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Mark 1:14-45 “Remaining Focused On Your Calling In A World of Distractions”
Mark 1:1-13 “The Beginning of When the World Was Changed”
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A Season for Everything — Dealing with 2020
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***There is a sermon link at the bottom of this page from a sermon I preached on Ecclesiastes 3, a few years ago.
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Life is constantly moving from one thing to another and we are in constant transition. When you are born your body radically changes daily. From there it’s walking, potty training, eating by yourself, then eventually reading, writing, driving, Calculus, girlfriends, college, marriage, kids, mini-vans, thinning hair, kids start dating, kids leave for college, etc. At every stage, just when you have it figured out, guess what? It’s time to change to something else. If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that life is going to change, and rarely does it go back to being “normal.”
The following are a few mistakes that we can make in dealing with transitions.
Mistakes of dealing with transitions of life:
Moving Forward Too Fast
This is when we are looking toward the next transition too soon.When I was in seminary there were those that would max out the amount of classes they could take. They rarely (if ever) left their rooms except to go to class. If you did happen to see these recluses, and were able to squeeze in a conversation, they constantly talked about how they wanted to finish school as soon as possible (yeah, no kidding).
They were missing “the seminary experience” in order to get to the “real world” of ministry. The whole purpose of seminary was to equip them for the ministry they desired to do, but in their rushing through the experience they were short circuiting the process of being equipped in order to move to the next stage. They were checking the boxes as fast as they could.
At every stage of life and in every time of transition there are things we are to learn, life lessons to experience, and people that we are to meet and engage in life with. If you move from stage to stage, and transition to transition, with never stopping to engage in the moment, then you are going to miss something very important in your life. But seriously, “When have you finally arrived?” At what point of success will you slow down and concentrate on the moment?
Holding On For Too Long
The second mistake is the opposite of the first. This is when we try to hold on to the past so long that it keeps us from moving with the flow of the present. It’s like we are anchored to the past, and the swirl of the current of life roars past us. If Stacy London and Clinton Kelly have taught me anything, it is that people get trapped in a time of their lives then they were happy or at least felt safe. But when they aren’t able to move forward in life (like when someone dies, a divorce, or some other tragic event) their fashion/dress gets stuck and they don’t move on. This is a visual picture of what happens when we don’t roll with the transitions, but emotionally (which we can’t see) it make take the form of shutting down, not trying, or just trying to disappear from society. Life becomes this dance of grabbing on the present, while letting go of the past – moment to moment.
People Are Important
Another mistake people make in dealing with transitions is Not Developing Relationships As You Go. Life (and ministry) is all about relationships, people, and how we are all connected together. It took me until my adult life to realize that the people who have been in my life weren’t just there (as trees in a landscape), they were there for me to develop meaningful relationships with.
In our self-centered lives we tend to view people as ways to get us to where we want to go; they become tools we use to help us advance in our goals, visions, or careers. If they can’t be of help to us, we tend to marginalize them out of our lives. This is a huge mistake because even if you perceive that a person will be in your life for a short period of time, you still should make an effort to get to know them, love them, befriend them, and invest your life in theirs. Who knows where it might lead and what the future holds? But also, what if we are in one season of life much longer than we had anticipated?
Not Enjoying the Moment
There are moments in my kid’s lives that I will always treasure. I have loved leading Joshua and Caleb in Scouts, having lunch with Isaac and picking him up from school, or doing Hannah-Grace’s hair for a dance recital when her mother had to go out of town.
It sounds cliche, but “stop to smell the roses.” Our kids are only in their transition for a moment and then they move on to something else. Each day is a gift, and each new change is an opportunity to keep a great relationship, start over, or make things right.
Transitions cause stress in our lives. We feel the need to make decisions, and our focus can become completely consumed by this need to take some action, make a final decision, or the feeling to just do something. During these times of transitions (especially during moments like today) we are not sure of what we need to do. In that time of stress, life still moves on, it doesn’t stop because we are not sure what we should be doing.
Ministry involves emotional work. Like nurses or police officers, pastors regularly engage in activities as a part of their day-to-day responsibilities where they must deal with other people’s problems, emotions, and behavior. They are expected to express love, compassion, emotion, or they are expected to reserve that emotion, to be professionally distant and to control it all like a switch.
So as the years go by, if we are not careful, our emotion switch gets stuck or even broken. Numbness and callousness sets in like a whiteout in the winter. We stop feeling, caring, and everything goes on autopilot. We are so “professional” that we can fool everyone, even ourselves.
But if we are numb on the inside, then we miss those moments of transitions that our kid’s need for us to be completely present. If you are at this point, and you are not able to enjoy the moment then stop what you are doing, take a break, pray, and focus on doing whatever it takes to regain your sense of feeling. One of the ways that I have found to manage that professional numbness is to focus on today (you can’t control tomorrow). I don’t know what God has in store for me in the future, but today I have responsibilities, children who need a dad, a wife that needs a husband, etc. If I can focus on that, and only that, then I can fend off the feeling of paralysis by analysis.
All of these things deal with finding the right balance between moving and staying still, holding on and letting go, building up and moving on (Ecclesiastes 3 puts it much better; see below). I would also recommend “Didn’t See It Coming,” by Carey Nieuwhof. While it doesn’t completely offer steps to solve this issue, it does give you a point of reference on the topic (in other words it is a helpful place to begin the discussion with yourself and others).
I have found that it has been my relationship with Jesus that allowed me to find that place between true joy through living out one’s purpose without slipping into numb professionalism and feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of life.
Here is a sermon on Ecclesiastes 3 that I preached at Daybreak Community Church, many a moon ago. It also deals with the issue of change and how life stinks sometimes.
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Ecclesiastes 3 “A Time for Everything” (ESV)
For everything there is a season, and la time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to mdie;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to nweep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to odance;
5 a time to pcast away stones, and a time to qgather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to rrefrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to slose;
a time to keep, and a time to tcast away;
7 a time to utear, and a time to sew;
a time to vkeep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to whate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
John 21:15-19 “Starting Over”
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Peter has denied Christ three times, he has seen his beloved friend and teacher crucified, and now he finds himself doing what he did before he ever met Jesus, fishing. Does God hate us forever when we fail? Does He leave us to suffer under our shame and guilt when we have failed Him? Listen and see how God makes things right, and how in love God gets Peter “back on track.” John 21_15-19
Tommy Boswell Retirement Recognition Banquet
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Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, “
This past Thursday I had the privilege of being the key note speaker at my father’s retirement recognition banquet. Considering all the “brass” that were limited to a few minutes in their presentations, I was honored to speak to my father’s accomplishments and importance to his community. The following is the speech as I delivered it on January 6th, 2011:
“On behalf of the family, I would like to thank you for being here tonight to honor the service and career of Tommy Boswell. Your presence here tonight, and your friendship over the years means the world to us, and we value each of you greatly. Our family recognizes that it is because of your support over the years that as a community we all were able to make Russell County a better place to live.
With Christmas having just passed, we all have very sharp memories of the sound ripping wrapping paper, shrills of children as they yell in excitement, and a joy that comes from seeing children happy, and times with family. This year as I sat around our Christmas tree and watched my children playing, I thought about what am I truly giving to my children, beyond the toys that will be discarded in a week, and decorations that will be put away until next year?
You will hear tonight from several community leaders how my father has served the community, but I would like to share some gifts I feel my dad has passed on to his family, and specifically his son.
1. The First gift from my dad is a sense of Duty
One of the earliest memories I have of my dad’s career was when he was an investigator and would take me to his office. I remember the old Sherriff’s office and the old jail, with the green shag carpet that reeked of cigarette smoke, and mildew, and the sound of window air conditioners running.
I would play with magnifying glasses, fingerprint tape, and evidence that had been to court and thrown in the trash. It was so cool to hold brass knuckles, switch blades, and butcher knives with blood still on it.
It was not a kid “friendly place†– which made it cool – but he allowed me to enter into this world with him. But more impacting to me than the knives and the brass knuckles, was a board in the sheriff’s office full of children’s pictures and in big bold words would be the words, “Kidnapped,†and “Missing,†a description of them and how they were my age.
My dad, and those like him, were looking for those children and the bad guys who took them. There were so many pictures, layer upon layer of little boy’s and little girl’s faces. But my dad and his department did find some and brought them back home.
But I did not understand the weight of what my dad did for our family, or the community until one evening, dad came home from work as he had always done, but this cool fall evening, he never smiled or really said anything. He went back to his bedroom and stayed there for a long time. Well after dark he emerged from the bedroom dressed in black army fatigues that had bright yellow Sherriff’s Department written above the pockets and the gold colored star.
He had black tactical belt with a gun, ammo clips, and handcuffs – so it was a combination of this outfit, and his attitude that I knew this was not going to be any easy night for him. That was the first night when I feared my father may not come back home. There were other nights like that one as the years went by, but it was this first night that I understood, even as a small child, that he was one of the good guys and he was seeking to fight the bad guys and that fight was dangerous. He was putting himself in harms way so that the world could be a better place.
I am not sure which is worse, to go into harm’s way and face death, or to send other men into harm’s way and live with the consequences. Both are very hard. As he progressed in his career, the challenges changed, responsibilities changed, but his desire to fight the bad guys never has.
2. Another gift that my dad has given to us is a closeness to Death and Depravity
One afternoon my father picked me up from school and was taking me home when I saw a brown paper sack in the back seat of his police car. Halfway home he stopped at the Seale Depot, to get gas and he went in to pay. He told me “whatever I do Drew, do not look in the bag.†How could I not open it, dad, come on! Well, it was a human skull, and to say the least I was a little freaked out.
It was the skull of an 85-year-old woman. Earlier that afternoon my father received a call to respond to a dead body that had been found on a remote county road. The body was nothing but bones but after some investigation it was discovered who she was and how she ended up where she did. She had wandered away and became lost and died of exposure. That’s what he had done that day before he picked me up at school.
But death and man’s depravity have always been sitting beside our family – you cannot fight the bad guys and not come face-to-face with it. Crime scene photos on the top of our mantel were a common occurrence. The tools of the trade; handguns, shotguns, the smell of gun oil, handcuffs, walkie-talkies, a black leather wallet with the imprint of a badge, among other equipment were as common place in our home as a lamp or bowl of fruit. The sound of a squawking police radio is a familiar sound from my childhood, and when I ride with my dad now, it brings back a lot of good memories.
In order to fight an enemy, you have to learn to think like the enemy. You have to live in such a way to be prepared against evil – so tools of the trade were always close by. Because of this closeness to death and depravity, many of the good guys seem hardened and cold. They have a mechanism to keep it from corrupting them – it does affect you, it has to affect you.
As a family who has a career police officer as our father, I want to say thank you for finding that balance between keeping yourself from being corrupted by the evil that you fight and not losing your heart.
3. Another gift is Compassion
Our home was also a place where people knew they could get help. People stopped by (and still do) because they knew my dad (and our home) was a place where people could get help. So, it is not unusual to have strange characters knocking on our door at all hours of the night. One evening at about 3am there was a frantic banging on our front door. It was a woman who had been badly beaten and could hardly walk. Her clothes had been either ripped off or were torn in her effort to get away.
She was bare footed and her feet were bloody from stumbling over rocks and briars and her face was bloody from her being attacked. We asked her to come in and we wiped the mud and blood from her feet, arms, and body. My mother gave her some clothes and we put medicine on her wounds.
After some discussion with her, we gathered that she had stumbled about three miles from her home and saw nothing on the road (she passed at lest 20 homes). My father asked “How did you know where I lived in the dark? She said “I didn’t, except there was this tiny yellow light.†It was our doorbell she saw from several hundred yards away and she made her way to it.
But over the years many hurting people have found their way to our home.
Many a conversation was held under our carport, and on our picnic table was a place where many a crying person was calmed and justice began. He never gets aggravated, instead there is a sense of understanding – “this is what I do.â€
My mother would get upset when her tomatoes would be taken during these conversations, but I have never seen him shirk this sense of duty and obligation the to community. I am glad that I grew up in home where people knew they could get help from our home. It brings pride to my heart that we were able to help so many people.
4. By far the most important gift a father could give his son and family is a good name.
For over twenty years the name Tommy Boswell has been synonymous with duty, integrity, loyalty, and justice. He is a friend to many, and if his name is mentioned, it is directly related to his public service to our community and to his character as a person.
Proverbs 22:1 “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.â€
His name has gotten me out of a few speeding tickets when I was younger, but now that I am older I have come to realize how rich and important living a life of integrity, duty, hard work, and compassion is to a person. A respected family name is more important than riches because it enables you to reach far beyond yourself, and to make a difference in the world.
Conclusion
One of the things a leader wants to do is to fix all the problems and to end well. But people still do stupid things, and death and man’s depravity are still there – these things will never change until the end of time. All we can do is fight against it with all our might in our own areas of influence.
My dad has decided that it is time to pass the torch of leadership. One of the things I wanted to do tonight is to say thank you for making a difference in my life, in our family’s life, and in our community’s life.
You did make a huge impact, and your legacy will live on in the people’s lives you helped, it is multiplied in the officer’s you trained and launched into service, and the bad guys you put away. Russell County is a better place to live because of you, and I am the man I am today because of you being my father.
Through Tommy Boswell’s leadership and serving along side fellow deputies, serving in various leadership positions, and having served for 37 years of police work, 21 of those as sheriff, he and his staff have investigated 400 murders and 2000 deaths, thousands or rapes, robberies, and burglaries, and there are currently over seven people on death row.
This is a career worthy of recognition. Thank you for a job well done.”
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