Dripping Springs Weekly Bulletins

He Couldn't "Carry A Tune In A Bucket" In case you don’t know, that phrase is a figure of speech meaning someone doesn’t sing very well. The tall young man I’m describing was from a small town in west Texas. We often went to chapel and worship services together when we were college freshmen. He was one of those who would “give you the shirt off his back”, but to hear him sing was not a very pleasant experience! He literally could not “carry a tune in a bucket.” I recall that it bothered me to sit by him in chapel. His off-key singing was a distraction to me. He just could not sing! Maybe you have had a similar experience. We may want our worship to be uplifting, to be “pretty”, to make a difference in our day. But his singing was not what I expected and wanted. It took me nearly a year to realize that he wasn’t singing for me, but for God, and that God doesn’t demand that our singing be “pretty” – but to be from the heart – like that tall young man from west Texas. Since then I have heard my children sing, I have heard my grandchildren sing, and their voices are “music to my ears,” even if they miss a note or two. I have a picture my son drew for me when he was just a child. There were several details in the picture that were not just right – colors, size, etc. I put that picture up on my office wall alongside those drawn by professional artists. It was what was in his heart as he drew that scene that pleased me, not the shading or the color. He drew it just for me! Come by and I will show it to you. Jesus addressed this issue in His conversation with the woman of Samaria, John 4:24. When He described  “the trueworshippers”, He said nothing about worship being “pretty”. What did He demand? He said it “must” be “in spirit and in truth,” from the heart and in harmony with God’s truth. Is it hard for us to understand why God expects man to worship Him? It is true that every civilization – even those who never saw a Bible – sought to worship someone or some thing. Both archaeologists and historians have evidence that man possessed that need long before he knew any external requirement for worship. In the Bible we read how nations fashioned their own “gods” from wood. In Isaiah 45:20 we read the following: “…they have no knowledge Who carry the wood of their carved image, and pray to a god that cannot save” [NKJV]. In Habakkuk 2:18, we read, “What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, the molded image, a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it? To make mute idols?” When Israel was threatened by their enemies, Jeremiah rebuked them for their wooden “gods”, saying they should “Let them arise, If they can save you in the time of your trouble,” Jeremiah 2:28. During those days they were much like the Athenians who had multiple “gods,” in fact they had one on every street corner, Acts 17. We have grown to love the song that boldly declares, “Our God, He is Alive,” because He is not made of wood or metal. He is the One who made all things, Hebrews 3:4, Revelation 4:11. In Ephesians 5:19, we are told, “…be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father.” The melody our God loves is that melody made “in your heart to the Lord.”  Yes, that melody “must” be from the heart and in harmony with God’s truth. When our Father hears those very qualities, it matters not that we can or cannot “carry a tune in a bucket.” The same principle is true in all our worship. Prayers that are merely memorized, or “vain repetitions,” carry no weight to our Father, Matthew 6:7. When we participate in the Lord’s Supper, our thoughts and our deeds must be meaningful. In 1 Corinthians 11:27 we read: “Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” It’s the manner of our worship that God respects, not what man pronounces is “beautiful”! I’m glad I sat by that tall young man those many years ago. We became good friends, and he taught me a lesson I desperately needed to learn. Carl Garner

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation Washington, D.C. October 3, 1863 This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving. The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those whoa re at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth. By the President: Abraham Lincoln