BUCK STORM

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. 1 John 5:21

The apostle John closes his incredible New Testament letter about of love, salvation and assurance with this seemingly out of place and random thought: “Keep yourselves from idols.” God doesn’t act randomly. For me, the placement of this instruction causes it to stand out as a wonderful, stark reminder for people like me that can be so easily distracted and wander off the narrow path. John reminds us - God will share His glory with no man or thing.

Two major events happened in my life the year I turned nine. I was born again, and I got my first guitar. It seems like the two things have wrestled ever since. Sometimes it’s been an all out brawl and sometimes just a thumb war but a battle none the less. The good news is that after a lot of years, a lot of miles, and a lot of lessons, I think the fight’s finally winding down. The problem for me has always been learning to give everything I have or am to the Lord. Art is one thing that I’ve had a hard time letting go of.

I got the guitar on Christmas Eve. I learned three chords on Christmas Day. I wrote my first song before the New Year came. It was one verse long and filled with all the angst of a nine year old boy trying to deal with fights, separation, rumors of divorce and a living situation that involved bouncing around between relatives. I still remember every word and the hope I felt that I had found a voice people would listen to. I know that guitar, the music and the writing were gifts from the Lord. I’m filled with gratitude for the life He’s given me but, as happens with so many of us, I’ve often found myself worshiping the gift rather than the Giver.
You see, it’s not enough to worship God, we need to worship only God. Then all the good gifts that come to us from Heaven can shine as the beautiful things they’re intended to be; for His glory, not ours.


Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

Strength on the Journey!

Buck

Less of Me in the Monitor Please -

There’s a simple and obvious truth in this universe that (being thick-headed) it took me years to realize. Are you ready?
“God is God, and I’m not God.”
Amazing. It seems straight forward enough, but many of us go through our whole lives without figuring it out. We have to drive the bus, knuckles white on the wheel, and oh - without any help, please. Now, I don’t actually know how to drive the bus, what the pedals do, how to shift, and yes, the bus crashes a lot, but most of the time that’s because all the other buses get in the way. Ok, maybe not, but then again there’s probably at least little truth there. After all, it’s a big world full of bus drivers, and they’re all just pretty much just as selfish, white-knuckled and wide-eyed as I am.
Worship is surrendering the wheel. You see, we’ll always worship the driver, and if I’m him well, I’ve been him and it’s not pretty. I don’t want to drive anymore.

God is God, I’m not God. Consider the words of the Lord in the Old Testament Book of Job;

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
“Who is this who darkens counsel, By words without knowledge?
Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
“ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Man, this verse should be a roadside sign for all of us stubborn bus drivers. The call to worship is the call to surrender. Let go of the wheel and let your Father drive. It’s a much smoother ride.

Lord, I want to fall asleep by the dashboard lights!

Peace on the Journey,
Buck

Less of Me in the Monitor Please

There’s a simple and obvious truth in this universe that (being thick-headed) it took me years to realize. Are you ready?
“God is God, and I’m not God.”
Amazing. It seems straight forward enough, but many of us go through our whole lives without figuring it out. We have to drive the bus, knuckles white on the wheel, and oh - without any help, please. Now, I don’t actually know how to drive the bus, what the pedals do, how to shift, and yes, the bus crashes a lot, but most of the time that’s because all the other buses get in the way. Ok, maybe not, but then again there’s probably at least little truth there. After all, it’s a big world full of bus drivers, and they’re all just pretty much just as selfish, white-knuckled and wide-eyed as I am.
Worship is surrendering the wheel. You see, we’ll always worship the driver, and if I’m him well, I’ve been him and it’s not pretty. I don’t want to drive anymore.

God is God, I’m not God. Consider the words of the Lord in the Old Testament Book of Job;

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
“Who is this who darkens counsel, By words without knowledge?
Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
“ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Man, this verse should be a roadside sign for all of us stubborn bus drivers. The call to worship is the call to surrender. Let go of the wheel and let your Father drive. It’s a much smoother ride.

Lord, I want to fall asleep by the dashboard lights!

Peace on the Journey,
Buck

Worship in the Hebrew language means to “bow down.” Do you remember the day that Jesus crashed into your life? Somehow, somewhere you heard the Gospel, the Good News! What glorious news! As a sinner, you recognized your desperate need for a savior and cried, “Jesus I surrender”! The surrendered life, what a wonderful thing! We live now as born again believers. We operate in a constant state of surrender and gratitude, knowing that even though we deserve hell, we have become, through the cross, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. As we gather together, our worship, our singing and praise, flows out of this revelation, this surrendered life. We “bow down”.
David directs us to, “Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 29:2). Jesus said that God is pleased with our worship and seeks those who will “worship Him in Spirit and Truth.” (John 4:23-24) This is the high calling of every believer.
Oh what a wonderful thing to be Children of the Living God! Let us come before the Lord with joy and gratitude for the mercy we’ve been shown and the grace by which we’re saved.
Live in peace Christians, you have been set free! Sing with abandon. Surrender, worship, “bow down.”

Chronicles 6:11-13
And it came to pass when the priests came out of the Most Holy Place, and the Levites who were the singers, all those of Asaph and Heman and Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, stood at the east end of the altar, clothed in white linen, having cymbals, stringed instruments and harps, and with them one hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets— indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the LORD, saying: “For He is good, For His mercy endures forever,” that the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.

Are you one of those people who just see a drum set on a church stage and thinks the music’s to loud? You know who you are. Sometimes you write complaint notes on the back of a tithe envelope and drop them in the offering plate. That’ll teach them. One of these days you might even sign your name if the sound guy doesn’t get a clue. Let me ask you - what would you do if one Sunday morning, along with the guitars and drums (see cymbals), a hundred and twenty trumpets took the stage? Talk about a serious horn section!

The event we read about in the passage above was no “get it over with so we can hear the sermon and go to lunch” kind of worship service. This was the real deal. What would it be like if we could get over our pride and self absorption, our fear and our shyness, and worship the way that we’re called to? What if we gathered together in fellowship, singers and musicians as one, and proclaimed, in one accord, that we serve a loving God? He is good! His mercy endures forever!
One day we’ll stand in His presence and all creation will thunder with rejoicing and adoration of the King of Kings. What a day that’ll be.

You know what? Why wait? Lets start now.

Peace in Jesus everyone,
Buck

Because Your lovingkindness is better that life, My lips shall praise You. Thus will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
It’s tempting for a worship leader to try to gage the effectiveness of his or her leading by the physical reaction of the congregation. I catch myself doing this from time to time. A friend of mine wrote the line, “Teach me to lift up my hands, and to surrender my all.” When sing it I often can’t help cracking an eye open to see if anyone is actually doing it. The thing is, worship is a matter of the heart, and people worship in different ways. My wife for instance, who is one of the most sincere lovers of God that I know and truly blessed with the gift of faith, loves to worship but I don’t often see her raise her hands or do any other thing that’s too outwardly demonstrative in a corporate worship service. For her, worship is a quiet, personal time between she and the Lord. I know this because every time I ask how she thought the worship service went (which really means, “How do you think I did today?”) she says, “I don’t know, I was worshiping” (which really means, “I was worshiping, what were you doing?”).
One of the most valuable lessons a worship leader can learn is that he isn’t the worship leader at all, the Holy Spirit is. God deals with individuals individually, and we need to give Him room. I always find it uncomfortable to be in a service where the singer is acting as more of a cheerleader than a worshiper. If I’m pressed over and over from the stage to lift my hands or clap or put my right foot in or take my left foot out and shake it all about, my focus isn’t any longer on Jesus but just on how annoyed and uncomfortable I’m getting.
Personally, sometimes I can’t help but raise my hands, and sometimes I just want to bow my head and quietly focus on Jesus. Oh beautiful grace! How wonderful to be free in the Lord.
So lift your hands…or don’t….clap, dance, quietly bow your head….or don’t ….but do this, give your whole heart, rest in His love, worship.
Be abandoned to the God that saves us!
Buck

I’m remembering a trip I took to Central America a few years back. We’d had a long, through-the-night flight followed by a white-knuckle, prayer of re-dedication-inspiring, van ride through Honduras to a little town on the Caribbean coast. We checked into our rooms, which were in an old wooden building sitting up on stilts (it’s hurricane country there). I was wired from travel, or maybe too tired to sleep. I took my guitar out on the porch and sat on a deck chair next to an ashtray filled with some previous guest’s cigarette butts. I sat there for a long time that night, listening to the ocean and picking John Prine songs (I was in a John Prine mood I guess – it happens). I can’t put my finger on when, but at some point it started to rain. It had to have started lightly at first because I really didn’t notice it, but the God really hit the throttle. I’ve never seen rain like that. The place had a tin roof and it just pounded like thunder. You know, as I played those songs from my childhood, and listened to the rain, I remember feeling so close to Jesus, almost overwhelmed. I worshiped in my heart. “Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery.” Not necessarily doctrinally correct but I understood the sentiment. Somehow that night stands out to me as one of the great worship experiences of my memory.
I wasn’t singing hymns. I wasn’t singing worship songs. There was no sound system, mood lighting, or beautiful cathedral - just Jesus, John Prine… and me. And Jesus called me “friend.”
So what is worship? Worship is fulfilling the purpose for which we were created. We recognize our need. We surrender to Jesus, and through His blood we’re reconciled to God, and have fellowship with Him every hour and every minute of our lives, and then it gets even better - Heaven! Through this journey we call life we have a Great Companion. We have a Friend.

Jesus, precious Savior gentle and true, may we worship You every second of every day.

Please be with John Prine.

Grace and Peace in Jesus to you all. Be abandoned to God!

Buck Storm – signing off

Just home from several days in the Southwest, crisscrossing Indian reservations, deserts and farms. In southern New Mexico we passed a rural corner with and old adobe Catholic shrine. There were some benches around it. They looked well worn. I wonder if grace has ever touched those bricks? I hope so. Directly across the street was the Manhattan Bar. Hey, we all worship someplace, this is America.

In the scrub oak of southern New Mexico
There’s a shrine on a corner where the faithful go
Manhattan Bar just across the street
When the praying’s done that’s where the faithful meet
The sun flutters down on angel’s wings
They dance all night to the Rio Kings

Maybe?

Goodness and Mercy,
Buck

It's been the Storm family's great and incredible blessing to sponsor Henry Edguardo Ramos Lopez, a giant in the Kingdom of God, through Compassion International.

I was in Gracias, Honduras, in 2006 and was able to spend the day with Henry and his mother. There've been some miles since then but I'll never forget it. A fellow traveler woke me, knocking on my hotel room door so early in the morning it seemed like the middle of the night, and told me that Henry and his mother were in the hotel restaurant waiting for me. I threw some water on my face, put some clothes on and headed down. I recognized Henry right away. He'd obviously taken a little more time getting ready than I had. He was dressed in his best (and only) white dress shirt and pressed blue pants. His hair was slicked and his face was scrubbed and shining. I felt like a slob next to his handsomeness! I had no problem picking him out of the crowd. He had a picture of my family in his hand and was studying first it, and then the face of every stranger that walked by, hoping it would be me. I was humbled.

What a day that was! I bought him everything in sight but I don't think he even noticed. He just held my hand and stared at me the whole time. When it was time to go he set down his new soccer ball and held me and cried. I cried too.

Henry Edguardo Ramos Lopez prays for me beneath a Honduran moon. How loud must his voice ring through the halls of heaven! Lord I am blessed.

Search your heart. Pray. I hope you'll sponsor a child. It will be the biggest event in his or her life, but even more than that, it will change yours forever.

Please join Henry and me. We're changing the world! Click the COMPASSION button on the home page. www.buckstorm.com

Just recorded this one and I kind of like it. Look for it on the revised and expanded "Breath of God" CD.


The Lies the Devil Told

Sundown in the garden
I could hear the leaving trains
Like the warning of the Master that was bouncing through my brain
I wish I had been stronger
But that apple shone like gold
And I listened to the lies the Devil told

The Devil is a liar, and liars they do lie
I imagine that you’ve met him if you live beneath the sky
I turned my collar up
And I walked out into the cold
Just as empty as the lies the Devil told

Hey this game feels familiar
I’m a little short, think I’m gonna fold
I took my thirty bits of silver
And I blew them on the lies the Devil told

Johnny prefers bourbon
To catch his morning buzz
Helps him feel a little like the man that Johnny was
Before the levy broke
Before the kingdom sold
Before he listened to the lies the Devil told

Ruby serves up breakfast
Down at the Waffle Stop
To a man with a paper nametag that says “Hello my name’s Pop”
She says, “You feeling any better?”
He says, “I’m just feeling old”
I guess you can’t outrun the lies the Devil told

Hey this game feels familiar
I’m a little short, think I’m gonna fold
I took my thirty bits of silver
And I blew them on the lies the Devil told

Now the lawyers channel Darwin
They shake their tiny fists
As if the God of all Creation needs their permission to exist
But the fire’s getting weaker
And the coffee’s getting cold
They’re wearing thin, those lies the Devil told

Well the party’s winding down now
The sun is almost up
I’ve broken bread with sinners
And I’ve passed around the cup
I can hear the riders coming
Just like thunder through my soul
Drowning out the lies the Devil told

Hey this game feels familiar
I’m a little short, think I’m gonna fold
I took my thirty bits of silver
And I blew them on the lies the Devil told