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Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life
by Tom Kelley
"Where did they all come from?" my wife asked as she looked out the back door at the scene in our back yard. I had called her to the door to see a flock of starlings that had landed in our back yard. It was quite amazing. They just suddenly appeared and almost completely turned the ground black with their bodies. I just happened to be near the back door when it happened or it would have come and gone without my wife or I noticing. But, back to my wife's question, "Where did they come from?" I responded, "Little eggs, I think."
Howard Cossell used to be referred to as the "master of the obvious." Leslie Nielsen has starred in movies for which the plot points were straining the obvious and the literal. My wife has learned, after all these years, that my first line of response is usually going to be the obvious. Funny thing is, to me it makes perfect sense. I am in a profession that depends on the obvious and the literal. I am a minister. To me, God is obvious. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Romans 1:20
The obvious truth is that somebody or something had to have fashioned this world, this universe and all that surrounds it. Simple logic dictates that, if we have things which work perfectly together, they must have been designed and made that way. The house in which I live was built by people working for a company which read designs, called blueprints, which were drawn by people of another company who carefully thought out the way to plan and design the house so it could be built and inhabited. No one in their right mind would look at my house and then ask, "Where did it come from?" They would ask, "Who built it?"
Face it. There is no threat to your or my chosen lifestyle by admitting that intelligent people had to work together for my house to be built and habitable. However, when it comes to the world, there is definitely a problem. If someone looks at the world and admits the obvious, that it was made by someone with a plan and the ability to carry that plan out, then they have to admit the rest of what is obvious; God is real and deserves to be in charge. If God is in charge, 95 % of the world is in danger of eternal damnation because they have chosen to ignore Him who made the world.
That is what stands in the way of the church reaching the world. As long as the existence of the world is ruled to be an accident the people of the world can live their lives as though they were accidents. "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man -- and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things." Romans 1:22,23 It is time for the church to quit waxing romantic and hit the point with cold, calculated logic; God is, and the world, and all that is around it, shouts the obvious answer to the question, "Where did it come from?" GOD!!!
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...He was the Minister of the Minorsville Christian Church located near Stamping Ground, KY.
...Becky and Tom have three children; John, single and in worship ministry in Nicholasville, Kentucky; Sean, married (Jennifer, elementary school teacher) with twins (Grace and Patrick, b.d. 10/31/04) and regional director of Papa John's Pizza in Central KY; Kara, married (Vince Taylor, prison guard) and working with Hospice East in Winchester, KY.
...Tom went to be with the Lord on November 13, 2009 after a lengthy battle with cancer. If you have been touched by Tom's writings please send an email to Tom's son at jkelley@catalystchristian.net
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