What I Love About Sunday

If I didn’t know better I’d swear I went to bed in my life and woke up this Sunday living in a country music song — which I suppose is entirely possible around here, seeing as how country music songwriter Mark Narmore is among the 972 fine residents of Killen, Alabama. Those who are reading this and not from Killen may not know the name Mark Narmore, but I bet you know the names Reba McIntire, Josh Tuner, Alabama, John Michael Montgomery, Terri Clark, and Craig Morgan. They all know Mark Narmore because they’ve recorded his songs. You’ve likely heard his song, “That’s What I Love About Sunday” since it was the most played song on country radio in 2005, staying at number one for over a month, and being named the #8 song in country music in the first decade of the 2000’s. What did Mark write that he loved about Sunday’s? “Every verse of Amazing Grace…stroll to the end of the drive…grab a cup of coffee…cat-nappin’ on a porch swing, you curled up next to me…take a walk down a back road…steal a kiss as the sun fades…new believers getting baptized…havin’ a hallelujah good time, a smile on everybody’s face, that’s what I love about Sunday.” Amen, Mark.

I say I’m living in a country song because I’ve lost track of all the Southern country cliches I’ve checked off in the last month: eating pinto beans and cornbread with fried taters for dinner at momma’s, check; sitting on the front porch listening to the frogs sing while my dog sleeps at my feet, check; walking to church on Sunday, check; drinking coffee on a slow and sleepy rainy Saturday morning with the woman I’ve loved since she was a girl, check; opening all the windows so the Spring air can blow through the house, check; playing in the creek, check; watching my youngest get married at a barn, check.

If I didn’t ever get on social media I wouldn’t even know that the world had stopped turning….wait, wasn’t THAT a country song too? In all seriousness, I know that for many people times are hard. People they love are sick or have died. Work is slow and money is tight. I’m not for one minute dismissing their pain or struggles, and in time those troubles may knock on my front door. Believe me, in the past trouble didn’t just knock at our door, it made itself at home and moved in for awhile. But for right now, His blessings are a thousand fold, so forgive me if I want an encore this evening.

I could make a list as long as my arm of the things I absolutely love about this little white house this Sunday, but if I had to pick just one it would probably be the front porch facing West. There’s just something about a sunset that humbles and stills the heart. Despite all the amazing things we humans can do, we can’t do that. We could write a million songs about their beauty, but we couldn’t make even one sunset ourselves. A sunset has a unique ability to make you feel small and loved at the same time. I’ve watched more sunsets in the last three weeks than I have in the last three years, and that is how I spent the last hour of this Sunday.

When I was twenty, if you’d have tried to make me sit still, in silence, on the front porch with nothing but a Sun Drop and a plate of chocolate oatmeal cookies, for an entire hour, I would have thought I was being partially punished. I had too many things to do to just sit and “do nothing.” It doesn’t look like that at forty-four. I honestly can’t say when I’ve spent a better hour of my life than the way I just spent the last one. What would have been boring at best, and punishment at worst, at one point in my life, now looks like a blessing, and that is precisely how I spent it, blessing God. It wasn’t my most eloquent prayer, and it certainly wasn’t as poetic as the lyrics to a number one hit song about Sunday, but I doubt I’ve ever prayed one more sincere. I just said thank you. Over and over again, thank you, until I felt like I’d said it enough to make my point clear.

One of my oldest and dearest friends is a guy named Jode who lives on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. Shortly after he moved to Tennessee we were riding through the backroads and hills of Giles County and he asked me, “What mountains are these?” Louisiana is as flat as a month old Coke so those hills probably did look like mountains to Jode. Life can be like that sometimes. What you perceive is one thing is really something else. What twenty year old Brandon would have considered boring, forty-four year old Brandon counted as a blessing. I could have viewed this sunset as another day of my life that is gone, never to return, but instead I saw it as a spectacular finale to a Sunday well spent. Maybe I can encourage you to learn to look at your present situation from a different perspective and see if it starts to look a little different. Where the world sees panic, the believer can find peace. What the government declares a “shelter at home”, the disciple can consider a long overdue sabbath. While some live in fear, God’s children walk by faith. When you can’t find what you’re looking for on the shelves, remember He will provide all you need.

While it is true that we have no control over things like the length of the quarantine, the development of a vaccine or treatment, or the impact this will have on the economy, it is also true that we have complete control over what we will do with all of this. Will you make a mountain out of what is likely, in the grand scheme of history, and over the course of your life, just a molehill? If you do, that’s fine, no judgment, but I do have one suggestion.

As I just mentioned, some hills do look like mountains to some folks, and if this situation is more mountain than molehill for you, just make sure you approach it with the boldness and faith of an eighty-five year old Caleb in the conquest of Canaan. He said to Joshua, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said” (Joshua 14:6-12). Forty years earlier, everyone else, except for Joshua and Caleb, saw this land flowing with milk and honey as a curse, not a blessing. Where they saw a mountain too high, Caleb saw a mansion just over the hilltop, and after forty-five years of waiting he couldn’t wait any longer. To borrow from and disagree with another country song, Caleb did not think, “I ain’t as good as I once was.” Caleb knew he was stronger than he’d ever been, not physically, but spiritually. Our bodies may be aging and weakening, but our faith and relationship with God is growing stronger by the day. What Caleb called “hill-country” was a mountain full of giants living in walled cities, but eighty-five years of walking with the Lord had taught him that he could overcome anything through faith. And so can you.

As I sit here with the windows open, listening to the frogs singing, I realize there is one thing I don’t like about the house presently: it hasn’t been filled with all of you yet. I’m sitting in silence and gratitude, but I’m also longing for the day when the yard is full of squealing kids, the house is full of the smell of food, and the carport is full of people. I can’t wait until we can let every toad in Frog Pond sit on the front porch of their Lilly pads and listen to our church singing songs of praise as the sun sets. Every verse of Amazing Grace. What a day that will be.