Perdido Key, Florida. I was in a hotel room, desperately reading my Bible, even more desperately crying out to God. Somewhere along the way I had, well, lost my way. And I couldn’t find my way back.
Back to a consistently focused walk with God.
Back to a first-love commitment to Jesus.
Back to a sense of spiritual usefulness and power.
Back to a faith that could at least move me, even when it couldn’t move mountains.
Back to the hope that somehow tomorrow could actually be better than today.
I could have told you how to find your way back to wherever you left your path. But I was lost as last year’s Easter egg when it came to me.
I heard all the things I already knew in my head. Didn’t help.
I heard all the platitudes and steps and methods I’d told others and they had told me. Ditto.
I heard all the sermons I had preached to others about coming back to Jesus, and they were profoundly useless to me.
And what I was reading in the Bible wasn’t helping much, either. I kept reading passages in psalms where David would pray things like, “Vindicate me, O God, because I have walked in my integrity.”
I didn’t have any integrity. And the last thing I needed to see in that situation was vindication. Justice either.
In desperation I silently cried out, “God! Is there a verse in there for the rest of us?”
And He showed me something that changed my life. [click to continue…]
Here comes Ed.
Here comes bad news.
Have you ever had anybody like that in your life? They love you. They’re for you. But no news is good news. And if you ever see them coming, something’s wrong. Somebody’s complaining. Somebody’s offended. Somebody’s angry. And they’re coming by to help.
Ed was that kind of guy. I once told him, “Ed, just once when you come by, let me know I’m doing something right.”
Never happened.
That said, Ed taught me a couple of very valuable lessons, one of which I repeat regularly to this day. It’s the lesson about the stinger. [click to continue…]
For the last six years I have had the privilege of serving on the adjunct faculty of Regent University’s School of Undergraduate Studies. When I started, Regent Undergrad was a simple two-year degree completion program, designed to help people complete a bachelor’s degree so they could attend the prestigious graduate program founded by Pat Robertson of The 700 Club and CBN fame. But now RSU, as it’s called by insiders, is a four-year institution of its own.
And I hear they’re thinking about starting a golf and tennis team. Woo hoo!
Anyway, one of the high points for me is the Fall Faculty Workshop, where they fly people in from wherever to attend a day or two of meetings for training, inspiration, coordination, and schmoozing.
Especially schmoozing.
Whatever my day job has been during the last seven early-Augusts, it has been a highlight since 2005 to return to the scene of my Ph.D. work, with its stunning campus, caring people, and fresh ideas.
Did I mention schmoozing?
With a lot of turnover, growth, and the ebb and flow so typical of a young, growing enterprise this is an annual opportunity to make connections. And memories. And yes, impressions. Add to that the fact that this Coastal Alabama boy had not left drought-ridden Texas since Thanksgiving last year, and hadn’t seen rain in over six months – I was ready for a change of pace. And, of course, to make an impression.
Well, maybe not like the impression I made at the DFW Airport. [click to continue…]
“Joel Andrew Wood! I call you to walk with me in Integrity, Responsibility, and Accountability, and to join me in this community of men!”
There, through a line of tiki torches and a longer gauntlet of whooping, encouraging, cheering men walked my son. For fourteen years I had been his hero. Tonight he would be mine.
As he reached the end of the double line where I was standing, I placed a special necklace around his neck that he has to this day. Then I turned him to face those men and said some of the most powerful words I have ever spoken: “Gentlemen, this is Joel Andrew Wood, my son, in whom I am well pleased.”
I have always lived with the honor of walking in my own father’s unconditional favor – even when he didn’t always approve of my choices. On this night 11 years ago, I had the greater honor of publicly declaring that same kind of blessing over my son.
A Fatherless, Manless Culture
Ours may be the only culture that has no formal point where a boy becomes a man. [click to continue…]
This is raw – straight from my journal and unedited, except for a few explanatory items in brackets. It was written on September 11, 2001. At the time I was traveling with Resource Services, Inc. as a church capital stewardship consultant.
This morning my phone woke me up in the Albany, NY hotel where I was staying. It was Robin, making sure I was all right. She said the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane in an act of terrorism. I turned on the TV and was transfixed by the images of what I saw. Two planes, one hitting each tower. Then the subsequent collapse of both buildings. Then the news that the Pentagon had suffered a similar fate from another airplane.
How do I begin to describe the horror, the fear, the fascination, and the numbness I felt? Then my cell phone began to ring. First, Amy Shillings from RSI. Then Connie Smith. Then Mother and Daddy. Then Robin again. Then Daddy again. All making sure I was OK.
I finally decided at about 11:00 to get out for a while. The beautiful, clear sky of September in upstate New York belied the scene of billowing smoke and debris that was taking place a couple of hours’ drive south of here.
I met a black man, Anthony, on the hotel elevator. He wanted to know if I was going toward the mall. “Come on,” I said. I’ll take you where you need to go.” Anthony was en route from one girlfriend to another. No kidding. Then later would catch the bus for a two-hour ride back home. To his fiance.
I dropped Anthony off at the mall, and, still in the parking lot, decided to check my voice mail. I heard the calls from [RSI CEO] Carl Hefton, [RSI President] Bill Wilson, and others – expressing care and support, encouraging us to do what we felt we needed to do, informing us that the travel office was prepared to assist in any way we needed. I felt loved. Cared for. For once, not alone. And there in the mall parking lot, I just cried like a baby. [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on April 13, 2011
in Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Pleasers, Principle of Eternity, Protecting Your Investment, Tense Truths, Turning Points
Six Signs of a Spiritual Attack
“Well, how did it go?” Robin wanted to know.
“I just want to be teachable,” I said in a hollow, measured voice.
“What did he say?” she asked – getting ready to rise up in my defense.
What did he say, indeed? The scene happened during my first pastorate. Our church had grown quickly and had experienced changes, which is never an easy thing. Now we were trying to establish our annual budget and define our biggest priorities. And a man I’ll call Joe wanted to know if he could meet with me.
When we got together, the first words out of Joe’s mouth were, “It is obvious that you aren’t here to help our church grow, but to make a name for yourself.”
Ouch.
I listened mostly (although I did tell him I didn’t appreciate him judging my motives). I listened as he talked about church’s former days. I listened as he talked about troublesome people. I listened as he offered his version of a solution to our problems. I listened (and stared, frankly) as he “led” us in prayer – weeping all the while.
And I went home, still listening.
I Hate Criticism.
For years I hollered to whoever would listen that “there’s no such thing as constructive criticism.”
I was wrong. [click to continue…]
I can take you to the spot.
I can point to where I was standing.
The old, worn gold carpet is long gone, I’m sure. The house on Watson Road has likely been redecorated many times since we lived there.
But there’s no mistaking that spot where I made one of the most life-altering decisions of my life. And get this: I never told a soul about it. In fact, I never uttered a word. But in a silent transaction of the mind, will, and emotions, with three simple words I began a process of sowing to the wind… and reaping a whirlwind.
The words?
I.
Give.
Up. [click to continue…]
In 1976 the legendary Wood Brothers of NASCAR fame won the Daytona 500 with another legend, David Pearson, as their driver. It would appear to be their last Daytona win ever.
One state over, another Wood brother, not so legendary and not related, graduated from high school in the same year.
Fast forward 35 years.
On Saturday, Trevor Bayne of Knoxville, Tennessee turned 20. On the same day, Cohen Thomas of Lubbock Texas celebrated his first birthday.
In conjunction with his 20th birthday, Trevor Bayne got to drive for the legendary Wood Brothers in an 800-horsepower machine with the classic #21 paint job and a snazzy in-car radio system.
In conjunction with his first birthday, the other Wood brother’s grandson got a play fire truck (2 babyleg power) with a classic siren and a snazzy pretend cell phone. [click to continue…]
“Glamour isn’t greatness, applause isn’t fame, prominence isn’t eminence. The man of the hour isn’t apt to be the man of the ages. A stone may sparkle but that doesn’t make it a diamond. People may have money but that doesn’t make them a success. It’s the seemingly unimportant people who determine the course of history. The greatest forces in the universe are never spectacular. Summer showers do more good than hurricanes but they don’t get a lot of publicity. The world would soon die but for the fidelity, loyalty, creativity and commitment of those whose names are un-honored and unsung.” -James Sizoo
+++++++
The Race
It was a day of surprises. If you had told me the Friday before what I would experience on Saturday, I don’t know whether I would have stayed in bed all day or sat up sleepless the night before. That Saturday, those years ago, I had a taste of heaven. [click to continue…]
(A Turning Point Story)
On Highway 43 North in Jackson, Alabama, the Joe C. McCorquodale, Jr. Bridge crosses the Tombigbee River and lands at the base of a mile-long bluff or hill that probably has some name I don’t know. All I knew at the time was that Ed’s Drive-In (formerly Troy’s) was at the top of it, and that’s where we stopped for a couple of cokes for the road. Next stop: Mobile. A hospital visit or two was surely on the agenda. Most likely a stop by Bel Air Mall or the Baptist Bookstore as well.
We turned south and started down the monstrous hill. Highway 43 is a nice, wide, divided highway, and the view south toward the river is really nice.
And long.
Which explains how ridiculous it was that just as I approached the Highway 69 intersection, a lady pulled out in the left lane, right in front of me.
Good. Stinkin’. Grief. [click to continue…]
