Christian by Association

Several months ago a Facebook friend told me about a guy named David Ring. I had never heard the name, but after a few minutes of googling I knew the story. The unbelievable, inspiring story.

A couple of weeks later I sat in our weekly church staff meeting brainstorming different things we could do over the summer. Our funds were limited, as was our time, so we knew we didn't have a lot of options. We were discussing local talent that we knew would come on short notice and a love offering. Then I thought of David's story. I knew he wasn't local, or amateur, and the likelihood that he would come on a love offering was slim, but something in me said to pursue it.



So I sent an email that basically said, "We're a small church, we don't have much money to spend, and I cannot guarantee that even a hundred people would be in attendance," and I never expected to hear back. Two days later I got a phone call, and within the week we were booked.

Now, if you've never heard of him let me just tell you, this guy's the real deal. He has been featured on Focus on the Family, the 700 Club, and Bill Gaither's Praise Gathering. There's a Hollywood producer who has just signed on to make a movie about David's life. He's not a small town revival preacher, he's a pretty big deal.

And he agreed to come . . . to Henderson, TX . . . to preach to a crowd of 60 . . . on a love offering.

So, Friends, I was stoked. We booked him 6 weeks out, and the big day was this past Sunday. We expected a crowd. We shouted it around town, encouraged everyone to come and bring friends, we brought in chairs to make room in our sanctuary, we were excited.

About 60 showed up.


Now, I have been on the organizing end of enough events to know that you will never have as many people show up as you expect to, but this was worse than usual. It was hard not to be disappointed by all of the empty seats. But once Mr. Ring began to speak, all of the extra space I had in me where disappointment could have crept in, was suddenly filled. 


With joy.


With conviction.


With excitement.


And with a new perspective. 


This man had every reason in the world to let his life be nothing more than a series of excuses. No one would have thought twice if he didn't graduate from high school. Or if he hadn't pursued college. If he hadn't gotten married and started a family, it wouldn't have surprised or disappointed anyone. Because people didn't have high expectations for his life. The bar was set very low for him, to rise above it he merely had to continue to breathe. But he chose to do more.

The whole time I sat listening to him I tried so hard to focus and absorb every word that he spoke, but there were two things that hit me especially hard.

First, he didn't leave the church. When he felt God calling him to preach (in spite of a difficult speech impediment, amongst other limitations) his pastor was anything but encouraging. Again and again David was told the he would never be a preacher, he must have heard God wrong, and to drop the whole idea. How's that for a supportive pastor? Talk about being mistreated by church people! I'd say the average person would have stormed out of that church and found a new religion, or at least a new church and denomination. Because that's what we do. We get our feelings hurt and we leave. But not David. He did the opposite. He didn't leave the church, he threw himself even further into it. He pursued his calling, and embraced every hurdle along the way.

Second, there are few things I appreciate more from a person than candor. The ability to just say what everyone is thinking, to tackle that giant elephant that's in the room, that's something I love in a person. In his sermon he brought up a question that he's commonly asked: Don't you wish you were normal? Seriously, I would never ask him that, but I'd be lying if I denied wanting to. I mean, sure you have absolutely made the most of your circumstances, but if you could just change them a little, wouldn't you? He says no.

He kept bringing everything back to contentment. Not the pursuit of contentment, whereby you set goals and work toward those goals and hope to some day achieve them and be contented in them. That doesn't work. If you're contentment is contingent upon the achievement of a goal, either you'll fail to achieve it and discontentment will result. Or you'll achieve it, realize it wasn't all that you hoped it would be, and discontentment will result.

David pointed out that true contentment isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have. And that doesn't always mean good stuff.

It means that if he is going to truly be content with his life he can't look at cerebral palsy as a constant misfortune that he must overcome. No, he sees it as a blessing. Truly.

More specifically, he sees it as a platform.

"I don't have a handicap, I have a platform." I love that.

Imagine if we all had this perspective on life's little hiccups.

I don't have a disease, I have a platform. Consider how many people I've been able to share Christ with as a result of having Lupus.

The same goes for you. Whatever your "problem" is, you don't have to let it control you. Because the thing about pity parties, is that there isn't much room for Christ in them.

I mean, can you really sit around and feel sorry for yourself if you've got the Son of God, Wonderful Counselor, Creator, Friend, Good Shepherd, Redeemer of the World, sitting right beside you? Seriously, no one can crash a party like the Prince of Peace can crash a pity party.

Likewise, it's hard to share the love of Christ with the world when you are so self absorbed that you don't notice anyone's problems but your own. I'm pretty sure that part of being strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, is learning how to deal with the world and the people in it without having to stop for a daily whine fest. Can't you see Satan all up in that?

It's not God that constantly brings your attention back to that comment that was made 6 months ago in Sunday School that you just know was intended for you.

It's not God that tells you that you shouldn't worry about volunteering for VBS, because you did it the past three years and no one even said thank you.

It's not God who reminds you every morning when you wake up that you have a million and one things wrong with you physically, emotionally, and circumstantially, and you have every right to use those things as an excuse for not living your life in submission to Christ.

God's not going to exempt you from following Him because you're tired or under appreciated or sick.

So if you want to sit on the sidelines, go right ahead. There's nothing I can say or do to get your butt off that bench. But be warned that if you come at me with a laundry list of reasons why it's okay for you to be uninvolved and disconnected, there's a good chance that at this point I'll probably just laugh. Then I'll introduce you to my new friend, David Ring, and I'll let him explain the rest.

I have so many thoughts right now that I'm struggling to organize. God is moving in me in some big ways, and challenging me to chew on some pretty hefty issues, but nothing is smoothed out quite yet. So I just wanted to take a minute to share with you about this wonderful man. I hope you'll check out his website and learn a little about him. You can order his sermons on DVD and show them to your pitiful friends if you think they'd benefit. I know I needed to hear everything he said, we all need to be reminded from time to time that we truly are blessed.

My Friends, I am blessed, and so are you.