Place you trust in His truth

Jim Honeycutt

Chaplain-Baptist Minister

Many were the times I rode along with my father down country roads after a rainstorm, as he checked the crops, cattle and pasture fencing. In my youth, I failed to understand how important they would become in my life, these rides with my father. For these were times of connection, times of discussion, times of wisdom imparted to me, that become more precious as the years roll by. 

One recent Saturday after rains had fallen during the early morning hours, I found myself nostalgic for a trip through the country. Convincing my wife to take a drive for breakfast in a neighboring town I took the scenic route. Rather than fight the traffic on the major roadways, we took the backroads, the less traveled roads, the easy winding paths of casual driving roads.

While we drove along with the windows down, the sights and smells of a time when peaceful trips where just a moment away flooded my thoughts.

Later in the day while I contemplated my morning, I found myself on a slightly different road. A roadway that led me to reflection. There with the memories of my father driving his old Chevy truck, full of so many tools you hunted for a place to put your feet, I sat and imagined our conversations.

How I longed to hear his voice, how I longed to see his smile, how I longed to hear him say son. In my mind I spoke with him and knowing him well, I could almost hear his response. While I was a boy my father shared with me nearly every aspect of his life. From growing up on a farm during the depression, to serving in the Army Air Corps during WWII, to falling in love and getting married.

But my favorite story was how when he and my mother wanted children that she couldn’t have, they sought God and He provided a way for my adoption. I could have heard that story a million times and not grown tired of hearing it. For it spoke to me of love, it spoke to me of care, it spoke to me of the greatest desire of my heart, to belong. I am not unique in the desire to be loved. I am not unique in the want to be cared for. I am not unique in the need to belong.

People will spend their entire lives looking for these treasures. And the most tragic part of this reality is that the things they find as substitutes, the things they grab onto in false hope, the things offered to make them feel they belong are temporary and pass away in the testing of time.

What if I shared with you a truth passed on to me by my father? A truth given to him by his father. A truth tested by trial and time. A truth that I have pursued and found to be valid. This truth was valid before my birth when my parents wanted children. It was valid when my mother was told I would never read and she pushed until God opened my eyes to understanding.

It was valid when a man wanted to kill me and God froze him in place, so I could speak of Jesus’s love. It was valid when I laid my motorcycle down on a county road at 60 miles an hour ruining the bike and leaving me with only scratches. It was valid when I had my heart attack, as the peace of God flowed calming my fear. It was valid when my mother suffered from dementia, passing after years in a rest home.

It was valid when my father lost his farm late in his life and died nearly broke; valid when an arsonist burned our business; valid when God brought Melissa and I together; valid when my daughter was born; valid in all life’s heartache and joy.

In all things I am convinced that the Truth of Jesus Christ is valid and faithful. It is in this revelation I place my trust, I place my hope, I place my faith. 

The promise of The One True God is this… that Jesus Christ came to save that which was lost. 

The world will try and convince you this is not a valid truth in a sundry of ways. But I will tell you the world is a liar and those that follow its path will never know truth. Those that look to be saved by men, will always be disappointed. Tragic is the life lived without Christ, for in the end darkness and separation is the wage paid.

Hopeful is the life lived with Christ, for at the end of the journey fellowship with God for eternity Is the reward.

 Jesus has said, “I stand at your heart’s door and knock, if you open the door I will come in and abide with you. This is Valid Truth.