Looks May Be Deceiving

A funny thing once happened to me in New Orleans.   I was staying at the Downtowner Hotel on Bourbon Street right in the midst of the French Quarter. That, as some of you know, must compare to the society of Sodom and Gomorrah.  One evening as I was returning to my hotel I stopped along the way to purchase a quart of milk. Milk in hand (in a plain brown bag), I resumed my stroll down the center of Bourbon Street, now crowded with a variety of staggering revelers.  Just as I approached my hotel a feminine voice behind me said, “Brother Harrell?” There was one of my former students at the University (and incidentally, the daughter of a fine preacher in Birmingham.)

We exchanged pleasantries for a few moments.  She was there to see King Tut, I to attend the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association.  She was looking for a cup of coffee; I was returning to my hotel.  And there I stood through this chit-chat, painfully conscious that I had a brown bag in my hand.  Now quite a few people on Bourbon Street had brown bags in their hands that evening, but the odds against one of them containing a quart of milk would have been astronomical. I wondered what she was thinking.  I wondered what I would have thought. I wondered what I should do.

Well, our conversation dwindled, and as we were about to part I decided the time had come to act. With what must have been a ten-year-old sheepish grin, I pulled my milk out of the brown bag and said:  “It sure is hard to find a quart of milk down here.”  She said, “It’s hard to find a cup of coffee too.” And so we parted.

This story surely has a moral - or two or three.  One is you never know whom you might run into on Bourbon Street.  It keeps you alert.  I have met brethren all over this country, and I encounter former students on half the trips I make.  These human coincidences should only remind us of the omnipresence of God.  Wherever we are God is present and knows our actions and our intentions.  But this episode had some peculiar human dimensions.  God knew what I had in my brown bag, but the young lady I met did not.  I believe there is a lesson here about keeping things in the open (“providing things honest in the sight of all men” - Rom. 12:17).  We sometimes suffer lasting damage to our personal relationships because we allow trivial things to accumulate.  If we have doubts about one another, let us get them out in the open, not sweep them under the rug.  If my views are not clear, or if my conduct raises questions, then let us face the music!  Guard your reputation.

Finally, we should also guard our judgments. I do not think that I was suspected of carrying a bottle of gin.  And I certainly did not think my young friend was up to any mischief.  And that is good; we should always try to think the best of one another.  Even when things appear foreboding, there may be a simple explanation.  Think the best.  You never know - that brown bag just MAY have milk in it!

-  David Edwin Harrell

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Be Strong

On the first day of boot camp a drill sergeant stood before his troops and snarled, “My name’s Sergeant Jackson – is there anyone here who thinks he can whip me?”

A six-foot-three, 280-pound recruit raised his hand and said, “Yes, sir, I do.”

The sergeant grabbed him by the arm and led him up in front of the group and said, “Men, this is my new assistant.  Now, is there anyone here who thinks he can whip both of us?”

That story reminds me of our relationship with God.  The trials of life have a way of beating us down and causing us to feel helpless at times.  Add to that the fact that we face a powerful and cunning enemy in Satan.  But if we truly believe God’s promise to stand by our side we can have the confidence that there is nothing strong enough to defeat us both.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.  -  Eph 6:10

He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper;  I will not fear; what can man do to me?”  -  Heb 13:5-6

If God is for us, who can be against us?  -  Rom 8:31

He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.  -  1 Jn 4:4

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Never get mad at someone else for knowing

more than you do  –  it isn’t their fault.

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