Special Feature
My daughter Bay and I rose at the crack of dawn. She was not the most pleasant sunrise I’ve ever experienced… but still, I think the anticipation of our trip excited her enough that she tempered her disgruntled demeanor. I did have to rouse her twice, though, since the first time she insisted, “I’m up. I’m UP!” So, as any good dad would do, I said, “Okay,” and kissed her on the forehead, and told her we’d be leaving in 30 minutes. It was 4:15 a.m. True to any Merrell family adventure, 30 minutes was more like 45, so we left out of Andalusia, Ala. at 5 a.m. that Sunday morning, headed to Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga. where church service starts immediately following Sunday School, which begins promptly at 10 a.m.
I was told repeatedly not to be late. “It is a small church.” “It will fill up fast.” There was also an orientation at 9 a.m., and apparently, like most Southern Baptist committee meetings, it is frowned upon if you miss it. By now, you may have figured out that Maranatha Baptist and Plains, Ga. have one major thing in common: they are both home to the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Bay and I were excited about meeting President Carter. I pondered what questions I might ask. Bay asked me if I thought we’d get to take a picture with him. I felt sure we would figure out some way to accomplish that objective, so I reassured her. I told her a little about his Presidency and more about his efforts after leaving the White House. She was sincerely interested and excited. Driving through the rolling hills of east Alabama, the sun crested the horizon somewhere near Eufaula. Bay had been asleep for a little while, so I tried to navigate the curves and hills without causing the car to lurch or shift too hard because I didn’t want to wake her up. We crossed Lake Eufaula and the Chattahoochee River, and a sign that read “Eastern Time Zone” blurred by in my peripheral vision. I immediately lifted my foot off the gas in exasperation. Then my mind raced, doing calculations on conversions of time and rates of speed. “I can’t believe I forgot about the time change,” I muttered to myself. The plan was that we were going to be an hour early. That was not to be, though.
We arrived at Maranatha Baptist Church at 8:45 a.m. Forgetting that the time changed at the state line didn’t help our ambitions to arrive early, and we were, in fact, two of the last people to walk into the building. Soon enough, the orientation began, and President Carter walked into the room. It was a pretty special experience. I eagerly tapped Bay’s leg to get her to look up from the church bulletin, pointing toward him, as if my finger was saying, “He’s here, he’s here!” She sat up, almost at attention, as President Carter made his way to his seat. Soon enough, he began teaching the lesson. That was, after all, why I’d brought my daughter, wasn’t it? To hear a great teacher teach God’s Word. “Today, I’ll be teaching from Deuteronomy Chapter 6,” he began. A moment or two later, he began reading from verses 4 and 5: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” He continued then with verse 12, “then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
On our way out the door after the service, a nice lady offered to take our picture in front of the church. I gladly accepted her offer. We did have our picture taken with the Carters, but this, the church, and all it represents, seems so much more appropriate now. Walking out of the church and back to the car, I looked at Bay and said, “It’s ironic that we just drove three hours to meet a man who then taught us not to worship false idols, isn’t it?” She agreed, and we discussed how our priority and focus had been wrong that morning. We went to meet the President, not to receive the Word. Perhaps that was all by design, though. We both agreed that it was fun to meet him and visit, but we both had a profound understanding that, on that trip, our focus on God had easily been diverted to the shiny distraction. Thank you, President Carter, for refusing any sort of ovation in God’s house. Thank you for being a servant to the Lord even after all those years and for holding firmly to your convictions. And thank you most of all for speaking truth to us, who came to meet a rockstar and forgot about the Cornerstone.
-Walt Merrell is a Christian Outdoorsman who writes of his adventures with his family, with the hope that others might be inspired and encouraged to embrace God’s tapestry, otherwise known as the great outdoors, as a means of finding Common Ground. You can follow him at Shepherding Outdoors on FB, YT and IG and at shepherdingoutdoors.com.
