Good morning church family,

Holding the FedEx package in her hands, Aubrey’s heart thumped in her chest like a kick drum. Her mouth went dry and her ears got hot. But despite her telltale body bearing witness against her; Aubrey clung to the belief that what she was doing was more noble than naughty.

Aubrey Fender had recently moved fifteen-hundred miles away from home; settling in a little, second-story apartment in Birmingham, Alabama. Graduating from Wheaton with a communications degree, she’d turned a senior-year internship into a full-time job in the human relations department of a large aerospace company located there. She was twenty-three, unattached, and prone to wandering. Life, for Aubrey, was suddenly a moss-covered log to traverse. She was stepping gingerly, heel to toe; trying hard not to look down at the swift river below.

Growing up in a reverent, Presbyterian home, Aubrey had been taught to hold God and His Word in high regard. She’d also been taught to be wary of any Christian expression that seemed overly warmhearted. She was much more comfortable, for instance, giving indirect praise to God. Singing, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise” was just the sort of measured, declarative worship that she was comfortable with. But only an uncouth, unchecked romantic would dare look God in the face while singing to Him, “I love you Lord and I lift my voice to worship you”. At least no one should dare sing such a thing out loud. Most modern, evangelical praise and worship music made Aubrey squirm.

No, Aubrey was determined to worship God in her own way. And the instrument she needed for this unique form of worship was sitting there in the package in her hands. Aubrey took no small pleasure in knowing that her worship would likely make all the good Southern Baptists around her squirm; setting the tongues of sisters Myrtle and Martha to clucking and those of brother Billy and Boudreaux to barking. For, inside the box was a short-stemmed, cherry wood, tobacco pipe.

From the first time she read what the Apostle Paul had written to the Corinthian and Roman Christians about the “weaker brother”, Aubrey had been taken with the idea of Christian liberty. She loved the idea of living in freedom, unbound by the hang-ups, weaknesses, and conventional mores of those she just happened to be sharing a pew with. Aubrey wanted to use colorful language, hang risqué art in her apartment, read banned books, and do a bit of tramping on the wrong side of the tracks. She didn’t want to live her life in a convent of monastic mediocrity. Aubrey wanted to live a little, embrace a red-blooded humanity, and explore God’s creation without having to stay on the tourist’s side of the ropes. She had often pondered what the exercise of her Christian liberty might look like. From all her reading out of her father’s library and from her studies at Wheaton, Aubrey had learned that many a great Christian thinker liked to have a good puff now and again. Spurgeon, Bonhoeffer, Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton; they all smoked pipes and cigars. Even Johann Sebastian Bach, Mr. “Soli Deo Gloria” himself, liked to have an evening smoke. She never quite understood it, but Aubrey had always liked the idea of her sitting down in a comfortable armchair at the close of day, warm lamplight falling on the pages of a classic tome, an inch of brandy resting neatly in a glass at arm’s-length on the end table, and moist, cherry tobacco being pressed into the smoldering bowl of her pipe. She’d deftly lift a match out of her silver tin, strike it on the file beneath, and, with the pipe held tightly in her teeth, put the flame to the tobacco. She’d flick the extinguished match into the crystal ashtray that sat beside the brandy, lean back, find her spot on the page, and envelope her head in lovely, aromatic pipe smoke. That was the kind of worship that Aubrey longed to give to the Lord.

As she unboxed the pipe; holding the lovely thing in her hands, her head went swimmy with the intoxication of independence. Walking into the bathroom, Aubrey cupped the pipe’s bowl in the palm of her left hand and put the tip of the stem between her teeth. Clenching the pipe in her jaw, she smiled crookedly into the mirror. Catching her own eye, Aubrey winked a tart, flirty wink. “I’ll have to run out to the store and get some pipe tobacco,” Aubrey thought to herself. “And maybe a little bottle of brandy, too.”

Driving to Walgreens, Aubrey turned on the radio and turned up the volume on whatever frothy, synthed-up song was playing. She knew better than to let herself think too much.

Walking into the store, she grabbed a handbasket from off of the stack inside the door and tried to appear as casual as she possibly could. To calm her nerves and to not come off as too desperate or craven to the cashier, Aubrey decided to shop for toiletries, makeup, and some other home goods first. Once she’d collected enough products for her shopping to own an air of plausibility, she made her way to the corner of the store where the tobacco products and spirits were shelved. She quickly chose the most expensive and elegant-looking tobacco tin she saw and then picked up the loveliest little liquor bottle full of brandy.

At the register, there was a bit of a line spaced along the racks of gum, chocolate bars, and candy. Aubrey took her place at the back of the line. Holding the handles together in both hands, the basket rested comfortably against the fronts of her legs. The man standing in front of her in line attracted her attention. Sizing him up from the back, he appeared to Aubrey to be in his fifties or maybe even sixties. Either way, he certainly looked like he had a lot of miles on him. His salt and pepper hair was thinning and cut tight to his head. His skin had the appearance of well-tanned leather and his black boots, the wear and tear from years of clod kicking. He wore a biker’s jacket with a number of patches she didn’t recognize. But the thing that instantly caught her eye was the “1Peter 2:16” tattooed onto his left bicep.

The line moved forward and the man in front of Aubrey turned slightly; shooting a sideways glance back at her. Her heady, nervous energy prompted her to engage the biker man. “I see you have a Bible verse tattoo on your arm there,” Aubrey said, pointing her basket in the general direction of the man’s arm. “What’s it say?”

The man turned around and Aubrey saw his face for the first time. She was surprised to find that set into his earnest face were the keenest, kindest eyes she’d ever seen. His manner was calm and sweet as he looked first into Aubrey’s eyes and then unashamedly down into her basket. Looking again into her eyes, he had the demeanor of a loving grandfather. “It’s a paradox,” the man said, the faintest glint of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth. “It’s talking about how the only real freedom any of us can find is in slavery to Christ.” The man maintained a placid stare as Aubrey smiled and nodded her head. “Are you a believer?” the man kindly asked.

“Oh yes,” Aubrey said, rocking the basket back and forth on her legs. “Absolutely.”

“Do you love Jesus?” the man said, seemingly unsatisfied with Aubrey’s confession.

Aubrey hesitated. “Yeah,” she said, her eyes escaping to the packs of gum for a moment, “I love God.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” the man said; casting a pointed glance again into Aubrey’s basket.

Just then the line moved again and the man turned to put his items onto the counter. Aubrey looked down into her basket and wavered on the purchase. She was suddenly ashamed and quickly stepped out of line; feigning that she’d forgotten something. Once hidden within the aisles, she doubled back to the rear of the store; resolved to return the alcohol and tobacco to the shelf. Walking back to the front, her basket free of device, she was haunted by the man’s question.

“Do I love Jesus?” Aubrey whispered aloud. “I guess I don’t know,” she wondered to herself. “But I suppose I ought to find that out before I try and worship Him.”

It’s going to be so good to love, adore, and worship the Lord together tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to hear all that He has to say and to learn my heart’s response. What a blessing to walk the pilgrim way with a good Shepherd to lead us. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us! See you in the morning!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

Feeling cagey and exposed, he looked down to see if his arms were tied to the chair. They weren’t. But still, he couldn’t lift them. He couldn’t even make a fist.

His freshly-shorn hair lay in clumps on the floor and the faint smell of shaving cream was in the air. His bald head itched and stung from the tight passes made with the straight razor. Wind from the fan mounted on the wall behind, blew over his wet head; sending a chill down his spine.

Was it a barber’s chair under him? He would have been glad for a mirror to offer a view of his surroundings, but the wall in front of him was bare. Behind him stood a man smelling of tonic. He thought he saw a white coat out of the corner of his eye.

Suddenly, the fingers and thumbs of two hands were pressing firmly all about his shaven head. The pressing was more probing than therapeutic; the work of a doctor and not a masseuse. Then a dialogue between the white-coated man and an unseen assistant began. “Some cratering indicative of neurosis,” the man said in a cold, analytical tone; his assessment finding an echo in the assistant’s scratching on a clipboard. “Strong indications of megalomania in the frontal cortex,” he continued. “No signs of psychopathy. Hmmm…that’s odd,” the man said in a whisper. The man’s hands suddenly leapt off of his head as though it had turned white hot and he heard the sounds of feet shuffling backward.

And there the dream ended. Casey Freiling woke up with a start, his pajama shirt wet with sweat; his mind alert and racing. It was the third such time he’d dreamt this exact dream in the last two weeks. Like Pharaoh in Egypt long ago or Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, he knew intuitively that the dream was not the normal nocturnal scribblings of the subconscious. No, this had to be a vision. Casey was determined to learn the interpretation.

He started with his church. Casey had been a believer for over twenty years; coming to Christ as a young man and serving his local church faithfully ever since. He never missed a Sunday, always tithed the first fruits of his paycheck, was forever working his way through a stack of recommended texts, and kept his church’s code of ethics as well as he could.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” was his pastor’s reply. “It’s probably something you ate. Many a ‘vision’ you hear about today is probably nothing more than indigestion.” The pastor was trying to be lighthearted about it but Casey wasn’t joining in the chuckling. “Either way, Casey; just keep your mind on God’s Word and trust in Him.”

Unsatisfied with this processed counsel, Casey sought out a couple other leaders in the church. They listened intently and even went so far as to cross their arms, hold their chins in hand, and furrow their brows in feigned concern. But their counsel was little different from the pastor’s. “Hard to tell, Casey,” one of them said. “Maybe it’s a riff on something you saw on TV or something.” The other picked up on something Casey had said, “You said you woke up sweating through your shirt, right? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some pretty wild fever dreams in my day.”

Casey wanted to push back by reminding them that the dream had come in triplicate, that the dream was nothing like anything he’d seen on any screen, and that he hadn’t been ill in months. But he despaired of finding wisdom in either of the men and, instead, just shook his head in time with theirs. “Alright, I guess I’ll see you next Sunday,” Casey said.

He really didn’t want to, but Casey’s next approach was to lay out a little cash and see a Christian counselor. “What do you think the dream means, Mr. Freiling?” the counselor had asked.

“I have no idea,” Casey responded, slightly agitated. “I was hoping you could help me.”

“Well, that’s what I’m aiming to do. Our dreams, you see,” the counselor sat back and brought his hands together at the fingertips, “are often us trying to talk to ourselves in notions, pictures, or ideas. I imagine you have the interpretation within your own heart and mind, Mr. Freiling. I strongly suggest you try and talk it out with me and bring it into the open.”

Casey endured the session and paid the receptionist, but left as frustrated as ever. He next scanned Amazon for titles that seemed promising. He even ordered one, but he’d hardly finished the first chapter when he knew its prospects were poor. Next, he scanned the internet for charismatic churches in the area; hoping to find one that might have someone on staff for this sort of thing. He found one about an hour away and made an appointment with someone purporting to be the church’s “Chief Armor Bearer”. But the meeting started with Casey being asked to fill out a spiritual inventory that read more like a sexual confessional. The man seemed kind and earnest enough, but the whole thing only served to further muddy the waters.

Instead of having the dream recede into the blessed nether regions of his subconscious, it only took up a more prominent position in his thinking. It was rare for Casey’s mind to dwell on anything other than the dream when it wasn’t otherwise occupied. He relived the dream often and often sought out means and methods for understanding it. He’d read as much as he could, watched videos, sought counsel, ventured out to the gnarly fringes of Christendom, and even tried something called “inductive journaling”. But nothing brought relief.

Then one day he happened to mention the dream to a coworker. It was an unguarded moment for Casey, who had worked for years to keep his work relationships as professional and impersonal as possible. But maybe it was the fact that he and Brandon were walking and not sitting and talking, that made the casual exchange possible. Whatever it was, Casey had taken the opportunity to share his dream after Brandon described a recent visit to his barber.

“Woah, Case,” Brandon said, kicking pebbles off the paved pathway as they walked, “that’s messed up man. But that doesn’t sound like a barber to me. I think that’s some phrenology stuff you got going on there.”

Casey had never heard of phrenology before. Later that night, he looked it up. He learned that there was once a branch of science that operated on the theory that a person’s character and mental faculty could be determined by examining the size and shape of his skull. While the practice of phrenology seemed perfectly laughable to Casey, it did seem eerily similar to what the man with the white coat was attempting to do in the dream.

“Should I go online and try and find a phrenologist somewhere?” Casey thought to himself. “Am I neurotic like the guy said in the dream? Am I a megalomaniac? Is there something wrong in my head? Should I ask my doctor to schedule an MRI or something? What does this dream mean?” Casey’s mind began to spin with questions and wild suppositions. But then came the moment of grace.

“Why haven’t you asked Me?” came the question from the voice he hadn’t heard since he first visited the altar two decades earlier.

“I’m sorry, I – – I suppose I didn’t know that I could.”

“When are you going to get out of that chair, Casey? For too long now, you’ve been allowing everything and everyone to make out your life’s pathways for you. It’s silly, child. No one else really knows you or the plans I have for you.” The Lord paused and Casey reveled in the wonderful communion for a moment. “It’s like what I had Solomon say, ‘in all your ways, acknowledge Me and I will make your paths straight.’”

Casey reflexively dropped to his knees and, with tears in his eyes, begged forgiveness. He was forgiven indeed and raised out of the “chair” to stand with Christ on his own two feet. But the best thing for Casey was that the prayer time never had an ending “amen”.

We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to seek and find, ask and receive, knock and have doors opened to us. It’s going to be a blessed time of encouragement and renewal – and I can’t wait to share in it with each of you! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate