A Triple Dipper Day

Yesterday I had what I called a triple-dipper – a day spent with some of my favorite people.

The night before I decided at the last minute to take a family that is becoming close to us up to Chicago all day yesterday to attend some meetings by one of their, and my, favorite speakers, Herb Montgomery. This young man is one of the most exciting preachers that I know of when it comes to presenting a clarified picture of what God is really like. His teachings have greatly helped me to sort out many confusing issues revolving around why Jesus died on the cross and why bad things happen to good people. He is not afraid to tackle the most challenging and emotionally charged issues in religion and I admire him for this.

Because we have never met him in person even though we have listened to many hours of his sermons, I was quite interested in taking this opportunity to see him live and maybe get a chance to interact with him a little myself if possible. I had actually contacted him several months ago about assisting him with some of my audio editing skills and helping get some of his series recordings ready for public use. But over the past few months I have become very discouraged over even communicating with him as he has been so busy. I had about come to the point where I decided that possibly he was trying to avoid me and did not want to come right out and tell me that. So I decided that if I couldn't make meaningful connection with him this time in person that I would just drop my efforts to hook up with him and let the whole idea die.

Our friends, a family of five, have become very interested in the things that Herb teaches after I began sharing his talks with them some time ago. They somehow felt that the things he talked about and the way he presented them were so sensible and compelling that they wanted to learn more. They even went to his website and downloaded more of his series to listen to. So when they learned that he was going to be this close to us they were very excited to take the opportunity to meet him in person. However, since they were having car problems they had decided to give up on the idea until I called them Friday evening and offered to take them in our car.

As a result we all had to get up around 4 AM which for them in particular was not an easy thing to pull off. But we got all loaded not long after 6 AM and got on the road with eager anticipation. When I had called for directions the night before I learned that in the afternoon there was going to be a Michael Card concert. This popular Christian musician is one of our favorite singers and my wife was very upset that she was not able to go along. Since she has been sick the past few days she decided that it would not be wise to try to make this trip and risk getting other people sick. However, she was very jealous and upset that she would be missing out on one of her favorite Christian artists and reminded me of that each time we talked on the phone.

But since the concert required tickets I assumed at this late date that it might be impossible to get any tickets for us. We choose not to generally buy or sell things on God's Sabbath according to His instructions so I assumed that short of a miracle we would either have to miss out on the concert and wait around outside for the last evening meeting with Herb or just come home early after the morning meeting.

It took us around 2 ½ hours to arrive at the church where the meetings were to take place and we got there about 9 AM. I decided to hang out upstairs where the sound and video techies hang out because that is where I feel most comfortable. They were kind to show me their software and the equipment they have which I found very interesting and informative. The balcony area where all this is located was also a very good vantage point to view everything going on in the church, much better than anywhere on the main floor.

After participating in Sabbath School for both the adults and the children, we very much enjoyed the compelling message by Herb for the church service. He was close to wrapping up a 10-day series called Life Unlimited which is all about how to find real fulfillment and satisfaction in every area of life – mental, financial, emotional, spiritual, physical and social. It is an excellent series that he has developed and is presenting it repeatedly all over the world at this point. It is also keeping him so busy that he is coming close to burnout it seems. Fortunately he is done for this year after this one closes and can spend some much needed time with his children and wife for a period of time before flying off to do more seminars.

We had a delicious fellowship dinner together with a large number of people after church. I felt I was so hungry after not having hardly anything for breakfast that I almost overestimated how much I could eat and uncharacteristically got two platefuls of food. That was enough to keep me for the rest of the day but in the evening the church secretary brought in more food for us to eat which was very kind of her.

I decided to go and talk with the man in charge of the tickets for the afternoon concert to see if I had any options. He told me that we could still get tickets and that I could just pay him later. I told him that I had not come prepared with that much money and he allowed me to just send him a check after I got home to take care of the cost. This was really exciting for us as we could then enjoy the full day listening to both Herb and Michael Card all on the same day. Michael had played a couple songs before Herb spoke in the morning and we knew that the concert was going to be very inspiring because of his personal style and laid-back personality along with his excellent musical abilities.

I chose to view the afternoon concert from up in the balcony sitting with the sound man and his wife. I tried to get a couple pictures from there but it was a challenge to get a good shot without a flash that could reach that far or a stronger lens. But the music was superb and it really blessed our hearts.

That evening we stayed for the evening presentations by Herb and were even more blessed and inspired. My friends really soaked up the amazing insights that Herb shared directly from the Bible which are so different than anything other speakers ever talk about. During the intermission and a bit after the last meeting I was finally able to spend a few minutes speaking with Herb about various things and we agreed that we wanted to stay in touch much more. I feel a real resonance with the spirit that Herb has and would like to get to know him much better if possible. I hope that this can work out for both of us.

We had a long drive home and got in around midnight with a car full of very tired children and adults. But all of us were so blessed and my tiredness seemed different than usual. I was surprised that I did not get very sleepy even after being up for so long and driving so far. It just seemed that my body and mind had been so energized by the wonderful mix of friends and favorite people and the presence of God that I may have been feeling a little of what Jesus was talking about when His disciples couldn't figure out why He lost interest in eating after sharing the wonderful good news about God with the woman at the well.