"Work In Progress"

My last position at the cement plant in Calera was electrical and instrumentation trainee.  It took sixteen years to get it, but I was finally doing a job I enjoyed.  I had a machinist background, but I would have never gotten that position.  I was too far down on the seniority totem pole.

I heard some interesting tales while working the kilowatt crew.  It seems that an electrician, Hamm, was returning from the north substation of the plant.  He saw two men operating a drilling machine.  The federal government mandated that the cement plant harness the dust, clean the air, and build aqueducts to control the flow of water used to cool machinery.

Hamm interrupted the men who had just engaged a drilling rig  to dig the aqueducts.  Hamm said you cannot drill there, stating that the main electrical line that furnished the plant was located underneath the drill.

The two educated rednecks shut the drill down, retrieved some electrical schematics, and told Hamm that there were no electrical lines there.  Hamm said all right and returned to the electrical shop to drink coffee.

Hamm entered the mill room when suddenly there was a loud boom and the cement finish mills slowed and went silent.  In fact, the whole plant shut down.  The sonic boom shook tons of dust down in the mill area and covered Hamm.

When Hamm got to the electrical shop, coffee drinking electricians were scurrying like rats on a sinking ship.  They were oblivious to the real reason the plant went down.

As Hamm poured a cup of coffee, Snuffy, the electrical foreman, told Hamm there was no time for coffee that plant lost power and thought that the substation blew a transformer.

Hamm said there was no need to be in a hurry.  Snuffy was bumfuzzelled.  Hamm said the contractors drilled into the main power line.  All the electricians loaded in and onto the electrical truck and went to survey the situation.

Sure enough, there were two men in the state of shock standing beside a huge hole.  They had walked way from the drill to pour themselves a cup of coffee and let the drill run on automatic.  Otherwise, they would have been killed.

Snuffy asked the pale and trembling men if Hamm told them that they were drilling on top of the main line.  They say he did, but the schematics did not show it.  Snuffy said there were no plans and that Hamm was a young electrical when helped put the line there in 1948.  They should have listened to the voice of experience instead of relying on a set of electrical schematics.

Aaron, my youngest son, worked with Culpepper Electric in Demopolis.  Most every evening he would say that he could not understand why more houses did not burn in Demopolis.  When I asked why, he said that customers would want larger breakers or fuses for their electrical control boxes.  Customers would say they need a thirty-amp to replace a twenty-amp because the twenty-amp kept blowing.  Well, if a twenty-amp is blowing, here is your sign.  There is a reason it is blowing.  Increasing the amps multiplies the problem and increases the chance of fire.

I am reminded of two coon hunters from Arkansas.  One night they blew a fuse in their old pickup truck.  Noticing that a twenty-two rifle cartridge is about the same size as the fuse, they replaced the fifteen-amp fuse with the twenty-two cartridge.  Instead of repairing the problem, they intensified the heat to the shell that discharged and shot the driver in his private area.  They had a difficult time explaining it in the emergency room.

Do you realize that if we knew everything about ourselves that God wanted to change, we would blow our circuit breakers?  We cannot handle knowing how God sees us all at once.  He is still working me.  I am a work in progress.



Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”  There is a moment of surrender and a process of surrender.  The moment of surrender is that moment of faith that happens in an instant of time. The process of surrender is a lifelong, crucifying of the will of the flesh.

The will of the flesh is an ugly ogre.  It is a monster that lurks in the shadows and has lackeys that put poison our hearts.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man (Mark 7:21-23 KJV).

Put on a Happy Face

I loved to spend time with daddy.  I was happy riding with him, working on junk, or just sitting on an old quilt out in the yard.  One of the things he used to say always made me smile.  He would see something that he liked and would say, “If that fellow had a feather up his behind and I had what he had, we would both be tickled.”

We did not have much but we learned to be happy regardless of the situation.  One of the great joys of growing up was seeing daddy smile.  I can see him smiling when we did something stupid, something good, or something to aggravate momma.  Oh how I would love to see him smile once more.

When my daughter Angela was little, she would say she would be happy if we were rich.  Being a preacher’s family, we did not have many of the amenities that most families had and her brother and she were aware of it.  One day she made the comment again and I told her if she was not happy poor, she would not be happy rich.  I smiled as she jumped and danced saying, “I’m happy, I’m happy.”  We remained poor.

One of the songs that they sang while we were in church was Happiness is to Know the Savior.  The chorus goes; Real joy is mine no matter if the teardrops start.  I’ve found the secret; it’s Jesus in my heart.

Because I grin most of the time, people have accused me of not caring.   I have been told by people that they were gonna wipe that grin off my face.  A deacon scolded me because a church member told him that I did not care because I smiled the whole time she told me of her mother’s sickness.  He had a different attitude when I rebutted him with all the things that I put up with as a pastor.  Anyone else would wear a scowl if they had to put up all the gripes and complaints I heard.  He should be happy I smiled.

I had a preacher friend, or I thought was a friend, reprimand me for acting as though I did not care about a personal family situation.  I responded, “There’s the public Bobby and there’s the private Bobby.  I told him that as a preacher, pastor, and Director of Missions that I thought if anyone had confidence in God it ought to be me.  He would later do the “et tu brute” when I needed support.  You might say he was one of those that wiped the grin off my face.  It took a while but I learned to smile again.  God assured me that He was in control and to trust Him.  Though my world was falling apart, God gave me a smile.

I have goal when I see someone who needs a smile.  I do or say something to get them to smile.  There is a young pharmacist at my drug store that when I walk in she starts smiling.  She was so intense initially.  After a visit or two I had her smiling.

This old world is not giving us much to smile about now days with all disregard for humanity, increased violence, stay at home demand, and the Covid-19 dilemma, but I know real happiness comes for knowing God in my heart.  He is on His throne, very much in control, and in my heart.

The world’s happiness is counterfeit.  Their blessings are temporal and without God.  They have no peace, no refreshing of the soul.  The savings act of God in their heart is something repulsive, out of date, or superstitious.  For those who understand and enjoy the saving acts of God it is about disposition and character, not good fortune.



Happy is that people, that is in such case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD. Psalm 144:15 (KJV)

The Evening News

The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’s throne is in heaven. Psalm 11:4a



The evening news comes on with handsome man in a nice suit or beautiful woman dressed in a designer outfit with warm voices give bad news.  These thirty minutes of bite-sized tragedies create doubt storms and turbulent days when the enemy is too big, the task too great, the future is bleak, and answers too few.


We start asking questions.  If God is so good, why do I sometimes feel so bad?  If the message of Christ is so clear, why am I so confused?  If the Father is in control, why do so many good people have gut-wrenching problems?


First, trust and faith in God enable believers to face adversity. Grace knows how to fight, not how to flee.  Second, God tests the righteous and tries the children of men.  Testing of the righteous is for removal of dross and for the wicked results in judgment.  Third, we live in two worlds and witness the success of the wicked. This world is the only heaven that the world will experience and the only Hell believers will endure.  This world is not the believer's home.  For the righteous, life is one of faith.  God has got control.  Trust His Word and not what handsome or beautiful news anchor says.


Hee Haw comedian Grady Nutt of Hee Haw said, “God should be a resource in the struggle, not a way around it.”

Inattention to Warning Signs

Several years ago, after visiting a pastor friend in Birmingham, I made a detour by our home in Chilton County.  I check on it from time to time with frequent trips there in the spring and summer to cut grass and do other chores of preventive maintenance.  Property unattended can become a jungle over night.

I believe in what criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling call the Broken Window Theory.  The Broken Window Theory is if a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge.  Soon more windows are broken until the house is vandalized.   A house gives a license to neighborhood kids to destroy.  I try to make the home look as though someone is at home.

People usually inquire about the condition and the security of our home.  I tell them I have the best security system one could have.  I have relatives that watch my home and if a strange vehicle enters the drive, they check it out.  It is good when people watch out for you.

Turning at one of the two red lights in Jemison, I noticed that the railroad crossing bars descending and red lights blinking warning me to stop.  CSX tracks run North and South parallel to US Highway 31 separating old Main Street from most of busy Jemison.  Of course, I leave across the tracks west of Jemison.

Watching the blinking lights and listening to ringing bells, clanging tracks, bumping cars, my mind wondered back to a time more than forty years ago.  God was looking out for me that morning.  I, along with a busload of classmates, headed to school on old bus #34.  Bus 34 was an early fifties model and one of two of the oldest buses remaining active. All the other routes had new buses.  Remember we lived across the tracks.  The other old bus was too.

Riding the bus was fun.  The windows rattled as you bounced on the seats as the bus ran down red dirt roads.  A malfunction on the old bus rear end springs created a hole in the floorboard above the rear tires which red dust entered and red mud splattered.

When boys riding the bus were old and mature enough, they had the privilege of flagging the bus across the tracks.  Flagging the bus was an important responsibility.  The boy flagging the bus had the honor of standing on the steps, opening the bus doors, and running across the tracks.  Crossing the tracks the runner would look north, south, and north again, south again until reaching the other side.  All the time the runner would wave, or flag, the bus across the tracks.

One morning we had a substitute driver.  The flagman readied himself in the stairwell.  Approaching the tracks, the rails started their descent.  Lights were flashing, bells were sounding, and a long train with dozens of cars headed south.  The substitute driver did not stop.  The barrier rails landed on top of the bus trapping it and bringing it to a stop.

I remember looking out the left side windows.  A locomotive headed right at the center of the bus.  The substitute driver tried to go forward, but the bus was stuck.  He tried to go in reverse, but the bus would not move.  The locomotive’s light was revolving round and round, smoke from its engine was pouring out the top, and the engineer blew the horn over and over.  The light got brighter and the horn got louder.  Screams from a bus full of kids grew louder as girls began to cry.  The rear tires of the bus started to squeal and smoke as the substitute driver tried frantically to pull the bus from the jaws of death.  The pressure was so great that the guardrail bent the top of the bus.

Something happened that morning.  I am convinced that it was a miracle from God.  Just seconds and a few short steps from death, the bus escaped the barrier rail, the bus jumped forward, and the train screamed past the rear of the bus.

The substitute never substituted again.  Every day that bus 34 operated, riders were reminded of that almost horrific morning when we saw the huge dent on the left side of the bus.  Each new rider heard of the morning that a busload of kids almost made national headlines.  Some would say that wish they had been on it while were glad they were not.

As the guardrails lifted, I continued my journey home.  I thought how many warning signs and flagman, who watch out for us, we ignore.

Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me (Ezekiel 3:17 KJV).



Lord help us watch the warning signs you give us especially in these days of panic from the corona virus.  I know that You are in charge and that You care.