Good morning church family,

Standing on his back deck; sipping his morning coffee and surveying the yard, Warren Butterfield was wondering to himself, “When is the best time of year for a family of red squirrels to go homeless?”

Warren was in his pajamas but had put his coat on before stepping outside. Steam poured off the top of his mug like a smoke stack as he struck a stoic pose; one hand in coat pocket and the other wrapped around the warm ceramic cup. His wife and kids were inside and still asleep in their beds but Warren was up and at ‘em; eager to make the most of his Saturday. He had a pretty decent punch list for the day. Warren aimed to get the last of the leaves out of the yard and into the woods, take the patio furniture off the deck and tuck it away in the garage, shut down the riding mower, tune up the snow blower, and stack the couple cords of split wood he’d had delivered earlier in the week. And if all that got done with any daylight to spare, Warren’s wife had one more job for him.

“Warren,” his wife Beth had said one warm autumn evening as they sat out on the deck enjoying the twilight, “that brush pile of yours looks awful. Can’t you pile that up somewhere else where we don’t have to look at it all the time?”

“Honey,” Warren playfully replied, “this isn’t exactly the palace gardens back here. That’s the Vermont wilderness you’re looking at. That brush pile is the quaint, bucolic display of a gentleman farmer hard at work. Embrace it.”

“’Bucolic’? Really?” Beth came back at him. “Good grief. Well, listen, if I’m forced to embrace that brush pile – I’m just warning you – that might be the only thing I end up embracing around here.”

“Is that a threat?” Warren asked as he leaned in for a kiss.

Beth just made a face while turning to give Warren nothing more than her cheek. The brush pile would have to go.

But now, standing there on his deck; the early morning chill finding its way past his coat and sending a shiver up his spine, Warren was plagued by an unsettling thought. All summer long and throughout the fall, he’d noticed that a family of red squirrels had taken up residence in the aforementioned brush pile that was located in the back corner of the yard. Several times, he’d stopped what he was doing to watch as the handsome little creatures scurried and scampered across the lawn or into the woods beyond. Less common than their grayish cousins, Warren thought the rusty-colored rodents to be smart-looking and even adorable. When collecting the downed tree limbs that fell in summer wind storms, Warren was careful to place them gently atop the pile; not wanting to damage the squirrels’ nest or make them anxious. His care and concern for the little critter family had not been a conscious one up to this point; even though his eye was often drawn to that part of the property in hopes of spying one of them.

Taking another sip of his cooling coffee, Warren began considering what might happen to the squirrels if he pulled the brush pile apart and dragged it into the woods. “With the cold and snow coming,” he thought to himself, “how quickly could those squirrels build another nest?” Continuing to think, he asked himself, “I wonder if they have any little ones nesting in there? That would sure be awful if I dumped those poor things out onto the cold forest floor.”

Warren shook his head and turned to go back inside. He was resolved to do nothing about the brush pile without looking into the matter further. “Anyway you look at it,” he argued to himself as he stepped back into the wonderfully warm house, “I really ought to wait until next summer and give the little guys a few months to find new accommodations.” He was hopeful Beth would agree.

Warren poured a second cup of coffee and pulled one of his wife’s blueberry muffins out of the bread box. He turned the lights on over the dining room table and pulled his Bible from off of the top of the China cabinet. Sitting down, he opened up to the Psalms. Everyone now and again, Warren liked to read through the Psalms in one of the months with thirty days in it. Reading five psalms a day; he could work his way through the whole hymnal in a calendar month.  

Having finished both muffins (Warren had been back to the bread box midway through his first psalm of the day), he took his mug in one hand and leaned back in his chair; propping the Bible atop his crossed legs. Warren enjoyed these quiet times of stillness. Over the buzzing hum of the refrigerator, the whoosh of the humidifier fan blowing down the hallway, and the neighbor’s car warming up across the road, Warren listened for the voice of God. He read Scripture in the same way one might take a leisurely walk in the woods. He wasn’t there to map it all out, to chop anything down, to hunt for trophies, or to get his exercise in for the day. He wasn’t hoping to find anything in particular on his jaunt but he wasn’t avoiding adventure either. He just loved being in the woods, so to speak. He loved tramping in the wild environment of the Scriptures; shutting his mouth to open his eyes to the wonderful perfection of the Word and all the pristine beauty captured in every expression of the heart and mind of God. His best devotional times were ones that were unhurried and free of slavish duty and obligation.

Sitting at his dining room table, Warren was enjoying one of these walks in the woods when the Lord suddenly stood in Warren’s way instead of walking beside him. Warren had just begun reading Psalm 8 when verse 4 stopped him dead in his tracks. “What is man,” King David had asked there, “that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

“How is it, Warren,” the Lord inquired, “that you care enough about red squirrels to worry about their salvation from the cold but that you don’t care enough about your fellow man to worry about his salvation from hell? Don’t you know that I’ve called you to be mindful of him and to care for him?”

In the otherwise neat and tidy world of Warren’s faith, his reticence to share the Gospel with others was an eyesore to the Lord. Warren was suddenly haunted by the recollection of several opportunities for sharing that he’d been given in the past week but which he’d allowed to go by the boards.

Warren placed the Bible and his coffee mug back on the table and pushed his chair out. He slid down onto his knees and prayed a simple prayer. “Lord,” he began, “thank you for putting this stumbling stone in my path this morning. I’m going to put this at the top of my punch list today and for the week to come. With your help, any opportunity you give me – I’ll try and take it. I don’t want to see any of your creatures left out in the cold.” 

We’re looking forward to gathering together tomorrow morning and enjoying fellowship with one another and communion with our Lord. It’s the first Sunday of Advent! It’s going to be so good to replace our longing with desires fulfilled. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

–        Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

Matt Munger never read a thing aside from the essays and articles his teachers assigned for him to work on in school. And work it was. Every paragraph was agony for Matt as he tried to get something out of words that drifted off the page and seemed to swirl about his head. Reading for him was something like trying to get honey from a hive with hundreds of stinging bees swarming angrily about his head. And that’s what makes the story of Matt reading his way to Jesus so remarkable.

Saturday was dump day in the Munger household. Since Matt’s father worked most Saturdays and the older kids were always off doing who knows what, Matt was usually pegged to help make the dump run with his mom. In the little town of Orvil, Vermont, the citizens had to haul all their garbage, recyclables, and returnables to the town dump located at the end of the Meetinghouse Road across town. Matt’s mom would give the word and Matt would begin loading the car. The Mungers stored everything going to the dump out in the garage. All the trash was stuffed into 25-gallon, black plastic bags sold exclusively by the dump for the purpose. Several plastic bins lined up against the wall separated colored glass from clear, plastic items from metal things, cardboard and newspaper from the beer bottles and soda cans. Sometimes there might be another thing or two to load in; a rusted-out tricycle, a discarded vanity, or anything else no longer deemed useful. Matt tucked everything neatly into the back of his mom’s Subaru, with one extra item having to go on the back seat. He then headed back into the kitchen to wait for his mom.

The drive over to the dump had grown uncomfortably quiet over the last year. Being thirteen now, Matt was no longer very keen on being driven around town by his mom. There was a time when he would have welcomed such an adventure; a knight on errands with his queen. But now, Matt was uncontrollably sullen – retreating under the bill of his cap and the hood of his sweatshirt while slinking down in the seat. His mom, a wiry and energetic woman who noted the change in her son with the stoicism of a lioness letting go of her cub; kept her eye on the road and her mind on the to-do list.

Nearing the entrance to the dump, Matt was glad to see there wasn’t much of a line; just a couple pickup trucks and a minivan. It was a damp and cool March morning. The sky was a shade of gray that made Matt think it might rain or possibly even snow. He sat staring at the cloud of white exhaust pouring out of the truck muffler in front of him while wishing his mother would turn on the radio.

They eventually advanced into one of the parking spots for offloading. Matt’s mom stopped the car and shut off the engine. “Take that hood off, son,” his mom said as she began getting out of the car. “You look like a thug.”

Matt dutifully pulled back his hood and straightened his ball cap before climbing out of the car himself. He rarely argued with his mom. Opening the hatchback, he kept an ear on the conversation his mom was having with the dump attendant to hear what he’d have them do with the old space heater they were junking.

His mom’s exchange with the attendant over, she began walking to the back of the car. She was about to report where the heater should be discarded when Matt cut her off with a gloomy look and four fingers held up on one hand; indicating that he’d heard that the heater was to go in dumpster #4.

“Okay, honey,” she said. “Listen, I saw Jen over there with Kaitlyn. I’m going to go say hello for a minute.”

Matt nodded assent and set about to unburden the Subaru of all the Munger garbage. It was quick work. Matt enjoyed throwing things into the dumpsters; delighting in the destructive nature of the work. No one junked glass with more gusto than Matt Munger.

Once all of the usual items were disposed of, Matt took the space heater out of the back seat and walked it over to dumpster #4. Eyeing an old computer monitor near the bottom of the big, metal container, he aimed the heater and threw it with all his might. He only managed a glancing blow to the screen and the black glass failed to shatter or even crack. Matt looked around and saw the attendant smiling at him. Matt put back up his hood.

From experience, Matt knew that his mom might be more than a few minutes talking. She knew everyone in town and was always up for a good chat. Ever since he was a little kid, he’d learned how to kill time in grocery stores, gas stations, post offices, and bank lobbies. Walking back over to the recycling station, he made his way to the far bin that sat beside the one keeping all of the corrugated cardboard. This bin was smaller than the rest and not nearly as deep. This was where the good people of Orvil dumped all their old books, journals, magazines, and catalogs. Matt had for years found some pleasure in sifting through everything in this bin. There were always a lot of old Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens magazines, ancient encyclopedias, dozens and dozens of Land’s End and L.L. Bean catalogs, and enough romance paperbacks to dam a small river. But every once-in-a-while Matt would hit paydirt and find a Sports Illustrated or a stack of Field and Stream magazines that he could take out and enjoy leafing through.

On this particular day, Matt wasn’t having much luck finding anything interesting. He’d found a Reader’s Digest and tucked it under his arm. If nothing better was discovered, he could at least read through the humor sections and maybe have a laugh. He was about to give up, when he noticed a magazine he’d never seen before. It was about the size of a Reader’s Digest but was called Guideposts. The headlines on the front were unremarkable to Matt and the person featured wasn’t anybody he recognized. What did catch Matt’s eye were the words “this is for you” written in blue pen on the upper right corner of the magazine. The front cover was glossy and whoever had written the message must have struggled to make the markings, for each stroke had been made over and over again; pressing deep furrows into the cover. Matt opened up the little magazine to the first page and scanned the table of contents. There were articles appearing to deal with matters like diet and nutrition, workplace conflicts, and grandparenting. Nothing seemed to be “for him” until he saw the headline: “Going Broke to Get Rich”. That grabbed Matt’s attention for some reason. The byline on the article read: “How losing millions led one man to much, much more”.

Matt was intrigued and turned to the page where the article started. He read the first couple of paragraphs and was immediately taken in by the story of a man who’d started a computer software company in the late nineties and who had built incredible wealth within a few short years.

“Alright, honey,” Matt’s mom said as she got back to the car, “I’m all set. Let’s get going.”

Matt snapped out of his reverie and closed the magazine. His mom hopped into the car and got the engine running. Matt tossed the Reader’s Digest back into the bin but folded the Guidepost into the back pocket of his jeans.

For the rest of the time running errands and during the whole ride back home, Matt couldn’t get the words “this is for you” out of his head. He couldn’t wait to steal away to his room later and read the rest of the story. He sensed the message of the article might actually be for him.

Arriving back at the house, Matt walked right past the refrigerator, the television, and the game room to his bedroom upstairs. He quickly turned again to the story and read the rest of the article. It ended up being a story of trial, heartbreak, and bankruptcy with the man in the middle of it all losing everything and wanting, at one point, to take his life. But in the depths of his despair, this man found Jesus and became wealthy in a very different way. The article concluded with a telling of Christ’s parable of the pearl of great value. Before the article was even over, Matt somehow knew that he wanted to get his own hands on that same pearl. Many years later, when Matt would tell the story of his conversion, he’d always say he came to Christ that afternoon while reading a Guideposts article in his bedroom.

“Honey!” Matt’s mom called up the stairs. “Dinner’s on the counter.”

Matt came out of his room feeling the way he often felt when walking out of a movie theater; with the real world seeming like a fiction for a moment. But he trundled down the stairs and walked into the kitchen; grabbing a plate and dishing some lasagna onto it. His mom was the only one there.

“Where is everybody?” Matt asked.

“They’re on their way,” his mom answered while leaning against the counter sipping a glass of iced tea. “Your dad’s upstairs changing.”

“I thought I heard him come in.” Matt was now pulling a piece of garlic bread out of the foil.

“Say, Honey,” his mom began uneasily, “when we were leaving the dump, I noticed in the rearview mirror that you put some kind of magazine or something into your back pocket.” Matt stopped fixing his plate and looked into his mom’s interrogating eyes. “That wasn’t some kind of girlie magazine was it?”

“No, Mom,” Matt said embarrassed; shooting his eyes back down to his plate. “Not at all.”

“Then what was it? I’m just curious.”

Matt thought for a moment before looking back up at his mom. “It’s actually not a magazine at all,” Matt said with a sweet and innocent smile. “It’s a pearl.”

We’re looking forward to coming together tomorrow morning to be encouraged in our faith and to lift one another up in love and strength. Isn’t it grand to be a Christian!?! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate