Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday November 8, 2007

I often receive nice compliments on the daily letters and as day follows the night, a few not so nice ones. I received the following,

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." Samuel Johnson. Larry, when I read this I thought of you.

How nice. In reply to the note I offered to perform a marriage ceremony for the writer's parents.

It is worthy of note that our modern generation while admitting to a thirst for knowledge will miss some important information because the vendor of such knowledge commits the unpardonable sin in communication. Moderns will not be taught in the traditional manner, but will drink deep at the fountain of entertaining communication. Herb True a noted motivator and teacher made a fortune by calling himself an "Edutainer." He effectively combined his knowledge as a teacher and presented it in an entertaining manner. He was good. He never, ever committed the unpardonable sin of boring the audience! Herb was not overly religious but he did bring Bible truth to many of his speeches. Take the following:

"Money doesn't bring happiness, though it has been known to cause an occasional smile."

My calling is notorious for taking the most exciting truths and boring people to numbness as we expound on said truths. One reason is that people in any field tend to get bored and as a result their boredom rather than the truth is aimed toward the hearers and everyone is bored out of their gourd.

I have found that the use of humor is helpful to arrest attention. Nearly every church person has read the story of the poor Maniac of Gadara, a man who through the pressures of life had lost it, ended up living in a cemetery, wore no clothes, and on occasion attempted suicide. It is a well worn story. When I announced my title of a sermon on this poor creature years ago, ultra uptight religious men and women wrote to the editor of the cities newspaper and protested rather vigorously. The title: "A Streaker Meets Jesus." This was during the streaking rage in the 70's. Yes, even good times must pass. I did NOT develop a skit based on this story.

Sunday past, in a church in Littleton, NH, I went over the ground of this amazing story again, and I found that though I addressed at least part of the story at least 999 times, the attention of the gathered throng was captured by pointing out that Jesus, in spite of the man's dire predicament did not refer to him as a maniac, a demoniac, a drug addict or a nudist, but Luke calls him a "Certain Man" thus preserving his dignity as a creature loved by God who looked past the obvious and saw a man, a man who in spite of appearance had great potential as the subsequent events demonstrate.

No matter how tough life gets on a person, God sees them as a person, and so should we.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit.

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