Our Father's Loud Singing

Dear friends,

This morning I’d like to ask you to please take a moment to meditate on a verse of Holy Scripture with which you are possibly very familiar.  Through His prophet Zephaniah, our Lord assures us of His great delight in us, which is difficult for us to fathom at times, and of His unwavering devotion to us, although we know that our devotion to Him wanes more often than we’d like to admit.  Let’s listen to these words together as deeply as we can.   

          The Lord your God is in your midst,

               a Mighty One who will save;

          He will rejoice over you with gladness;

               He will quiet you by His love;

          He will exult over you with loud singing.  (Zephaniah 3:17)

As I sit here at my desk writing this letter, I am listening to happy Celtic music, which I greatly enjoy.  But the happiness in the sounds of these dear Irish musicians in no way compares to the gladness in the grand Voice of our Father Who is rejoicing over you and me right now with “loud singing”! 

Please stop, and listen.  You may have to be still for a little while in order to block out all of the interfering sounds.  But do please listen.

I have just now reached and turned off the happy sounds of the flutes, whistles, strings, bodhrans, bones, and Irish voices.  Now I only hear the heavy rainfall outside my window.  It’s like the sound of a thousand maracas.  The usual Louisiana rolling, booming tympanies and sharply crashing cymbals are not there.  Only the shakers.  Only the steady sheets of shishing and shushing.  Normal neighborhood noises are completely and pleasantly obscured.  The morning rain seems to provide the perfect percussion backdrop for the singularly beautiful Voice of the Soloist – the One Who is singing about me and to me.  

Yet I find myself in great need of God’s help as I try to harness my listening powers to hear that lovely Voice.  Is it because I’m not adequately convinced of the magnitude of my Father’s delight in me, even me with all of my faults?  Or is it possibly because I just don’t listen often enough and well enough to have developed a stronger attunedness to His Voice?  Or is it because much of the time I have listened only for thoughts – just thoughts – from Him (the reception of which is of course a great blessing) and have not allowed my soul to regularly hear Him joyfully singing fortissimo of His fatherly affection for me.

As I have been trying to express my thoughts and feelings to you, I have been reminded that, by the grace granted through our Savior, you and I are now among those who can live as “seeing Him Who is unseen” (Hebrews. 11:27).  So also we can live as hearing the “loud singing” of Him Who is inaudible to us. God has called you and me to hear and see Him Who is soundless and invisible.  We see Him with the eyes of our hearts.  We hear Him with the ears of our souls.              

So, brothers and sisters, let’s pray for one another!  Let’s ask God to help us to hear His “loud singing” over you and me! 

Sitting under His songs with you,

Rod and Bec

The "One Another" Fellowship - The Spurs of Louisiana

July 1, 2014

Lobbyist and Long-Time Friend Scott Kirkpatrick (at left)
House of Representatives Gallery

Senator Robert Adley and Senate President John Alario

Rep. Frank Hoffman and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley

Dear friends,

I must begin with that which ranks among our happiest family news items in many years.  Jim and Amelia and their children, Josiah, Rebecca Blythe, and Luke, and John and Kelly and their children, Lucy Bea and John Isaac, have moved to Louisiana and are getting settled into their homes here in Baton Rouge!   Jake and Ashley and their children, Elizabeth, Mary Page, Jacob Myles, Jr. (Myles), and Norah Catherine, live in Ruston, as many of you know.  At last, at last, they’re all back home! 

On June 2^nd, the Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature was adjourned.  If you’re a basketball enthusiast, then you’ll understand what I mean when I say that it seemed to me that our legislature worked together much like the San Antonio Spurs.  If you didn’t see the Spurs in the NBA Finals, you missed something of beauty.  Bec and I enjoyed every minute of the last game together. 

The post-game was as good as the game.  In fact, it was the post-game that revealed the foundation of the beauty that was displayed during the game.   I was riveted to the screen as Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli, and Tony Parker were clinging to one another’s necks for long periods of time, speaking words into one another’s ears that were meant for no one else to hear.  I was watching with no small wonderment as the other team members were enjoying not just the moment but one another.  It was then that I said, “Bec, look!  Look at Coach Popovich!  Look where he is!”  When the interviewing of the team began, he was in the far back and a little to the left.  He was almost out of view.  He never came to the front.  He never spoke.  There he stood in a quiet happiness for the men, most of them very young, whom he had enjoyed guiding into the pleasure of working in true togetherness!  As I sat there, I thought of Coach Vince Lombardi who said this:

Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about.  They didn’t do it for individual glory.  They did it because they loved one another.

At our final meeting of the Louisiana Legislators’ Bible Study / Prayer Breakfast, on Tuesday morning, May 27^th, my message was entitled “The ‘One Another’ Fellowship”.   Near the beginning of that Scriptural meditation with our legislators, I said this to our brothers and sisters who serve us: 

It is as all of you live in “The ‘One Another’ Fellowship” that you will be most effective in coming to right understandings of what is truly good for our people as well as the accomplishment of that good.  Furthermore, it is it as you live together in that “oneanotherness” that your own lives will be immeasurably enriched. 

Watching Senate President John Alario and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley and their combined teams of 144 members throughout this session was a delight.  Regardless of whether you, the readers of this letter, agree with the various decisions that our legislature made, and regardless of whether you are aware of certain tensions in some relationships, I want you to know that I am giving thanks to God, even now as I write this letter, for the beauty of togetherness that I saw among these men and women. 

Now what about you? What about your family?  What about your Church?  I am including with this letter my notes (below) from that Tuesday morning with the legislators.  Please carefully and prayerfully ponder each of the “one another” commandments and consider your own manner of relating to your family and your fellow church members.  Let’s all take a moment to pray that our Lord will help us to live in the beauty of “The One Another Fellowship”.   Hebrews 10 says, “And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds.”

Thank you again for your prayers.  Also, thank you for your financial support.  

In the love of the Savior,

  

Rod and Bec

Louisiana Legislators’ Bible Study / Prayer Breakfast

“The ‘One Another’ Fellowship”

Dr. Rodney Wood

One of the cities in which Paul served the Church was Ephesus.  He did pastoral ministry there for three years.  During those years, Paul led the elders in doing much good for the people, and when his days of service in that city were completed, he called the elders together and gave them his farewell address.  And the Scripture says that when he had said his last words, “he knelt down and prayed with them all, and they began to weep aloud and embraced Paul and repeatedly kissed him.”  (Acts 20:17-38; See verse 36-37) 

Paul had lived with these servants of the Church in the “one another” fellowship, and although he had to leave them, the fellowship was unending. 

It is as all of you live in “The ‘One Another’ Fellowship” that you will be most effective in coming to right understandings of what is truly good for our people as well as the accomplishment of that good.  Furthermore, it is it as you live together in that “oneanotherness” that your own lives will be immeasurably enriched. 

“The ‘One Another’ Fellowship” lives according to the “one another” commandments given to us by the Apostles:

“For this is the message you heard from the beginning:  We should love one another.”  (1 John 3:11)

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph. 4:32)

“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” (Romans 12:10)

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” (Hebrews 10:24)

“Greet one another with a holy kiss.” (2 Corinthians 13:12)

“Bear with one another.”  (Colossians 3:13)

“Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as you also are doing.” (1 Thess. 5:11)

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.” (Galatians 5:13)

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another.”  (1 Peter 4:10)

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”  (James 5:16)

• Love one another.  Every other “one another” command is a manifestation of this one. 
• Be kind to one another.   Literally, be “usefully good” to one another.  Be pleasant, gentle.
• Be tenderhearted toward one another.   Have deep inner feelings of mercy, of compassion.  These are feelings that are experienced deeply within us.  Literally, in our belly. 
• Forgive one another.  Literally, exercise grace, freely show favor.
• Be devoted to one another.   Give yourselves fully to one another.  Be completely and unconditionally committed to one another.    
• Have brotherly (sisterly) affection for one another.  God has called you to have family feelings toward one another. 
• Openly express your affection with godly gestures as you greet one another. 
• Honor one another.  Esteem one another.
• Stir one another up (Provoke one another!) to love and the good works that show that love. 
• Bear  with one another.  Be patient with one another.  Be enduring in love. 
• Encourage one another.  Pour courage and expectation into one another.
• Build one another up.  Say and do things that cause your colleague to grow in godly character.   
• Serve one another.  “Wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:14)
• Confess your sins to one another.  Admit your failings to one another.   
• PRAY FOR ONE ANOTHER.  “Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.” (1 Samuel 12:23)  “God instituted prayer in order to lend His creatures the dignity of causality.” (Blaise Pascal, 17^th century French physicist)  God allows us to come to Him with our requests for one another, and He responds according to His wisdom and goodness!

One day you will leave this place in which you now serve.  You will give your final address to your colleagues and then say your goodbyes to all of the staff as you walk out of this building.  When that day comes, who will you embrace?  With whom will you shed a tear?  Will you be one who has lived and therefore will always live in the incomparable effectiveness and happiness of “The ‘One Another’ Fellowship”?  

Louisiana House of Representatives, 2014

Rep. Frank Hoffman, Rodney, and 

Rep. Chuck Kleckley, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 2014

Rep. Frank Hoffman and Rodney, 2014

The Mission Foundation

May 30, 2014

Dear friends,

I give thanks to our Lord for His great Hand of blessing on the weekly Louisiana Legislators’ Bible Study / Prayer Breakfast.  We saw far greater weekly participation than we have ever seen before!   This was, as I have mentioned before, my 21^st year at the Louisiana State Capitol and the 15^th year of the breakfast!

On May 20^th, we held our annual reunion breakfast, and we were very happy that several of our former representatives and senators were able to be with us.  What a great morning!  The room was so full that the staff had to open the doors and set up extra tables in the adjacent area, and we were blessed by our Lord to experience wonderful warmth and fervency in our fellowship, our meditation on the Word, and our prayers.  Again, we give thanks to our Savior! 

I would like to include a few notes (with slight modifications) from my reunion morning message:  “Living in Preparation to Say My Last Prayer.”

“God, don’t let me die. I have so much to do.”  September 10, 1935, 4:10 a.m.  These were the very last words that came from his lips. –  Governor Huey P. Long, age 42.

“I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave Me to do.” – These words were included in His prayer on the night before His death. – Jesus our Lord, age 33.

It is quite possible that you will know when you are saying your last prayer to God.  If so, what will it be? 

God has given you a work to accomplish:  He has given you a purpose.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:37-39 ESV)  Love God!  And love every man, woman, and child around you! 

God has perfectly designed you to carry out this great purpose in a manner that is unique to you. “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that He prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them.”  (Eph. 2:10)  You are His “workmanship,” His poiema – His personal work of art!  The Apostle Paul says that God hand-made you for certain works that He prepared for you before the foundation of the world.  David prays, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made, . . . in your book were written . . . the days that were ordained for me.” (Ps. 139:14, 16) – “I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking.” – George McDonald  

You will accomplish your work by following the example of Jesus who lived every day for the purpose to which His Father had called Him. 

• Each day do only those things that you know are pleasing to your Father:  “And He who sent me is with Me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” (John 8:29)
• Each day seek to know and do your Father’s will:  “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38)

• Each day observe what God is doing so that you might participate with Him:  Jesus said that He as the Son of God does “only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that He Himself is doing.” (John 5:19)
• Each day maintain a sense of urgency, knowing that your days are limited:  “We must work the works of Him Who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no man can work.” (John 9:4)

Every day you are making decisions.  Let every decision you make be guided by the purpose for which Jesus  lived, the same purpose for which He has called you to live:  Love God!  Love people!  Do this, my friend, and you will be prepared to say your last prayer to God!  Though you cannot live perfectly, as Jesus did, you will be able to say, “By Your grace, I sought to honor You by accomplishing all that You gave me to do.” 

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support of us in our work.  We are truly grateful. 

Your brother and sister in the Savior,

Rod and Bec

The Mission Foundation

P. O. Box 46358

Baton Rouge, LA 70895

May 7, 2014

Dear friends,

Some of you may have wondered what happened with regard to our April letter.  I am sorry that, in the midst of an extremely demanding season of ministry, my monthly correspondence with you has been delayed.      

April and early May have been blessed days of labor.  Bec and I give thanks to God for His workings through The Gathering of Men and Monday Morning for Men (Ruston) and for my recent opportunity to speak to the LA State Association of YMCA Directors and at a men’s retreat at Calvary Baptist Church.  I plan to write about some of these things later this month, but in this letter, I would like to focus on one special event at the Louisiana State Senate. 

Yesterday the Senate held their annual “Military Family Day” in remembrance of eleven of our soldiers who have died during the past year.  It was a beautiful ceremony that included presentations by the Baton Rouge Bagpipes and Drums and the LA National Guard Color Guard.  Very meaningful words of remembrance were given for each fallen soldier, and there were times of silent prayer and moments of comfort for the families.  It was very moving to see every member of the Senate coming to the front to offer personal words to the members of each family.  I must emphasize that there were words of reflection on the life of each soldier as his picture was shown before us, and expressions of comfort were offered to each family.  It was a lovingly and appropriately extended time of communicating respectful gratitude and of coming alongside the grieving. 

It was my honor to have been invited to present the opening prayer.  Before the ceremony began, I spent a brief moment with each of the family members.  As I moved from one to the next there in the Senate gallery, their eyes and their voices disclosed the greatness of the sorrow they carried in their hearts.  Their loved ones had paid the ultimate price for our freedom and for the freedom of others in this world.  As I write, I am remembering the weighty grief in the eye of a young widow; I am hearing a father’s voice muted by sadness as he spoke to me; and I am seeing the mourning on a mother’s face as she reached out to shake my hand.  What great loss.   

But at the end of the “Military Family Day,” recognition was also given to a living heroin! – WWII U.S. Navy Wave, Mrs. Dorothy Bauer, mother of Mr. Keith Bauer, one of our Senate guards.  Mrs. Bauer, who was a nurse and one of only 300 women trained to be a part of a flight crew, flew over 100 hours a month, often flying great distances over the Atlantic and Pacific with our wounded soldiers.   As Mrs. Bauer, who had her 90^th birthday in April, stood with her son Keith at the front of the chamber, and the words of her commendation were ended, the members of the Senate, and all others present, stood in applause!

May God help us to continually and gratefully remember our fallen soldiers and their families.  And may God remind us to regularly express our sincere appreciation to those who have served in our military in any capacity. 

Also, may God enable us to be faithful in prayer.  Please pray for the grieving families not only here in Louisiana but all over our nation, and please pray for our soldiers, both those on active duty and those who have served us in the past, some of whom bear great emotional and physical burdens. 

In closing, we want to say again that we give thanks to God for you.   Thank you for all of your prayers, your words of encouragement, and your support of us in our work. 

                                                                                    In the love of our Savior,

                                                                                    Rod and Bec 

The Mission Foundation

March 28, 2014

Our dear friends, we’re off to a great start in my 21^st year at the Louisiana State Capitol!  I give thanks to our Lord that I was asked to lead in a prayer for unity at the Louisiana Black Caucus Prayer Breakfast.   There was a great crowd and a wonderful spirit at that prayer breakfast.  This Monday, March 31^st, I will be opening the House of Representatives in prayer.  Also, the weekly LA Legislators’ Bible Study Prayer Breakfast (which I have led since 2000) has been very well attended by both the House and Senate.  Here are some notes from our last two meetings:

“How Can We Who Are So Diverse Be Truly Unified?”

“In our diversity, let there be unity!”  That was last week’s theme.  We focused on the reasons for which our unity is of paramount importance to all of us.  Often it is said that we must be unified in order to accomplish greater things.  However, as we have seen, there are much more important reasons:

• We were made in the image of the Holy Three-In-One.  God, the Eternal Community, who lives in the perfect unity of love within Himself, said, “Let Us make man in our own image, after our own likeness” (Genesis 1:26).  He designed us to live as a holy community, being united in love, even as He is united within Himself in love. 
• But we foolishly broke our bond of love with God and with one another and chose to go our own self-focused way (Genesis 3; Isaiah 53:6).  In His unconditional love, our Lord Jesus died to restore our unity with God and with one another forever. (Romans 5:8, 18; Eph. 4:15)
• On the night before He was crucified, Jesus prayed for our unity, saying that our oneness would be our testimony to the world that God actually sent Him and that God truly does love us in the same way that He loves His own Son.  Jesus prayed, “I do not ask for these (disciples) only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that you have sent Me.  The glory that You have given to Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent me and loved them even as You have loved Me.”  (John 17:20-22) 

• Our Christ, Whom we all follow, has blessed us with the privilege of sharing in a beautiful seven-fold oneness:  “There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”  (Ephesians 4:4-6)

But now we must ask, “How do we do this?  How can we who are so diverse be truly unified?

  I.  We must be HUMBLE LISTENERS: We must listen to one another with the ears of humility that Christ will give us.     

o        James 1:19 “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

o        Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”

o        Proverbs 18:13  “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.”

By listening we not only learn; we not only become aware of our blind-spots; we also are communicating loving respect for one another. 

 II.  We must be MERCIFUL:  We must extend the same mercy to one another that we have received from our Lord.   

o        Matthew 5:7  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

o        Luke 6:36  “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

o        James 2:13  “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

o        Ephesians 4:32  “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

III.  We must develop KALEIDOSCOPIC VISION:  Each of us must have eyes like a kaleidoscope whose mirrors are set at perfect angles so that it becomes kalos + eidos + skopeo, an “observer of beautiful forms.”  We must learn to look at one another with the eyes that Christ will give us.  We must allow Him to grant us the ability to marvel at the ever-changing shapes and colors of the humans around us.  1 Corinthians 12 teaches us that there are “varieties of gifts” and “varieties of service” and that we who are “one body” cannot say to another part of the body, “I have no need of you.”  Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that every believer is God’s poiema, His “work of art.”  

Please pray for an ever-growing unity among our legislators and in our churches and in The Church (even as our Lord Jesus prayed). Please pray against any influences that would cause division.  Thank you again for making it possible for Bec and me to do the work to which He has called us.

In the Savior,

Rod and Bec