Author Archives: David Porter

About David Porter

When he was in college, David Porter wanted to be a journalist. Today he is a preacher. In Coffee Stains, the preacher and journalist meet to bless everyone who likes a funny East Texas story with a spiritual kicker at the end!

Mamaw Deloney and the Ten Pound Chicken

Posted on by
Reply

Today we complain about violence in television and movies. Actually this generation hasn’t seen anything compared to some of the things I saw in my childhood.

For instance, my Mamaw Deloney used to let her chickens range freely behind her house in the country. But often, when grandsons started to get hungry, she’d go out back and summon her flock. She was sneaky. She’d throw out some grains of corn calling sweetly, “Here chick, chick, chick!”

And they came running—like a bunch of dumb chickens. I knew what was going to happen, and they should have had this scene branded in their little numbskulls because they had seen it many times. But like a school of minnows swimming happily into the open mouth of a black bass, their little airhead could think of nothing but “corn, corn, corn!”

I guess anything is a welcome change from worms and grasshoppers.

And mamaw would wait until they were busily pecking away, their stomachs in chicken heaven, when suddenly she struck. Grabbing an unsuspecting victim by the neck she lifted and twisted, snapped and—really I don’t know how she did it, but she was good.

Voilence! My friend you should have seen it. Mamaw standing there with a dumb chicken head in her hand, and the chicken’s body on the ground, flopping around like a … well, like a chicken with his head cut off.

It’s enough to damage the psyche of a kid but I quickly got over it when the results of her labors was fried, and lounging next to some mashed potatoes and gravy. She topped the meal off with a healthy slice of apple pie. Colonel Sanders should have taken lessons from mamaw when it came to frying poultry.

Probably one of the keys is to start with biologic, worm-fed, chickens.

I thought about mamaw recently when my wife came home with a Christmas turkey which turned out to be a chicken. You should have seen it—9.33 pounds! Probably when it had all its feathers, claws and insides it was ten pounds or better. Being a chicken, its brain had probably only weighed 0.0001 pounds, though.

Can you imagine mamaw trying to wring the neck of a ten pound chicken? “Here, chick, chick, chick?” The ground trembles as the hefty pullet gallops toward the corn. Lesser men would have feared the hulking fowl.

Somehow, though, I think mamaw would have had the best of our feathered friend, though the ensuing battle would have been impressive to watch. She usually accomplished what she set out to do. She could even milk a cow. (She tried to teach me but I could never get those squirt things to work).

Violence against chickens. Sounds terrible but what else can you do with an animal that dumb, but eat it? Why in the world would they run after a few grains of corn when they had seen so many of their brothers and sisters flopping around, headless, in these same scenarios?

Honestly, though, there are a lot of people just as dumb as those chickens. They see others fall into sin and screw their life up, but them? They’re going to be the exception to the rule–they think. So they run into an adulterous affair, like our famous, salivating chickens running to the corn.

There’s something worse than mamaw waiting on them.

Others abuse their body, or lie, or cheat, or steal, or treat others without respect. They plant bitter, selfish seeds and expect to reap a good crop. “Here, chick, chick, chick!”

“Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7, 8, The Message)

“Therefore disaster will overtake him in an instant; he will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.” (Proverbs 6:15, NIV). In others words, he’s going to get his neck wrung if he doesn’t straighten up.

The New Year is traditionally a great time to think about, and evaluate our lives. If there are areas where we are in open rebellion against God, we need to do more than make good resolutions–we need to change. We can, by the grace of the Lord Jesus and the power of His Spirit.

Real change only comes through Him.

Otherwise … “Here chick, chick, chick!”

_________________________

Hmmm…

You need to watch your media intake … one of the first ways people start stumbling is they start watching stuff and all of a sudden they become desensitized, like cuss words or nudity in a movie … the moment that stuff doesn’t shock you any more, you’re already in trouble. If people say, “I can watch the movie and not let that bother me,” you’re already in trouble if it doesn’t bother you.” Pastor Rick Warren.

Christmas in Paris

Posted on by
Reply

To see a picture of the shop in this story, click on the link on the right side of this page: Christmas In Paris

We happened on the little shop accidentally. Friends were visiting for a couple of days and we had decided to see the city of Paris, all decked out for Christmas.

By late that afternoon, between muttering to ourselves and squinting at the map trying to find where we were and where we wanted to go, we hadn’t seen too much aside from the Bastille monument and lots of nice window displays.

Wandering around the side streets near the Place des Vosges, though, we came on a shop window that brought us up short.

Musical instruments, some strange, some familiar, beckoned from the dusky interior drawing us inside. I felt like I had stumbled onto an old-growth forest after having wandered around all day in the conformity of woods that had been clear-cut and replanted with only commercially profitable trees.

It seemed as if one of those old English shops you read about in Victorian novels had magically come to life. This one came complete with a unique owner–greasy apron, unruly hair, and an obvious love for his wares–all included in the price.

It didn’t take much urging to get him to demonstrate a strange contraption which looked like the result of a collision between a violin and a gramophone.

If I got the story straight, that instrument had been constructed for a specific task, so that a well-known violinist could make a recording way back in the time when recording music was less than easy. We listened as the owner/musician poured his soul into a rendition that bought the strange violin to life.

Turns out that this man has been selling his instruments from that shop for 38 years. His nondescript collection came from all over the world—hundreds of musical devices populated the cluttered room. You could imagine that they all came alive and danced around singing at night when the humans left.

My wife asked, “Can you play all these instruments?” Yup! According to him there are only three major groups of musical instruments and if you understand the basic principles of each, you can play any instrument in that group.

I really couldn’t tell you. The only instruments I play are the radio and the CD player. Oh, yeah. I forgot the MP3 player—I extract music from it too.

I thought a lot about the music man in the days that followed. His shop had instruments as varied as the creatures at the bottom of the ocean–and he can play them all?

Kind of like the Lord, isn’t it? We’re all pretty sure that at times He doesn’t understand us and worse we want to question Him about some of his actions and decisions. Do you really know us? Are you “playing” us correctly.

What about that Christian who died at 35 years of age? Was that fair?

I thought about the gramophone/violin. That instrument was made to respond to a specific need and a specific situation. After the musician was done with it, it simply slept on an old collector’s shelf. Was that fair? I suspect that if the instrument could talk she would say, “I served my maker well. I was created for that. What more could I ask?”

God made that 35-year old for a reason. It hurts us to lose him but if he loved the Lord, he has an eternity to rejoice. I strongly suspect that a lot of things we call tragedies are just simply stories of “instruments” that God created for a reason, then afterwards took them home to be with Him.

That’s bad?

And as the old collector knows how to play each one of those unusual instruments, so the Lord knows how to “play” us. He even knows how to make music from the “weirdos” among us. Under His hands Bach and Beethoven (and the Beatles) would be jealous to hear the music of our lives.

“And the priests waited on their offices: the Levites also with instruments of musick of the LORD, which David the king had made to praise the LORD, because his mercy endureth for ever, when David praised by their ministry; and the priests sounded trumpets before them, and all Israel stood.” (2 Chron. 7:6 KJV)

If beautiful music comes from our life as the Master plays, should we gripe if it lasts a long time or a brief instant? God creates us and He uses us for the purpose for which we were created.

In the eternal scheme of things, nothing matters any more that that.
Here’s wishing you the most blessed Christmas and New Year that you’ve ever had (to this point in your life)–David

———————————–
Hmmm…

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said – not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone – “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.” (Itzhak Perlman, after masterfully finishing a concert with three strings when one of his violin strings broke)

Noble Nicknames

Posted on by
Reply

When I was in high school, many of us had nicknames. Several players on the football team rode home together in one car after practice (and sometimes hitchhiked). Because we lived way off on the other side of the Saline River, they called us the “River Rats”—a noble name for a noble crew.

Most of the players in that car also had nicknames. Worm was the driver, then there was Bear, Pooh, Dink, Cotton, Tuck, Root, Buck, etc. (the car was ultra-full). Obviously, none of those names came from the victim’s mother.

Some of you are probably wondering, “Which one was David?” You’ll still be wondering when you finish reading this if you don’t know already.

You can get stuck with a nickname because of a character trait (red hair, big ears, etc.), something that happens, or you can even inherit it from a big brother. My uncle was called Runt, though he wasn’t small, because that was his older brother’s nickname. That also happened to “Tuck” who inherited the moniker from his big brother.

Actually the name started out as Tucker Boy but you get lazy and shorten it. The Worm nickname cited above was shortened from Squirt-worm. Another friend’s nickname was shortened from Rabug to Bug. I have absolutely no recollection of where those names came from.

Actually those aren’t too much weirder than some of the real names people give their kids today, but that’s another Coffee Stain rant from a 50-something.

Bible nicknames

Did you know that people even gave nicknames in the Bible? The apostles were kinder in their name giving than my friends were, though. Joseph, a man first noted for his generosity, was nicknamed, “Barnabas” — The Son of Encouragement. (4:36)

His actions and his words encouraged. “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.” (Prov. 18:21, Message) Barnabas used his words to build others up, to encourage; he took personal risks to promote others.

When Paul was converted, many other Christians had a terrible time believing it was true. I imagine it was difficult for others to forget what he had done to them and to their families.

Barnabas risked his own reputation by taking the young convert under his arm and presenting him to the apostles. God showed him something in Paul that others couldn’t see.

Evidently Encouragement’s Son had talked at length with Paul and got to know his heart and his call to the non-Jewish world. Paul had to run for his life and seemed to be living quietly at his home in Tarsus (if it was possible for Paul to live quietly). When revival broke out at Antioch Barnabas must have said to himself, “This is exactly where Paul needs to be!”

He went to Tarsus, found the young man, and brought him back to Antioch where he became instrumental in the growth of that church and a short time later, a missionary par excellence.

Restorer

When John Mark quit the Barnabas/Paul missionary team and ran home to mama, that seemed to finish him as far as Paul was concerned. When the young man wanted to try again on the next trip Paul would have none of it, and it was Barnabas who stood up for him–as had done for Paul years before.

Encouragement’s Son took John Mark and built him into usefulness. It seems to have hurt his reputation with the church because Paul’s group was prayed for and commended to the Lord, not the Barnabas/John Mark team. We don’t hear much more from Barnabas in the Bible, but his protégé made a splash—you might have read the book that the talented writer John Mark wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—the Gospel of Mark.

Later even Paul accepted the young “failure” again.

“Get here as fast as you can. Demas, chasing fads, went off to Thessalonica and left me here. Crescens is in Galatia province, Titus in Dalmatia. Luke is the only one here with me. Bring Mark with you; he’ll be my right-hand man since I’m sending Tychicus to Ephesus…” (2 Tim.4:9-13, The Message)

Barnabas—giver, man-builder, encourager. The spotlight never shone directly on him for long but his life enabled Paul and John Mark to be all that they could be for the Lord.

What would the apostles nickname you?

En Attendant

Posted on by
Reply

Walking on the forest path near our house proved a bit more difficult yesterday. Leaves, which until two or three weeks ago, beamed overhead with Autumn colors, lay rotting in the mud of the rain from the night before.

Naked trees, bereft of make-up, pointed starkly towards the overcast December sky, accentuating the wet coldness of the air. Sounds dreary doesn’t it? Actually it wasn’t so bad because the sun broke through occasionally and those trees seemed almost … what? Optimistic?

The world looks like that when you sleep well the night before.

It seemed to me the trees were saying, “Yeah, we look pretty stark now but we’re just snoozing until Spring. Don’t worry. Hope is just a few months down the road. Leaves, flowers and bird songs will bloom again.”

Hope. When we have it we can go through almost anything. When we’ve lost it, even the sunshine seems depressing. The most hopeless place I believe I’ve ever visited was a mental hospital. Hopelessness does something to you.

Adolph Hitler Street

A friend told me that during World War II, the Nazi government that had snatched power in Luxembourg renamed Liberty Avenue, one of the main streets of the capital, as Adolph Hitler Street.

One hopeful hand, though, had secretly scribbled under Hitler’s name on the street sign, two words from the banned French language– “en attendant.”

“En attendant” basically means, “in the meantime, while waiting, for now but we’re looking for a change, until then, etc.”) In other words, “It’s Adolph Hitler street for now but that’s going to change.”

Today, if you go from the center of Luxembourg City to the train station, you’ll most likely ride on l’Avenue de la Liberté—Liberty Avenue! Life did emerge from the Nazi darkness.

We encounter all sorts of things in life–good and bad. Our attitude of faith or our attitude of hopelessness strongly colors our quality of life. Some have lost their jobs but “en attendant” they praise the Lord, work to find a new situation, and hope for better days.

Others have been saddled with sickness. We marvel as they sing and wait for health, “en attendant.” Family strife rifles our home and we hardly dare, but we still hope that the Lord has an answer for us too. “En attendant!”

In the Bible Abraham lived like that:

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Heb 11:8-10 NIV)

He lived, “en attendant.”

If you’re going through a tough time today, maybe you need to come back to God’s promises in His word, get a good “dose” of the Spirit of God in your life and let Him change your attitude.

Then you can live with joy, “en attendant.”

 

I’m Rich!

Posted on by
Reply

I’m about to become rich—I think …

My email box has been besieged recently by emails announcing that I’m the beneficiary of millions of dollars. And from lots of different places. If memory serves me correctly there’s English lottery tickets that bingoed for me—though I don’t remember buying any lottery tickets and I haven’t been in England for several years, but why complain if they’re going to make me rich?

And listen to this recent email, “Your name appeared among the beneficiaries who will receive a part-payment of US$21.5 million and has been approved already for months. You are requested to get back to me for more direction and instruction on how to receive your fund.”

Isn’t that exciting?

I’ve also received several, at different times, that begin something like this, “Greetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus…” then they go on to tell me that this wonderful person wants to invest millions of dollars in my ministry.

I hardly know what to say. When I get all my prizes and gifts I’ll have enough money to buy Buckingham Palace from the Queen of England and live there with my wife and two chihuahuas. Actually I don’t have any chihuahuas but with all the money I’m going to have, I can buy them.

The only question I have is: how stupid do these people think that I am? From what I’ve been told, if you follow up on the email there is generally a little fee of some thousands of dollars to actually make all the transfers, etc. and as soon as you pay that you can have your millions.

Yeah, and the moon is made of green cheese. Actually, the person evaporates into the landscape with your money in his pocket (and a big smile on his face).

I suppose that if you send out several million of these things you’ll find someone naïve enough to play the game. Who wouldn’t like to be rich? I mean, just look at all the simple souls who regularly make contributions to their local lottery. They’re going to win that big jackpot! After all, they’ve got one chance in 650 million!

Solving our problems

Let’s get rich quickly and that will solve a good percentage of our problems. We think.

We may have a Christian version of this game. We serve a miracle-working God. “You honestly believe that David?” I honestly believe that, but miracles aren’t his normal way of meeting needs. He acts supernaturally for two reasons—because He loves us and wants to help us, and so that men will see His glory and seek Him.

But if miracles were everyday occurrences, they wouldn’t be miracles; they would be normal. Miracles are to “tide us over” until God’s normal way of providing kicks in.

God nourished Israel with manna for 40 years in the desert but it was never meant to last. When they entered the place God promised them:

“The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan. (Josh. 5:11, 12, NIV)

Elijah did a miracle for the widow and her son. She had flour and oil that renewed itself constantly, all through the famine, but that only lasted until the rains came.
The nice thing about miraculous provision is that it helps us to glimpse God in a deeper way. I think it also helps us appreciate his daily provision that comes regularly in ways which seem so natural, but are nontheless from Him.

It was be nice if someone dropped 20 million dollars on us, but you know what? God’s going to provide for us, whether it’s a miracle or in a way that seems natural, He loves His children so look to Him in confidence and He will meet your need.