It was a defining moment in my father’s spiritual experience—not that he quit paying tithe, mind you, but that he no longer viewed many of the Bible’s promises as the ironclad contracts he’d once assumed them to be. Instead of having absolute certainty, life had taught him that he was going to have to live with a degree of ambiguity. Not every promise is fulfilled in the way we humans might think it should be.

Jesus said: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). In fact, He’s even more emphatic: ""For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matthew 7:8). But maybe Jesus was talking more specifically about the certainty of salvation than the certainty of always getting what we want. After all, didn’t He say about salvation that "whoever comes to me I will never drive away" (John 6:37)?

The Bible seemingly makes universal promises that (personal experience has taught us) aren’t fulfilled universally. In Mark 16:18, Jesus promises that those who spread the gospel will be able to pick up snakes with their hands and drink deadly poison, yet remain unscathed. And it’s true that certain of His followers were at times delivered miraculously, such as the Apostle Paul, who was bitten by a snake yet suffered no adverse circumstances. Yet missionaries have died from snake bites. And Christ’s followers have at times been poisoned, with lethal results.

In our modern era, tithe-paying farmers have seen their crops protected from wind, fire, hail or pests. Yet other tithe-paying farmers haven’t been so fortunate. But there’s one major difference between those who’ve experienced something seemingly miraculous and those who weren’t afforded such a blessing: Typically only those who experienced a miracle get their story printed in a Christian publication or are invited to give their testimony in front of the church. The "success" stories are welcome; the "failure" stories we’d prefer to ignore.

Fortunately, the Bible, the book that contains so many wonderful promises, seems to believe in truth in advertising. The Bible, through all the stories it tells, makes it clear that even back then the promises weren’t fulfilled as consistently as we would like. The church prayed ("asked") that Peter be delivered from prison. And he was. But I’m sure the church prayed equally that James the brother of John, one of Jesus’ three closest companions, would be delivered. He was executed instead (Acts 8).

The Bible’s writers should be commended for sharing such "failure" stories. While they might not be as heartwarming, just knowing that even God’s greatest followers didn’t/don’t always experience miracles is actually a great encouragement when adversity strikes.

Whether President-elect Barack Obama will change the United States for the better or for the worse is yet to be seen. Good and wise people differ concerning how the nation's needs can best be met. He clearly isn’t everyone’s choice. But one aspect of what transpired should elicit considerable agreement among Christians, I’d suggest.

Before I get into that, though, allow me to reminisce.

I grew up in Missouri. Missouri was a slave-holding "border" state that didn't secede from the Union during the Civil War. However, Confederate sympathy ran high. Centralia, Missouri, where I lived from the time I was an infant until I left home, was still dubbed "Little Dixie."

(To get some idea of just how strong Southern sentiments were in that community, Google "Centralia Missouri Massacre." The massacre, which transpired during the Civil War, took place less than three miles from our farmhouse––although our house wasn't built until about twenty years later.)

I retain two pertinent memories from the first half of the 1950s. I remember being at the county fair and badly needing the benefit of a restroom. At four years of age, I hadn't yet been to school, but I could decipher the word "Men." Despite the urgency of my situation, however, I was told I couldn't go in because that particular restroom was for "colored people." A few minutes later I was told I couldn't drink from a perfectly good fountain because it too was for colored people.

It seemed to me that colored people got all the breaks!

A couple of years later, I remember overhearing repeated and deeply concerned adult conversations about the local school's decision to "integrate." I didn't understand it at the time, but I was witnessing the outgrowth of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954). For several years thereafter we regularly passed the boarded-up red-brick school that had served as education center for the region’s black children. The formerly used school was situated beside the railroad track, in the shadow of a concrete-mixing plant.

Many of our white neighbors and even fellow church members considered our family’s level of interaction with people of color to be rather scandalous. We were trailblazers. My father employed Negroes, as we typically referred to those of African heritage. Farm-worker etiquette called for field laborers to be provided the noon meal. To the discomfiture of some onlookers, we always invited any black who happened to be working for us to eat at our table with us. We also allowed blacks to hunt on or farm. We lamented the blatant racial bigotry we far too often observed around us.

But our trailblazing went only so far. We still laughed uproariously at racist jokes. Our conversations were laced with highly offensive racist terminology. And, to be honest, it wasn't all done in ignorance. We knew better. Why else would we try to rein in such talk when actually in the presence of those being thus labeled?

There were embarrassing slip-ups––such as a birthday party I attended when I was seven or eight. I was the only white kid there. We were enthusiastically employing the "eenie, meenie, minie, mo" method of eliminating participants. The startled looks from the other children drove home the point that my blurted-out version––"catch a ________ by the toe"––was inappropriate at any time, but especially in that context. Over the years I've had to drop a lot of terminology from my speech. And I have no doubt that the process still isn't complete.

I remember the whispered concerns when, after passage of the Lyndon Johnson-inspired Civil Rights Act, the first black student was admitted to the Seventh-day Adventist high school I later attended. I remember the race riots of the 1960s. I remember Martin Luther King's call for non-violent civil disobedience in the struggle for basic racial fairness. I remember his "I Have a Dream" speech. I remember the impact of his assassination. In fact, I could cite a long list of national milestones and personal experiences that have left indelible impressions on me.

It was through these lenses of experience that I watched our President-elect acknowledge not only that he had won a hard-fought political contest, but that our nation had indeed achieved a major milestone.

Oh, I'm not suggesting that we've arrived. Bigotry of all sorts still exists. And it can run in more than one direction. Mistakes have inevitably been made as we've sought to right at least some of the wrongs of the past––at times creating new wrongs in the process. We still have a lot of ground to cover––even in the Seventh-day Adventist Church––before we’ll see the fulfillment of the Apostle Paul’s vision that in Christ there should be neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free.

I'm sure that people voted for Senator Obama for both the right and the wrong reasons, as they also did for Senator McCain. But whether we're glad or sad about who won the contest from a purely political perspective, how can we as Christians be anything but happy that at least one by-product of the election has been compelling proof that we've made commendable progress in dealing with an evil that has haunted our nation for nearly four hundred years.

Much of the progress we've made in the past came about only because a relative handful of far-sighted legislators or judges told us that, like it or not, we had to clean up our act in certain areas––or else. But never in the course of our nation's civil-rights struggle has such a large segment of the white population made such an emphatic statement that they’re willing to look at something other than a person’s skin color.

And blacks have made the same statement. While only a small percentage of blacks voted for John McCain in the general election, in the primaries, large numbers of blacks voted for a white woman over a black man. That says something. Never before have so many people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds offered such evidence that we’re moving beyond the racial stereotypes that once reigned supreme. I understand the tears of joy and jubilation that flowed from the eyes of many during Barack Obama’s victory speech––because such tears flowed from my eyes as well. Literally. And I’m white.

It's inevitable and understandable that, for reasons quite removed from race, many people aren't excited about the outcome of last week's presidential election. Good people can and do disagree. But for all of us as Christians, the words of the Apostle Paul are particularly appropriate at this time: "If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Philippians 4:8).

I, for one, feel there’s at least once aspect of what happened last week that we can all feel good about.

"My friends just call me Bean," the man told me when I said my name was Jim. I wasn’t sure if that was his first name, last name or nickname. But Bean’s maverick approach to life definitely captured my imagination. So I invited him to share a few of his experiences and observations with the Pathfinders.

We discovered that Bean had drifted for much of his life, living on virtually nothing. He’s an avid disciple of Henry David Thoreau, who said a person should be able to earn enough in six weeks to keep him going for a year. Bean proudly told us that he’s able to get by on two weeks of work each year. For the next 50 weeks, his budget is $3.00 per day. Roughly $1,000 per year.

Bean’s philosophy is beneficial in this respect: At least until a few weeks ago, few Americans have seriously looked at frugality as the means of balancing budgets. We simply try to figure out ways to bring in more income. But Bean’s experience demonstrates that one can survive on relatively little. It’s just that the smaller the amount you live on, the more you move out of the mainstream of society. However, well-considered frugality might be the way of escape from the financial difficulties many people face currently.

Bean’s philosophy is also disturbing. While he doesn’t take all that much from society, his relationship is to a great degree a one-way transaction. He likes hiking on the nation’s trails, for example. But he isn’t contributing to the government’s ability to maintain such amenities. If he gets sick, will he go to an emergency room for free medical care? His lifestyle is possible only if a relatively small proportion of society chooses to follow it. Should the masses do so, it would become non-viable.

Which brings us to a more universal point: Any collective venture—marriage, the soccer team, the church—survives long-term only when the deposits exceed the withdrawals. And we’re not talking about just money. There are many other essential forms of support for any "community." But when "take" exceeds "give" for too long, things begin to unravel.

That’s the part that both Bean and those of us asking questions of him failed to address.

Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor

Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor