proof but do feel like I had better hurry up and do something cool. Forty-two is fun. Forty-two as a progressive Christian means I passionately believe in mortality and eternity at the same time. I think that’s a good thing.

THE NEW THIRTY

I have never been afraid of getting older. I really enjoyed my teenage years, but my twenties were much better. As a teenager my life was full of snuff cans, football, shenanigans, girl friends and small town life. My twenties were full of marriage, ministry, having babies and learning how to live life in the big city.

My thirties turned out to be way better than my twenties and now I am full blown into my forties. So why would I not be optimistic? Leanna and I are about to celebrate twenty years of an incredible marriage, my oldest daughter is in college and the other three are in high school. It’s a neat time, really. It’s a time of closure for some things and wild possibilities for others things.

A really healthy attitude and a bi-product of victorious Christian living is the willingness to embrace transition. I think a blessed life is one that is growing and transforming. I also know I would not only be cursed but would be a curse to everyone around me if I was still the same person at 42 as I was at 21.

THE NEXT LEVEL

So transition is not about getting older, it’s really about advancing. It’s living from faith to faith or from everlasting to everlasting. It’s learning how to hope for big things and remain confident through constantly having to deal with closure. It’s about bitter/sweet goodbyes and hopeful/expectant new beginnings. One thing I am convinced at the end of 2008 is constant change is here to stay.

I am not going to change someday, I already have and I will again and again. So why fear it? It’s a lot like the world we live in. We need not fear the world is going to change. It already has. You and I will live in a whole other world ten years from now, some for the better, a lot for the worse. So since we have no control over the direction of the world we might as well be determined to be better and better people. To be more and more hopeful, thankful and happier. I also want to be more and more useful to the Lord and more and valuable to those around me.

I love this life God has trusted me with. I don’t really think I own anything; I’m just a steward. Part of being a faithful steward of the life I live means an adventurous willingness to embrace transition in growing, advancing and seeing how far the rabbit hole goes. So I think I’ll keep the change.

A big Thank You goes out to everyone that plays such a key part in enriching my life, especially my 84-year-old Grandmother. After all these years, she is still a hottie and somehow still sees me as a very good boy. I love you, Nana. I am half way there to you in age, but a million years away in goodness of heart.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom

Psalm 90:12

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com