Saturday, November 5, 2022
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
On the road to everywhere
No servant can serve two masters. He with either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.
John Michael Talbot says, “Be both feet in, baby. Wow! Jesus will give back as we give to him, in ways that will surprise you. You may not be rich in mammon, but boy, will you be rich in the things of heaven!”
John Michael won his first Dove Award nomination in 1981. He was Billboard Magazine’s top Christian artist in 1988. In 2005 he was the Arkansas Hall of Fame’s Entertainer of the Year. But mostly for the last four decades, he has lived in the Arkansas Ozarks, at the Little Portion Hermitage with his fellow Brothers and Sisters of Charity. Since he played with his brother Terry in the band Mason Profitt in the 70’s, his music just gets better and better.
The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And Jesus said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts. What society sees and calls monumental, God sees through and calls monstrous.
A fire burned much of the monastery in 2008, a week before the musicians headed for a month-long Canadian tour. All their equipment was destroyed. A local paper said, “In true Franciscan fashion Talbot said, ‘God is stripping us so that only what is essential will remain.’”
They rebuilt, but not with wood, so plentiful in the Ozarks, but also so vulnerable. They rebuilt in stone.
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
When John Michael was leaving Mason Profitt in the 70’s to begin his spiritual music career, I was hitchhiking. During college at Valparaiso University, hitchhiking was my preferred method of travel. Eventually I traveled from New York City to Valpo, and then later from my parents’ home in Lincoln, Illinois to San Francisco.
Jay picked me up in Arkansas and we toured the west together for a few weeks. His car broke down in the desert north of Route 66, just west of the Grand Canyon. A photographer from Germany picked us up and took us south to the Mother Road. Jay had to rescue his car, but I continued on to Las Vegas, where the photographer and I saw a show and had a fun night on the Vegas Strip.
The next day, all luxuriated, I stepped out on the highway again. I stood there for three hours. I knew what it was to have plenty, and I knew what it was to be in need. Around noon, a man in a station wagon picked me up, along with four other hitchhikers standing on the same interstate entrance. He took us all to Los Angeles.
Of course this kind of story takes many twists and turns. I wish I could remember them all. And I’m glad I survived to tell the tale.
My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus … so let my generosity endure forever.
(Philippians 4, Psalm 112, 2 Corinthians 8, Luke 16)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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