Matters that Mattered

 

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13b-14

The apostle Paul challenged Christians at Philippi to look to the future and not rest on their accomplishments.  He stressed the importance of pressing forward toward the upward call of Christ or be under the threat of perfectionism. 

Christ liberated Paul from the old Pharisaic values and sins that consumed him.  Paul challenged those who experienced liberation to look to those things ahead.

Paul’s epistles reveal that he lived a real life in real circumstances with real options to choose.  He made some wise choices.  He pursued matters that mattered.  He said, “One thing I do.”  Without a defining, central priority, there can be no sensible priorities in life.  Paul knew that all his priorities grew from this consuming priority. 

Priorities help us choose, but a consuming priority redefines how we say yes and lives to make that yes a reality.  Paul challenges: Don’t look back, stretch forward, and never give up.

Heard Through the Grapevine

 

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord.” Romans 12:19

A few years back gossip wrecked my ministry.  As a pastor, my reputation was rooted in confidentiality, honesty, and moral integrity and all these dissipated when well-intended folks spread rumors rooted “appearance of evil.”

I learned as a young man that things are not always as they appear.  I tell folks not to believe everything they hear and only half of what they see.

Those that knew the truth tried to squelch the rumors, but juicy gossip attracts more attention than the truth.  The hardest thing has been to forgive the perpetrators and ignore the gossipmongers.  The “country boy” in me wants to even things, but my faith says wait on the Lord.  I know that the Lord will judge accordingly.

The Lord has blessed my faith with a renewed ministry, a more compassionate heart, and better understanding of forgiveness.

Hold to the truth.  God knows the truth and repays.

Love of the Game

I love to play football.  From the very first time I played on the school playground I was hooked.  I had thrown the football in the yard with dad, but never really played the game until physical education at Jemison elementary.

It was fourth grade recess, and two teams were playing.  I didn’t know anything about the game and had never watched one on television of been to one at school.  On one particular play a new kid had transferred from Calera Elementary and seemed to know about the game.  His name was Tony and he was quarterback.  I didn’t really know what a quarterback did, but he was the one throwing the ball.

As he dropped back to pass it, I realized he was throwing it toward me.  In yard football we played more running than throwing.  I was more Rugby than football.  I reached up and caught the ball.  The guys around me hollered “interception” and the new kid that threw the ball asked, “Whose side you on?” Not really knowing, I yelled, “Yours.”  He yelled, “Touchdown!”   That was the beginning of many passes that my future brother-in-law would toss me.  I would play many PE games before I actually witnessed a real game. 

 My best friend during my school years was Ricky.  He was a small boy and an avid University of Alabama football fan.  Tony my other new friend was an Auburn University football fan.  Being an ignorant poor boy from across the tracks, I was clueless about college football.  I had no idea about national championships.  As I said, never watched one and had no idea that a Bear was coach at Alabama or that a guy named Shug was coach at Auburn.

 One day in the lunchroom Tony and Ricky were arguing, as most Alabama and Auburn fans do, about who was better.  They would almost fight over it.  Finally, they asked me who I was for, Alabama or Auburn.  Now I was clueless about who or what an Auburn fan was, but I knew I lived in Alabama and said, “Alabama of course.”  Ricky and Tony would be bitter rivals until the die-hard Alabama fan went the Auburn University for an engineering degree. 

In the spring of the seventh grade, Ricky talked me into going out for football.  Spring training was much harder than PE football.  On the first scrimmage coaches lined up across from a junior named Tracy.  He was a monster.  I found out that he was a very good tackle.  He made All Conference the previous season.

I had never played organized football, so I asked the coach what I was supposed to do.  It sounded simple.  He said, “Tackle the man with the football.”  I had done a little of that at PE with my peers from fourth through seventh grade.  They were nowhere near the size of Tracy. 

Suddenly the center snapped the ball, and I disappeared in a cloud of dust and under a mass of humanity.  It hurt really badly, but I was determined.  Same thing happened over and over.  The best thing about the spring practice was I got to watch my first real live football game from the sidelines.

In the ninth grade I had the privilege and honor to be one of the practice dummies for the first every state championship playoff in Alabama and for Jemison.  We ended second in the State of Alabama Two A playoff.  In the off I have the privilege of seeing my first T-bone steak.   I couldn’t eat so I gave it to one of our running backs.   I got to go to a football banquet and received my first football letter.  They gave away trophies and I determined to win one the next year.

God blessed my football training by chasing hogs and I found that catching football players were much easier.  I played defensive end and offensive tackle/end.  I remembered what they told me at my first ever practice, “tackle the man with the ball.”  So, I did.  They added a bonus.  They said hit the quarterback every play.  So, I did when there was no one else to tackle. 

I earned two trophies for best defensive player for my junior and senior years.  Made all conference and had scholarships offers.  I received one from Dartmouth College and another from a junior college.  Alabama and Auburn said I was too small.

 I loved to hit quarterbacks.  I love the game.  I loved it enough that I received a cussing every day when I got home from walking six miles to house and feeding hogs and getting in firewood.  I loved it enough that we played most every Saturday and Sundays between morning and night services.

My dad worked evening shift.  One night my sophomore year, I went to the sideline for a breather.  Someone said your dad is here.  I looked and there stood dad in the tunnel leading to the field.  He was in his work clothes, covered in grease, and wearing a hardhat.  I was proud and happy.

My junior year he sacrificed and took off work to travel to Selma, Alabama to watch me.  That night I had hit the quarter back most of the night forcing him to pitch the football.  The coach changed the scheme and had me take the running back.  When the Selma quarterback ran the option, he looked to see where I was.  When he saw me, he pitched to the running back whom I hit immediately forcing a fumble.  The football shot high in the air and hit in the end zone spinning like a top.  I jumped on it scoring a touchdown.  Dad was there.

The new Name Image Likeness (NIL) rule breaks my heart.  Going to the highest bidder replaces team loyalty.  Love of money has replaced love for the game.

 

 For the love of money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10)

This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17)

Imago Dei

 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Proverbs 9:10

Have you ever heard someone say, “God is out to get me?”  I had a co-worker that continuously said it.

We are created in the Image of God, “Imago Dei.” The world says we evolved however, Christianity, on the authority of God’s Word, states that we are created.

We are created with a purpose, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.   He loved us enough that He imparted us with the dignity of being free moral agents, the ability to make choices, to choose evil or good

We are created with meaning and have interpretation in relation to God.  Our understanding of ethics, law, education, and sexuality depend on what we believe about our beginning.  We begin with God or a mindless processes and dramatic consequences.  We have God’s moral rules. Finally, one night I told my co-worker, “Jesus did not come to earth to get us, but to die and resurrect for us.”     

The Great Deceiver

 

In the Garden of Eden came the first lie

The Deceiver said, surely you will not die

The woman decided to give it a try

To the Garden of Eden, she said goodbye

 

A lie has the tendency to grow

Further and further from the original it will go

Where it comes to rest, we may never know

It creates havoc and a really big show

 

The lie a reputation will ruin

People accused of that not doing

Juicy gossip with mouths chewing

Imaginations in the mind brewing

 

Lies believed before the truth a way of life

Partial truths are malicious, deceptive, and anti-life

Lies are colored causing trouble and strife

Simple and selfish is the black lie creating lowlife

 

Fibs are lies of trivial matter especially from a child

Jocose lies are told in jest, a tall tale that is wild

Grey lies are hard to clarify, ambiguous and begild

Whites lies avoid hurting someone and acceptably mild

 

Exaggerations are lies with fundamental truths within

Half-truths can be the whole truth with a deceiving end

Told big enough and long enough a lie will be the trend

Just remember the Great Deceiver is where lies begin

Bobby E. Hopper

Clark and Chief, Boys and Dogs

Growing up we always had dogs.  We fed them table scraps and never bought dog feed.  They would occasionally eat wheat shorts that we fed the hogs.  That was the closest we came to feeding them bought food.

The first dog that I remember was my Uncle Clifton’s boxer named Pat.  Pat was a well-trained dog.  The Beloit, Illinois Police Department would use her to train rookies.  They would place Pat in an abandoned automobile and have the rookies check it out with the goal of retrieving Pat.  Pat would make bona fide officers of them and make seasoned officers laugh at the rookies.

Pat was gentle and protective of my sister and me.  We rode her like a pony.  We were only 3 and 6 years old.  That was comforting considering Pat and Uncle Clifton lived with us.  Dad and Uncle Clifton worked evening and midnight shifts.  Southerners from Alabama living in Illinois with unknown surroundings, Pat was a wonderful guard dog.

My first dog was a mix breed.  I never knew what kind, but he looked like a collie/German shepherd mix.  I named him Butch.  He was not very old when we moved our Yankee dog south.  Butch was a faithful companion and lived a long time.  Summers were brutal for him.  I often wondered if he had some Alaskan Husky blood.

We got him a rebel playmate that was a German deer dog and named him Red.  We were always original when naming dogs.  Red had weird eyes and was greedy.  Red was the culprit that ate the first biscuits my sister made when she 9 or 10 years old.  She made from scratch and did not get done.  When she threw them from the back porch into the yard, Red quickly gobbled them down.  Getting choked, he vomited them up.  We continue to josh our sister to this very day that her biscuits were so bad that the dog puked them up.  For the record, my sister Diane is a very good cook.

Since I have two brothers, we had several dogs.  Since Butch was getting old and Red was gun shy and did not hunt, we got a spotted bird dog and named him Spot.  He wasn’t much of a Bird dog, but he was great at pointing.  He pointed mostly at food.

One night I was returning home in a pouring rain when I saw a puppy in the highway.  The puppy looked like a drowned rat.  I picked it up and carried it home to be with Butch, Red, and Spot.  I discovered that the puppy was female and was red with traces of white on its tail.  It looked like a fox so we named her Foxy.  Foxy never ran like the other dogs and never got very large compared to the others.  Well, in time we realized that Foxy was a fox.

Father time finally got the best of Butch.  I had to “put him down.”  At that time, it was the hardest thing that I had ever done.  In his last moments I held him close and tight, and we relived some precious moments that we had together.  That’s what boys and dogs do.

Through the years I had a dog named Duke.  He was a red bone hound that looked like Duke on the show “The Beverly Hillbillies.”  I had him when my oldest son, Andy was born.  He and Andy were inseparable.  The along came Angel.  I have vivid memories of the three walking across the field to their maw maw’s house.

Once a pack of dogs attacked Duke and almost killed him.  The dogs ripped him open around his testicles.  I had him examined and the vet wanted to “put him down.”  I couldn’t do it.  He said the dog is going to die.  I performed surgery on Duke.  I had successfully removed hog testicles for years.  Duke didn’t like the surgery, but he survived and lived for several more years until I had the heart-to-heart take with him.

Lisa, my wife, bought a half German Shepherd/Great Pyrenees.  He looked more German shepherd, and we named him Loki.  I taught him to sit, to shake hands, and to high five.  Lisa works full time, and, in my retirement, I spent most of the time with Loki.  He was smart, protective, and faithful.  He was also aggravating, always hungry, and digging holes.  Like Butch, Loki could not take the heat, so he dug holes for cooling.

He loved to swim in two ponds near our house, never met a stranger, and slept at our front door.  Lisa loved him and would spend time with him when she was home.

It was not unusual for Loki to be missing for a few days.  This past summer he was missing longer than normal.  I didn’t get to spend last moments with him.  I found him and buried him.  His loss hurts.

This past weekend, we spent time at my brother’s place in South Alabama.  When we arrived, a beautiful bloodhound greeted us to the Hopper Ponderosa.  The bloodhound is a big puppy and belongs to my 6-year-old great nephew Clark.  Clark named him Chief.  They were inseparable.  I laughed as Chief dragged Clark across the yard.  Later Clark, while riding his bike, dragged Chief who was hanging on to Clark’s shirt.  Clark says that Chief is his brother.

I watched Chief smell Clark’s trail to find “his brother.”  Once Chief snuggled up the Uncle Bobby and later lay at my feet near a fire.  When Chief looked me in the eyes, he had the saddest face, drooping ears, and pitiful eyes.  Suddenly, Chief’s brother appeared, and the yard wrestling started over again.

What made the trip wonderful was Saturday night Clark and his older his sister, Ellison were doing the brother-sister thing.  Their pawpaw corrected Clark for making Ellison cry.  He told Clark to hug, kiss, and tell his sister he was sorry.  He was very reluctant, but pawpaw insisted saying hug her like you do Chief. Clark took three steps.  First, he sort of hugged her.  Second, he hugged her somewhat.  Third, he hugged her.  Pawpaw with a stern voice said, “I said to hug and kiss her.”  I thought about all the times I had to hug, kiss, and tell my sister Diane I was sorry and that I loved her.

Clark with remorse and tears said, “Pawpaw that's weird.”  I knew the feeling.  Thing was he didn’t mind hugging and kissing “his brother” Chief.  That’s little boys and dogs!

Thanks Clark, for the memory.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  Proverbs 18:24

“She replied, ‘Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.'” Mark 7:28