Blueberry Banana Pecan Pancakes, Sin, and Jesus

As a waiter at Cracker Barrel I encounter some pretty odd dishes.  None compared to the one I encountered last week.  A man came in with his wife and was very straightforward and to the point.  He said, "Yes I know what I want to drink and I'm ready to order."  I was happy because I was getting a drink order and a food order on one stop at the table.  I took the order and noticed something strange as he was ordering, he ordered a flavor explosion!  He said, "I want the blueberry pancakes.  Oh yeah, please put pecans and bananas inside please.  I need two blue syrups and one maple syrup.  Also I need sausage and sunny side up eggs.  Please bring a large milk with the food as well."  I was exausted just taking the order, not to mention wondering how he would stomach the food he ordered.  I dashed off to plate up the palate pleasing plethora of pancakes.  When I told my manager that the man wanted all the ingredients inside the pancakes he had this sour look on his face.  I felt his anguish inside as well.  My manager said, "There is a lot going on there."  I thought that was funny because there was a lot going on there.  There was way too much going on there.  I just didn't see how that could tickle any man's fancy.

I took out the smorgasbord of a pancake breakfast and was delighted at the response of the man.  He said, "I think this is the first time someone has gotten everything completely right.  You have gotten everything perfect.  You are the man.  There is one thing I forgot to ask you for, and that's ketchup.  But everything looks perfect."  I scooted off to get the ketchup and returned shortly.  The man and woman didn't really need anything for the rest of the time they were there.  But as they left the man left a nice tip and thanked me again.  I went back into the kitchen and reflected on what the customer ordered, what my manager said, and just soaked it all in.  I really didn't know until just yesterday what God was trying to speak to me about.

As I was reflecting on this crazy man's order I began to see some parallels between the pancakes and the man and us humans and God.  As disgusting and vile as I, my manager, or anyone of my friends at work thought those pancakes were, the man who ordered them couldn't have been happier with them.  Even though there was, "a lot going on there"  the man loved them all the same.  I imagine our sin that separates us from God has us looking really ugly to a lot of people.  Many people wouldn't want to touch us with a ninety-nine and a half foot pole if they knew some of the nasty things we have been a part of.  But God loves us.  When I brought those pancakes the man was very happy.  He had everything he asked for.  The one thing he didn't ask for, the thing that set the whole plate off for him, was the ketchup.  When the man asked for the ketchup he introduced something to me that blew me away.  Without the ketchup that plate of pancakes was useless to him.  With the ketchup he was completely satisfied.  In fact he said it was perfect.  I believe the blood of Jesus can set our plates off!  We are in a slimy stinky mess of sin.  But when God looks at the blood of Jesus covering our sins, he is extremely satisfied.  God has made a way through Jesus, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+2%3A13-15&version=NIV, and I would invite you to pour a little ketchup on your slimy pancakes.     

Both Lord and Christ

I have received many Gideon Bible's over the years.  And to be quite honest nothing really "spiritual" had come out of any of them.  Mainly because I grew up on the New International Version and the King James Version just seemed like it needed to be updated.  I mean we don't talk with thee's and thou's anymore.  But I'd like to tell a story about how God convicted me about my negative perception of His Word in the KJV, and how he gave me the sermon text for my message in preaching class all over the course of a weekend.

I am on a spiritual journey to read the Bible all the way through.  I am in the School of Christian Ministries and I just feel like if I'm going to devote my life to the preaching and teaching of God's Word, I might actually have to know something about it.  I'm not on the year plan, I just want to do it at my own pace.  I have read Genesis through Deuteronomy and the whole New Testament but I want a fresh reading that is relatively close to each other.  Towards the end of last year I read Daniel through Luke, and this year I read a chapter of John for 21 days until I was done, and then I moved on to Acts.  On a Saturday morning I got up to get ready to go to Cracker Barrel for work.  I read the second chapter of Acts and went on to work.  But all throughout the day all I kept hearing was my voice reading and re-reading the scripture I read that morning in my mind.  My voice said this, "God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."  This is found in Acts 2:36b.  I would take someone some sweet tea, "both Lord and Christ."  I would run some food out of the window to a table, "both Lord and Christ."  I would be talking to a customer taking an order and hear my voice say, "God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."  It went on all day.  I eventually made it home and spent the evening with my family and went to bed.  

The next morning was a normal Sunday morning.  We got our showers, brushed our teeth, ate our breakfast, and away we were out the door headed to Athens for the church service.  It was the day before Valentines day.  On the ride I told my wife about the strange occurrence of me hearing a scripture all day in my head on Saturday.  I noticed we had three Gideon Bibles that we planned to give to some people at Safe House Outreach in Atlanta next to the console.  I pulled one out and thumbed to the scripture, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+2:36&version=NIV;KJV.  I began to read it to my wife as she drove and became extremely emotional.  I was talking about this scripture and weeping.  I read the sermon that Peter gave in the chapter and explained to my wife that the Jews Peter was preaching to had killed Jesus only months before and that they should have killed Peter just like they killed Jesus because Peter was claiming the same thing Jesus was, that Jesus was the Messiah.  But the Jews were pricked in their hearts, asked Peter what to do, and Peter told them to repent.  They did and about 3,000 people were added to the church.  I just sat riding enjoying the Holy Spirit's presence.

When we got to church the service was amazing.  There was actually a ceremony where my wife Kathryn and I renewed our marriage vows along with all the married couples in the church.  I had never been more in love with my wife than in that moment.  We were both crying with tears streaming down our faces as I placed a red rose in her hands and committed my life to her all over again.  God is truly a God who knows our innermost being.  He spoke to me on every area of my life, all day long!

As Kat and I drove home with her sister and our son (we picked her sister up in Athens and she stayed the week with us) I shared with my sister in law about what God had been showing me all weekend and what a great time I had at church.  I realized in that moment that I had a negative view of the KJV of the Bible.  And that God spoke very clearly to me through that translation earlier that morning and for me to think less of people for reading that version of the Bible or that it was inferior to the NIV was absolutely wrong.  God showed me His Word is what speaks, not who translated it.  Any translation can speak to me because if it is God's timeless Word, it has power.  

I knew that this theme of Acts in my life wasn't coincidental, so I took this as a sign from God that the scripture that was popping in my head should be the scripture text for my first sermon in Homiletics (preaching) class.  My sermon is this upcoming Thursday and I'm super excited.  God be with me, and speak through me!       

Divine Appointment at Cracker Barrel

 

When I was eighteen God called me to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I've never had a major crisis in the faith until recently.  Sure I've had problems, but the existence of God has never bothered me.  God has done so many miracles in my life that I'd be a fool to not believe in Him.  He healed me from marijuana addiction and bi-polar disorder, He healed my dad from alcoholism, and He saved me from the power of sin.  Every time I needed God he was there, so why did I have doubt in God after he'd done so much?  I think it boils down to how I pushed myself last semester.  I cancelled my Netflix subscription, cut my hours back at work, and submerged myself in studying.  By the end of the semester I was running on fumes.  I had just enough left in the tank to finish finals and then I gave in to temptation.  I did what I wanted.  I had a study plan for the break, but it went out the window about the second day into Christmas break.  I played Xbox, I watched every movie I ever wanted, I ate doughnuts, I just vegged out.  I forgot about my first love too.  God was absent.  The Casting Crowns song "Slow Fade" really sums up what happened, I slowly drifted from God http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QASREBVDsLk.  By the time I realized where my relationship with God was, I was very cold to the Spirit.  When this semester started I felt empty.  I questioned what God had done in my life, and I wondered if God is fake and all this is in my head, what's the point?  My teacher said last week, "How can you sit at the bed of a person dying of aids and give them hope if you don't know that you know that God is real and there is hope after this life."  I thought to myself I couldn't do that unless I was positive God had called me and he was real.  I would be faking, and I couldn't live my life as a faker.

That night I read our required reading for the class in a book titled, "Spiritual Leadership"  by Henry and Richard Blackaby.  I got to about page 100 and came to a section on "Encounters with God."  It was all about people who had amazing, empowering, life changing experiences with God. After they had the experience they were empowered for their ministry.  I thought to myself that in order to minister I would need something like that to happen to me because I really felt dry.  God was going to have to show up, or he may lose a soldier.  I prayed that night, as honest as I could, for God to renew me.  I wanted that empowering I was reading about for my ministry.

The next morning I told my wife that we would begin to read through Psalms and Proverbs as a family with our son, and that today we would be starting with Psalm one and Proverbs one.  We read the Bible and I was off to work at Cracker Barrel.  I arrived at 8:30am on the dot for my shift.  I did my routine of speaking to Donna (the prep-cook) and clocking in.  I stepped out the back vestibule to warm myself next to the fire and as I was walking out, a woman passed me.  I said, "Have a blessed day" to her.  Now I've said that a million times, but I felt God nudge me to say it this time.  The woman stopped and said, "I receive that."  We both looked into the fire and she said, "It's beautiful isn't it?"  And in mid-sentence of my reply she said, "You're a born-again Christian aren't you?"  I said, "Yes."  She said that God had something to tell me and began to prophesy and pray over me like I'd never had someone do before.  She looked into my eye's and told me she'd been on a twenty one day fast and that she was planning on going to Burger King, but her husband said, "Let's go to Cracker Barrel."  I could have came out any other door at any other time, but I didn't, I came out right when God wanted me to.  She told me I had the spirit of John.  And that I was a prophet.  She said that God was birthing something in me.  She kept saying that I was being made new, "You're being renewed" she said.  We were hugging and crying for close to thirty minutes.  We moved closer to the door from the fireplace, but God still wasn't done.  She looked into my eye's and said that all the people walking around us were going to leave me alone because God was going to protect me.  They didn't understand what was happening all they saw were two people crying in the middle of the floor.  The woman asked me did I have any family and I didn't get to answer her because we were praying and talking.  but before she left I mentioned that I did have family.  She gave me her business card (the last one she had) and told me she wanted to pray for me.  She was a minister.         

I wrote down my name and number so she could pray for me.  She asked me to write the names of my family members down.  So I began to write down the names.  I was debating whether or not to write "Kat" or "Kathryn" for my wife, since normally people who don't know her call her "Kathryn."  I wrote "Kathryn" and "Nolan" and gave her the sheet.  She said, "Let me tell you how I know this is from God.  I always ask God to confirm it's from Him through someone I know...my mother's name is Kathryn."  I said, "Is it spelled the same way, I mean that's a unique spelling."  She said, "It's spelled exactly the same way."  I told her, "Do you know how I know this is from God?  Last night I prayed for a renewal in my spirit, and while we were praying you couldn't stop saying that I was being made new and I was being renewed."  We finally parted ways and I got back to work.

When I stepped back up to the food window a server asked me, "What was that?"  I knew it was from the devil because of the tone and my spirit revealed it to me.  I said, "She was just praying for me and stuff."  See the devil tried to steal what God did for me right after it happened but I wouldn't let him.  I had another server ask me, "Did you make that old lady cry?"  I highly respect her and was glad she gave some humor instead of trying to judge me like the other server did.  I said. "No, she made me cry!"  I read the card she gave me and was awed at the scripture.  It was about peace and that's all I wanted for my soul.  After a minute or two I told God I didn't care if I made any money that day, that what he gave me was all I came for that day.  And I really did have a normal day on tips after that.  But one very cool thing that happened later that day was me getting my PAR 4 (the stars on our aprons).  I had been promoted by the Spirit of God and now I'd been promoted at my job.  It was an amazing day.

I am so happy that God answered my prayer the very next day after I prayed it.  God knew that I was on the edge and he gave me that woman to speak into my life at the right time.  I thank you and praise you God because you do draw near to those who draw near to you.