My Son Neal

When Max preaches I would shout if he read to his congregation from the telephone directory.  Why?  Because he is my Son and I love him. When Lee comes into a room I begin to laugh because he is funny when he wants to be and anyway he is my Son and I love him.  God gave us three fine sons and for that we are forever thankful.

I missed one you say?.  No I didn't because tonight I have a story just about Neal. 

Neal called me the other day and we talked a while about nothing in general.  Then he asked me if I had seen where the man had won $190,000,000.00 dollars.  He said that after taxes he only got $90,000,000.00.  We both agreed that we might be able to make do with that amount if we won such.  Then I asked him what he would do if he suddenly had that much money after I had told him that I would pay my bills with it as far as it would go, if indeed I had won it.  He said that he had spent some time thinking about such a thing.  And then he told me what I think is a perfect solution to using sudden wealth.  He said that in the area where he lives his neighbors call him the neighborhood fix-it man even  now.  And if he was all of a sudden extremely rich he would spend the rest of his time fixing things for people who needed it.  He has become active in his church and does a lot of that already but his dream seems to be to be able to spend ALL of his time helping those who needed it. 

Do you think that I am proud of him?  As you may have already surmised I do not need a reason to be proud of him.  I already am.  And I believe God is too.

All of this to say that this is what I have always believed.  Our God loves us simply because we are his children.  And that is true even when we don't do a whole lot for Him to be proud of.  I know that I don't. 

It causes me to remember  an old man who was a member of our church in Madisonville when I was a youngster.  His name was Sidney.  He was almost completely deaf and could barely see.  But each Sunday he would be seated on the front row of our church.  He would bow his head at the opening prayer and wake up during the benediction.  We all knew that he had not seen or heard any part of the service.  Our preacher asked him one time,"Sidney, why do you bother to come each Sunday.  You can't hear or see so you cannot possibly know what has been going on in the service."

Sidney would smile and reply,"Well you know, preacher, it does show whose side I am on."

And it did!