Do you remember the old Spindletop ride at Six Flags?  It was in the Texas section, sort of like things were yesterday at the Cotton Bowl, mostly in the Texas section.  The riders stood against the wall in this tubular-shaped room, the room started spinning faster and faster and at some point they dropped the floor out from under you?  The idea was that the centrifugal force would keep you pinned against the wall until they brought the floor up again as the room slowed down so that you could regain your footing.  The idea was also that they’d bring the floor back up before someone’s lunch got brought up.

The ride was a lot of fun as long as it didn’t last too long.  Being pinned against a wall by all the forces of nature trying to pull you away from the center of the room and press you to oblivion wouldn’t have been fun at all had the floor not eventually come back up, things slowed down and everyone allowed to regain their footing.

I recently asked one of our young adult men why he comes to church.  It’s always interesting to have that conversation with people. 

Why do some people come to church and others stay away?  Without too much time to think, this young man said, it helps him get centered again.  He has a big job, lots of responsibilities, lots of hours, lots of time away from home.  He had already excused himself from a committee meeting the following night because he said it would be the first night in several he would be able to see his children at dinner.

It was like the world wouldn’t stop spinning, pulling at him from every side, pressing him hard, except for that one day he was at church, where, for just a brief moment, in the worship of God and the company of fellow believers, he could regain his footing and get his life centered again on what mattered most to him.  How’s your world spinning these days?

Having read the 23^rd Psalm this morning, do you ever find yourself wondering if the only time you’ll know what it is like to lie down in green pastures is if your funeral is in the spring and Laureland has

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had plenty of rain?  Or, is it possible to live a centered life, a life well-grounded and full of the peace of God, as scripture seems to promise, no matter what is pulling or pressing on you otherwise?  Is it?

We’ve heard this so many times, it just goes over our heads.  Or, maybe it’s because most of us have no clue from personal experience.  But, these words of Paul’s recorded in Philippians 4:1-9 were written from a Roman jail, a cell that turned out to be on death row for him.

I’ve never spent one day in a county jail, much less months or years on death row, so, it’s hard for me to relate.  I did spend four nights in a Motor Inn on Highway 183 way out in West Texas and figured 30 days in the County Jail couldn’t much different.  But, I do know what’s it’s like to be pulled in every direction.  We all do, don’t we?  Thinking back on his missionary experiences, Paul had written some of his Corinthian friends about it this way, “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.  But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8-9, KJV).

In other words, at least in his experience, all this stuff that kept him off-center actually served to keep him centered, not on himself or his own creative ability to figure it all out or his own limited resources to pull himself up by his own boot straps, but on someone who was, in fact, the very center of life itself.  You have to ask, if we were never pressed, would we know what it’s like to be centered?

This passage from Philippians is almost like a manual on staying centered.  It’s chock full of practical suggestions for people who need help staying centered.  Before we go any further, we need a canvas.  We’re going attempt to paint a portrait of peace.  We’re about to be handed some brushes and paints.  Every one of our portrait will be a

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little different.  But, we can’t paint without a canvas.

Just like Paul’s canvas was his personal experience on death row, we have to put these words into our context.  The context of our lives becomes the canvas on which the Spirit of God would like to paint a portrait of peace.  So, what’s your canvas?

What is it that tends to pull at you most, worry you most, cause you the greatest anxiety?  Gasoline prices?  The promise of heating costs doubling by January?  Bird flu pandemics?  Or, is it more personal than all of that, more worrisome, more immediate?  Whatever is pulling you apart, pressing on you, if you could get peace about that, how would it change your life?  Perhaps these principles from Philippians 4:1-9 might prove helpful.

First, celebrate the presence of God.  Paul’s way of expressing this principle was to encourage the folks to “Rejoice always . . . the Lord is near.”  Paul may have meant that the Lord is coming again soon.

Ah, deliverance!  A rescue helicopter!  Or, wings like eagles to soar above and away.  That’d be nice.  But, he didn’t say that.  So, we’ve got some room for maneuvering with the meaning here.  He could have meant, the Lord is nearby.  He is very close.  He’s as close, actually, closer than anyone, closer than your next breath.  There is never a moment when, no matter what, we cannot and should not, stop now and then to consciously acknowledge the presence of God.

Put yourself back into the most stressful moment of this past week.

Now, put yourself back there, acknowledging the presence of God.  Does that change the portrait?  Does it add the green of new life where once you only saw the gray of despair and the dark colors of death?  Does the peace of God enter the picture?

One evening recently, Nancy and I had to come back into town for a meeting.  I really didn’t want to go.  One hour in.  The meeting.  One

hour back.  It’d been a long day.  I just wanted to stay home but I

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didn’t have that option.  After a while, I got to thinking about it

differently and told Nancy, “At least I’ll have you with me the whole time.”  That did wonders for my marriage.  It did even more for my peace of mind and heart.

Do you remember the promise of the 23^rd Psalm?  What is the promised assurance?  Not that death won’t overshadow us.  Not that if we do everything right everything will go immediately well for us.  Only that, even if we have to walk through a valley so deep that death’s overlooming shadow blocks out the sun, we will not, not ever, not once, find ourselves alone.  Anyone can kill you . . . for no good reason . . . like a stupid scuffle over the turnout of a football game . . . anyone can kill you . . . but, if your faith is in Christ . . . no one can keep you dead.  The God of the resurrection is with us always.  We can and should celebrate the presence of God.

Second, tell God everything.  Again, from Philippians, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

This is a double-negative.  So, if the English teachers will turn a deaf ear for a moment.  You cannot not worry.  It’s impossible.  The only way not to worry is to choose another course of action.  Tell God everything – prayer – supplication – thanksgiving.  Paul is using the broadest brushstrokes possible with which to paint a picture of the range of prayer’s possibilities.

There is a time and place for public prayer.  However, the scripture, by instruction and by the example of people of faith, including Jesus, says far more about private prayer.  Have you ever noticed how awkward, even artificial, public prayer can be?  That’s because, if we are going to do the kind of praying this passage instructs, the larger bulk of our praying will have to be done in private because there are some things we need to say to God we cannot say when anyone else is around, even the people who love us most.

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How many times did Jesus get away from everyone to pray?  Do you ever wonder what he said that we will never know?  That isn’t recorded, because no one was there to hear it but his heavenly Father?

Prayer is taking the celebration of God’s presence a step further but engaging in conversation with the God who is always present.  Frankly, I’m coming to learn, it’s really more about just listening.  Listening is hard work.  Preachers make their living talking.  They get affirmed for what they say!  Learning to listen, even to God, is hard work. Yet, experiencing the peace of God accompanies a willingness to tell God absolutely anything and everything.

Finally, keep doing the good thing.  There is clear instruction in this passage to put the course of our minds on truthful, noble, wholesome thoughts.  At the last, however, the specific instruction is to carry our thoughts into action.  “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”  We must turn positive thoughts into positive action, to turn good thoughts into good deeds.

We don’t know what was going on between Euodia and Syntyche; we don’t know what the conflict was.  Maybe they’d made fun of each other’s names.  Strangely, it’s reassuring that conflict in the church has existed from the beginning.  He urges the folks around them to help them get focused on what they have in common, not what divides them – to do the right thing.

In any conflict, we tend to focus on changing the minds of others or wishing they weren’t the way they were.  We have no power to effect that kind of change.  What if, instead, we just focused on doing the right thing, no matter what the other person is doing?  We can do that.  How would that change things?

It’s true that we don’t always know what the right to do might be.  This is a good principle from the Old Testament for living in the gray

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areas of life.  “He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8, KJV).  And, the Psalmist would add to that, “Trust in the Lord and do good” (Psalm 37:3, NIV).  In any situation, even if you cannot discern “the will of God,” then just do the best thing you can do.  That’s all God ever requires.  And, to those who will choose that course of action, the peace of God is promised.

At the last orphanage we visited in St. Petersburg this past summer, Nancy spread some blank sheets of paper on the floor.  She gave the children some rubber stamps and let them make their own pictures.  This one precocious, beautiful little girl made a border on her sheet of paper.  But, then, she turned her back and a little boy nearby scribbled all over her work.  When she turned back around, the little girl was terribly upset.  (We learned very quickly that some things, especially emotions, need no verbal translation.)  Nancy could tell that the little boy was devastated that he had hurt the little girl’s feelings so badly.  He took a piece of blank paper and made a new border on it with the rubber stamps.  Then, he handed it to the little girl and said, “Here, you can mess mine up.”  It brought tears to my eyes as Nancy told the story.  The little boy couldn’t repair what he had ruined.  He couldn’t change the past.  But, he did the best thing he knew to do.  He did the good thing.  That’s all God ever asks.

You want the peace of God?  Celebrate the presence of God.  Tell God everything.  Do the good thing.

Last week I told the story of paying $50 for golf in the context of concern for people who have so little.  I got two reactions.  Some said, “You pay $50 to play golf!”  Others said, “Hey, if you’re going to preach about $50 being too much to pay for golf, you’ve gone from preaching to meddling!”  What to do?

Here is what I’ve decided.  Fifty dollars for golf isn’t evil if you can get a good sermon illustration out of it.  So, here goes!

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Two weeks ago as I was standing on the 16^th green at Tenison, waiting for everyone else to catch up.  I’d gotten there in regulation and had some time to kill!  And, if you believe that, you don’t know my game!

Anyway, as I’m standing there, I noticed the most spectacular bird up in one of Tenison’s tall trees!  It was a huge, red-tailed hawk.  Its wingspan had to be four feet.  When it flew from one tree to the next, the red colors of its tail were a deep blood red, simply beautiful.  I stood there in awe of God’s handiwork.  And, I got a little envious. 

I thought about how that hawk didn’t have to pay $50 to fly there.  That was his home.  He could come and go at ease.  He didn’t have to worry about meeting deadlines or people’s expectations.  He didn’t even have to worry about “hawking” his wares.  What a life!

Then, I thought further.  That hawk wasn’t just sitting there.  He was scoping out something to eat for lunch.  And, when he finished lunch, he’d have to scope out something for dinner.  And, the next day, he’d have to start all over.  From dawn to dusk, his life hangs on the narrow precipice of survival; he literally lives from claw to mouth. 

At least God has made me, and you, more than a hawk.  We get to live soaring throughout his creation on wings lifted high by hope, celebrating his presence, sharing everything with him and even, now and then, getting to do something good.  What a gift!

The peace of God!