SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2008

THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

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Dear Friends in Our Lord Jesus:

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale once told a poignant little story about his adolescent years. It was also a story about prayer.

It seems that one time during his early teenage years, shortly before World War I, young Peale boldly walked into a drug store and bought a cigar. He searched quietly for a side street, took the band off the cigar, and lit it. "It tasted awful," he wrote decades later. "But I was feeling so bold that I didn't mind, until I saw my father a block away."

The youngster quickly pulled the cigar from his lips, hid it behind his back, and tried to look as casual and innocent as possible.

His father walked straight up to him. "I looked up, and I looked down, and I looked around, anywhere but toward my father's eyes," Peale said. The youngster was simply too nervous to think of anything to say to his dad. And then, suddenly, he remembered how badly he wanted to go to the circus, which happened to be in town that week.

Finally, he blurted out these words: "Can I go, please? Can I go to the circus, dad?" His father's voice was calm but firm. "Norman," he said. "One of the first lessons you should learn is this: Never make a petition and at the same time try to hold a smoldering disobedience behind your back."

It was a lesson that Dr. Peale treasured the rest of his life.

Holy Scripture puts it this way (I John 1:8-9): "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

-- The Very Rev. Dr. Steve Sellers +