Month: September 2015

LESSONS FROM MY ANTIQUE STOPWATCH

/ Dr. Daniel Merritt / Leave a comment
My Antique Stopwatch

My Antique Stopwatch

Yesterday my daughter, who lives in Maryland, found in a desk drawer an old stopwatch that once belonged to me. How she came in possession of the stopwatch, that is about 50 years old, neither of us have any idea. She took a picture of it and sent it to me. As I stared at the picture a flood of images raced through my mind. There are many lessons contained within my antique stopwatch, four of which I will seek to share.

First, the stopwatch reminds me of a time in my life filled with many wonderful memories. I began running in 1965 at age thirteen and purchased the watch soon afterwards. This was in a day long before digital watches and the Ironman Timex watch I wear now. The stopwatch was used to time my training runs all through high school and my father used it to time my races. The watch represents many wonderful memories I was privileged to experience. I remember gazing at it in disbelief after running a 440 on a dirt track and it had stopped at 51-flat. As a miler and two miler, I remember looking at my times after I ran and won conference, sectional, and regional championships. I remember excitedly staring at it the first time I set my high school records for the mile and two mile races and then later conference, sectional and regional records. I remember looking at it after each time running my anchor leg on the 4×440 relay checking to see what my split and team time was. Ah, those are some wonderful memories. I am most thankful for having lived them. Seeing that stopwatch allowed me to relive them.

Thank the Lord for wonderful memories. Good memories can transport us back to revisit the good times and events of our lives. While we all have memories we wish we could erase, let us be thankful for the good memories that we have experienced over the years. Revisiting them  keep us going, make us smile and laugh, they give us hope, they make us thankful to the Lord, and instill in us a longing to live in such a way that we experience more good memories than bad ones.

Second, the stopwatch reminds me that the foundation of success is hard work. That stopwatch timed many, many miles of training. It ticked on and on and on during my training runs when it was cold, when it was hot, when it rained, when it snowed. It worked as hard as I did. The watch reminds me that the foundation that resulted in all my fast times, wins, records, accolades and my earning a track college scholarship was laid with hard work. I was raised in the day before the entitlement mentality permeated society. Nothing was given to me because I thought I deserved it. “Blood, Sweat and Tears” was more than a rock group I used to listen to,  but it was the way I trained. Any awards I achieved were the result of committed, disciplined and hard work. I still believe that is true, if you want something, work for it. Don’t expect someone to give you something just because you think you deserve it. The foundation of success is hard work and always will be. So you want it, be committed and go after it.

Third, the stopwatch reminds me that time stands still for no one.  A lot of time has ticked away since I lasted used that stopwatch. Some forty years have passed since I probably last used it. Time has marched on like a swiftly flowing river. I have been married for 40 years, have earned three degrees, had kids, pastored five years, preached hundreds of sermons, conducted hundreds of funerals and weddings, coached hundreds of runners, written six books, battled cancer, and the list goes on. Time stands still for no one.

What are we doing with our time? Time quickly vanishes like a candle flame in a winter wind. We are here today and gone tomorrow. Are we using our life productively and positively to touch the lives of others or are we living selfishly. Are we seeking to be an influence on others that will encourage them to become a better person and strive for things impossible? Someday we will have to give an account to the Lord for the life we lived and I so desire to live a life that will impact others for Him and help others to discover the purpose for which the Good Lord created them. Get busy being a useful vessel, for time stands still for no person.

Fourth, the stopwatch reminds me that time eventually stops for us all. The stopwatch has a wind-up stem and had to be rewound to keep working. The picture shows the watch has wound down and has stopped at 6:46.1. It has quit ticking.
No matter who we are, our time will eventually run out. Sooner or later we will stop ticking. George Bernard Shaw once said, “One out of one die.” The Bible says, “It is appointed unto man once to die, after that the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). No one will escape that appointment. The stopwatch reminds me that I need to be living a faithful life for my Lord because I am not guaranteed tomorrow. When my time runs out I want to be prepared to meet Him. Thankfully, many, many years ago I bowed my knee before the Christ of the Cross and received His perfect righteousness in place of my own filthy righteousness. I am ready for that Day, not because of who I am but because of who HE is.

While the stopwatch is running make preparation for that Day when the ticking will stop. Until then be about the business of living a life that is making good memories and influencing and impacting others.

Blessings,

Dr. Dan

THE CHRISTIAN’S FIRST ALLEGIANCE

/ Dr. Daniel Merritt / 1 Comment

One would have to be living in a cave if they aren’t familiar with the news involving Kim Davis, who has found herself in a Kentucky jail because she has refused to issue GODRATHERTHANMANmarriage licenses to gay couples even though the U.S. Supreme Court has legalized gay marriage nationwide. There appears to be two camps in regard to the Kim Davis saga. The first being, if she Biblically believes that gay marriage is wrong she has that right, but since it is now law she should resign. If her convictions will not allow her to issue marriage licenses to gay couples then step down from the job. To not do so is an act of civil disobedience.

There is second camp that contends she should not have to surrender her religious convictions and support a law she genuinely believes to violate the teachings of the Bible. This second camp champions that civil disobedience is warranted. Let it be said, if it were not for our Forefathers practicing civil disobedience there would be no USA. If men and women who believed slavery was wrong had not practiced civil disobedience slavery would not have been abolished. If Martin Luther King, Jr. had not engaged in civil disobedience the civil rights movement would have never have become a reality. King ended up in jail on many occasions but he believed that when man’s law conflicts with God’s moral law, then we must choose God’s moral law. During the Nazi rule of terror in Germany, Dietrich Bonheoffer, a Lutheran pastor, engaged in civil disobedience in the face of Hitler’s godless laws, and he was put to death. Time proved Bonheoffer was right. If Martin Luther had not engaged in civil disobedience there would have been no Protestant Reformation. If William Tyndale had not engaged in civil disobedience there would have been no English translation of the Bible.

We find in the Bible Daniel, a government official, engaged in civil disobedience when he was found praying after a law was passed he could not pray. He prayed anyway. The three Hebrew children, also government officials, engaged in civil disobedience when they refused to bow down to the image of Nebuchadnezzar which was a law. It cost Daniel being thrown in the Lion’s Den and it cost the three Hebrew children being thrown in the fiery furnace. Standing up against an unjust law sometimes is costly, but stand one must.

Peter didn’t quit preaching the Gospel even though authorities told him it was against the law. He replied to authorities, “We must obey God rather than man.” Many Christians in the days of the Roman Empire were put to death because they engaged in civil disobedience by refusing to declare that Caesar was Lord. One could believe anything they desired as long as they declared once a year Caesar was Lord. The Christian could not do that as only Jesus was their Lord.

Engaging in civil disobedience is hard for an unbeliever or liberal to understand seeing that their first allegiance is to the government regardless of the unjustness or immoralness of the law and don’t adhere to a Higher Law.  A Christian’s first allegiance is to the Lord Jesus Christ and as Peter said, “We must obey God rather than man  when man’s law contradicts God’s law.” The Christian knows that there is a Higher Law that transcends the ever changing laws of man. And when the two collide the Christian must choose the Higher Law of God. While not all our Forefathers where Christians, they understood there was a Higher Law. In a letter John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813, Adams stated, “The general principles on which the father’s achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity…and the general principles of English and American liberty…Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.”

The secular godless crowd screams we can’t have any Christian morality undergirding society. Someone’s morality will be the foundation of society, and it is much better it continue to be the morality of our Forefathers who drew their moral principles from Christianity, rather than it be the ever changing immorality of the godless secular humanists whose principles lead to chaos, destruction and the death of an orderly society. The principles of our Forefathers made us the greatest nation on earth, while the principles of the secular humanists are destroying the moral and spiritual fiber of this once strong nation.

But let me say, I believe the issue with Kim Davis pictures a bigger issue that is on the horizon. There is a much bigger issue at stake here that is coming as this county moves further and further away for its Judeo-Christian foundation. The gay agenda is not satisfied that their unnatural and unbiblical union has been sanctioned as normal and equal to a  marriage between a man and woman. Their ultimate goal is to enact laws that will silence the Church and any Christian person who dare speak out against it as other than being normal. The bigger picture is that the day is fast coming when it will be against the law for a minister to preach that homosexuality is a sin as the Bible clearly states, and in the near future it will be against the law if a minister does not perform a gay marriage when asked to do so. The penalty will be a fine or jail, or both.

The whole structure of our society today is being attacked and destroyed. It is being given an entirely opposite foundation which gives entirely opposite results. Get ready my Christian friend, if the spiritual and moral atmosphere of this nation doesn’t change we are going to have to make a choice whether we will obey God or the godless laws of man. It is my earnest prayer we will say with Peter, “We must obey God rather than man.”

Blessings,

Dr. Dan