05/09/2024
Brother Art
He was an old man, retired but working every day. His life was one of work and difficulty, still a life of peace and happiness. I met Brother Art when the Bride and I decided we needed to get back into church. He was one of those church lovers that came every time the little Assembly of God’s door was open. His church, in the small rural town of Hillsboro about 30 minutes outside St. Louis Missouri, was like most any other rural place of worship.
This large-framed old man would greet visitors and members alike, with a gentleness and love that did not exactly fit the obvious lines and leather skin of a country boy in overalls. He was dedicated to service; vacuuming and polishing the sanctuary, keeping grass cut, and the general needs of attending to the Martha tasks. On Sunday morning he became a strong voice of worship and praise, taking on the Mary attitude of admiring his Jesus like a child.
Brother Art told me of getting into trouble while growing up on his poor family's rural farm. His tough and strict father worked and farmed to keep what was likely just enough to feed and supply the family in his charge. Like many families that would sell a hog, butcher a cow, and grow a crop, his dad also grew peaches to bring in extra money, often not very extra.
Have you ever bit into a fresh peach? Not the little hard ones the Bride is fond of, but those big peaches that fill your mouth with more juice than it can hold. Oh, that juice running down your chin with each bite of fresh sweet joy. It must have seemed like heaven to a hungry boy. It is those “you can’t stop eating them” peaches that got young Brother Art into so much trouble.
The hard fast rural that came down from his father was no one can eat the peaches. You see each peach was money for the family. Like the farm animal you don’t name because you know it will go to the market, these peaches were a crop for the family business. This rule came as a commandment from a stern father. To break his rule would certainly bring a swift hand.
Brother Art told me how he and his siblings would often run around, not just shoeless, but completely naked. He explained how the children would have to hide when visitors stopped by. You see, the family simply did not have the money or means to have play clothes for all the children. They might get a pair of shoes but as with most kids, especially boys, their growing feet would take what seemed like a small fortune for the poor family.
So the little boy that would one day become the Brother Art I knew, likely naked and hungry, ventured into the orchard of peach trees. Those peaches were ripe, ready for harvest, and must have smelled wonderful. He told me how he picked one juicy peach knowing it was against the command of his dad. I guess it was more like a Lays potato chip, he said he couldn't stop at just one. He ate and filled his belly with the sweet fruit, filling up, possibly becoming satisfied for the first time in a long time.
As his story continued, Brother Art said he made one simple mistake. When you choose to willfully disobey, when the sweet things of the world draw you in, you can hide that sin, but it will always be found out by the Father. In this case he told how his younger self made the mistake of leaving the stoney peach pits in a small pile by a tree. Like many who relish in sin, the consequences of that sin will eventually be evident and found out. The result was a severe beating from his dad because he took from the family. An early lesson about disobedience.
Brother Art grew vegetables. One of his favorites was cabbage. In the rich Missouri soil, tilled and worked over the years, he grew cabbage, big cabbage, real big cabbage, blue ribbon winning type cabbage. At church dinners, along with the pies (mmmm, that pineapple pie), cakes, chicken dishes, and the normal feed you find at most rural church dinners on the ground, he brought the fruits of his field. Brother Art considered these bumper crops a blessing from God. God gave him the home, the soil, the hands to work it, and the weather to make his garden grow. He knew his God blessed every aspect of life, including his home and garden.
Brother Art believed in Jesus, believed He is the Christ, the one who died for him. He believed in the Holy Spirit, that it resided in him and moved through and around him. That little naked peach eating boy had grown through life, had a home and family, now a Man of God. But those things of the past did not matter as much as what God does today. When you talked to Brother Art you saw this. He reflected Jesus. Second Corinthians 3:18 tells us, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Years of hardship, work and growing away from this world had brought Brother Art to a closer love relationship with his Lord.
As we grow older, bodies change. Even a Christian understands that while he is in this world, he is not of it. The soul and spirit are already heaven bound, but the physical body is still in this physical world. A spot appeared on Brother Art’s face. Usually not a big deal, but when God speaks, you need to listen. Brother Art told me God spoke to him and said the spot was cancer. I'm not sure if he heard the audible voice or just a strong thought placed in his mind. Sometimes God uses medicine, doctors, plants, food, and things of the world to touch a physical body. Next to his house was a big cedar tree. It was the sap from this tree God told him to place on the spot. Brother Art continued his story, explaining that after a time the spot turned black. He told me how he took a pair of pliers and grabbed the black spot, pulling it. With detail, he explained how the spot came out with several long tendrils trailing. To him, it looked like a dead spider. Soon the spot healed; the cancer was gone. A short time later I read an article about how sap from certain cedar trees was being looked at as a cancer fighter.
The winter in central Missouri doesn't always have snow on the ground. Most years there would be snow, sometimes ice, sometimes a covering for a few days, sometimes a few months. As the snow blanketed the rural two-lane road in front of his house, a road simply named by a few numbers, the plows would come through rolling the blanket of dirty white to the side of the highway. While checking his mail, Brother Art dropped the knife, losing it in the icy rolled snowbank. Like many older folk, it was common to have a good pocket knife. These tools could cut bailer twine, slice an apple or sweet peach, trim off a cabbage ready to eat, clean fingernails of black dirt, and even kill time whittling away on a stick. This day he had used it to open a letter, a simple task that would cause the loss of great value to him. There was an issue with the loss of the knife, it was his favorite, a faithful friend in his pocket.
The little boy who could not resist the lure of a peach was now a man of God. He looked to God’s Spirit residing within him. His knife was gone, lost, possibly to never be found as it would eventually be covered with dirt-ladened snow and ice to rust before the melt. He also knew there is hope in turning to the Lord, even for a loss of a simple pocket knife.
Sometimes we look to the Father for healing of cancer, finding a job, and salvation for a loved one, but forget the same God who will move mountains because of our faith can also move through an answer to our prayers for small things. I often go to the store, just doing the everyday shopping. Sometimes I look at appealing items, but the voice of the Holy Spirit in me says to skip it. My logic says to buy it, but my soul is softened to that voice. Other times I might pass and see an item just catching my eye. I think about it and decide not to purchase it. It's not long before I find I do need it. By relying on the voice of the Spirit, by listening to the voice of the Spirit, by following the voice of the Spirit, by turning to God in even the small things, you will find a path that makes a way even in a forest. It is this k9ind of faith Brother Art understood.
He told me how his old eyes and body could do nothing more to find the lost treasure. Brother Art turned to prayer for his knife. He called out to God for help in this seemingly small task; trivial to most of us but important to him. Sometimes God does speak in an audible voice. The Bride has heard it, for me it has only been in my Spirit… so far. He said he heard a voice tell him to look down, straight down, and the knife would be in a small hole, blade up. His eyes focused and saw the small hole in the icey snowbank. And yes, the knife was in it, blade up. We call on the name of Jesus for even small things.
When the bride and I moved back to Northwest Florida, we attended several rural churches. Most had the basic yet functional floor plan you find in these places of worship. I remarked to her how for churches who believed anyone saved should also follow the commandment to be baptized by submersion in water, they didn’t have baptismal pools. She grew up in rural churches and explained how when the building was constructed they often did not have running water or even restrooms. The potty was an outhouse and the baptismal pool was the local creek or pond. Those in Missouri would often go to the creek. A refreshing dip in the cool water to come out showing the world in a public way you accepted Jesus’ work on the Cross and He as your savior.
Brother Art recounted how he accepted Christ as a younger man. That peach eating boy had his come to Jesus moment and decided he needed the everlasting love of his Lord. I’m sure there was music and singing in heaven as the angels rejoiced over a new convert. In the same way, I’m sure the people in the church rejoiced. In those days it was not uncommon to baptize a new Christian right away. A minister leader over several churches once challenged the pastors in attendance to keep their baptism pools filled and ready. In days past, with no warm inside pool, the church people would simply go to the creek after the service.
Brother Art was saved in the winter, a cold winter, a snow and ice-filled winter. They had to break the ice to get to the running water. Running water is living water. While baptism is not salvation, scripture instructs the church should baptize the new member. Like Jesus being buried and rising again, we are publicly showing the world we have been born again, buried under the water to rise anew. First Corinthians 12:12-13 says, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” He recounted how icy cold that dip was for his young frame. As they dipped him under, the cold water washed over his body. When telling the story, he recounted his baptism as a memory of joy. As I said earlier, Brother Art showed that same joy each time you saw him. He knew without a doubt he was part of the body and you were too.
It is not too hard to clean a small church. Most times it took a sweeping of any dirt or trash, dusting the piano and pews, straightening the instrument stands with music from last Sunday still on the organ. This was a task Brother Art took on with faithfulness. It was work, but not a work to keep or get salvation, rather a work manifested from a desire to honor Jesus with your hands. Living just a few miles down the road, being the church caretaker was a job the old man took on with enthusiasm.
Acts 2 talks about a wind. Acts 2:2 tells us about the move of the Holy Spirit. Like the living water that flows from Jesus, His work on the Cross provides us with an avenue for salvation and the Spirit of God coming into you. Acts further shows the provision for the Spirit to not only be in you, guiding you, and helping you ask for needs big and small. Being born again means you are attached to the living vine that is Jesus and His power of life is in you. Acts 2:2 presents a blowing wind that tells us the Holy Spirit is coming; “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.”
When I lived in Missouri, the mid-America state would often see the warm moist air from the gulf meeting colder air sweeping down from the arctic. When the twain meet, strong storms build. I would stand on a small rise of land behind the house and could see west across the Missouri river valley. These storms would come quickly and powerful. The noontime weather report might not even mention storms, but a few hours later the dark sky full of power would roll in, dropping the temperature before the lightning and rain arrived. Have you ever been there? Standing outside as the toe of the storm pushes strong straight-line winds against you. You feel the wind and know the storm coming is powerful. Acts 2 tells us of the sound of wind as the Holy Spirit was about to come upon those in the upper room. We know this same Spirit now resides in us and can flow through us, affecting the world around us.
Brother Art told me about a day, a special day when God gave him a gift, a reminder of His power. Like many times before, he was dusting and cleaning the little sanctuary. Pews polished, floors cleaned, papers adjusted, the normal almost mundane tasks he did every week. Have you ever worked a task like vacuuming, driving, mowing, or most any task you often repeat as life moves forward. You listen to praise music or just sing to yourself. Eventually your task becomes automatic as you feel the presence of the Lord inhabiting your praise. From what Brother Art told me, this was his norm while cleaning the church. But this time the mundane would become anything but.
His story continued, saying as he was cleaning and singing, maybe even working in a prayer. These little churches usually have an outer door, a lobby, and a set of inner doors. With air conditioning off, windows closed and doors shut, Brother Art was busy cleaning and worshiping. A very quiet time of just “Jesus and me.” He said it was sudden. The sound of wind. Not just a breeze, but a roaring wind. The sound like a powerful storm rolling across the land. He said the wind was loud, yet as he looked at the music sheets on the piano, they did not move, not even a flutter. It was the sound of a mighty rushing wind, yet no wind. As the roar of the wind faded, he heard a voice as powerful as the wind, a voice that simply said, “I am.” As suddenly as it started, it was quiet.
Signs and wonders can come as something evident to the unsaved or as a blessing to the saved. Sometimes a Christian needs reassurance during a bleak time. Maybe just God telling us as we worship Him, He is with us. Brother Art did not say why he thought God chose to bless him this way. Certainly, he already knew and trusted the Holy Spirit. Like the smell of the peach just before that wonderful bite with juice running down a little boy’s face satisfying his belly, an old man now had the sweet Spirit of God filling him to overflowing with the satisfying love of Jesus.
