Yesterday, we remembered those who have died in service to their country. Today I want to honor a veteran who wasn’t killed in battle, but who gave her life…

I wrote on May 17 about the Nobel Laureate who spoke at the University of Texas graduation ceremony for Natural Sciences. Why was I there? Way back in 2018, Quinton Williams, a young student, competed in the Soifer Mathematical Olympiad, which I have helped judge since 1989. Quinton got second honorable mention his first year, and I met his mother at the Awards Ceremony. Ruth Williams was an active duty colonel in the Air Force, serving in the medical field.

I began to have near weekly conversations with Quinton about mathematics, including after his mother was transferred, and they moved to Sacramento. Time flies, and Quinton graduated from the University of Texas on May 9 with a BS in Chemistry.

As Ruth and I were sitting in the arena, waiting for the ceremony to start, I asked her how long she had served in the Air Force. I was shocked:

43 years

43 years?! How is that possible? “I enlisted when I was 17. I wasn’t commissioned as an officer until my early 30s.” Wow. 43 years, from age 17 until she was 60. She’s 63 now. By contrast, I served from age 23 to age 43. I don’t know about the marriage that produced Quinton, her only child. When I asked Quinton once about his father he said, “I don’t have one.”

Single mother, nurse practitioner, squadron commander, command nurse, caregiver to her mother who lived with them and just passed away last November, it’s been tough as you might imagine. Although she owns houses in Montgomery, Alabama (Quinton was born in Montgomery while June and I were there 2001 – 2006), and Colorado Springs, she’s temporarily living in Portugal. Why Portugal? I asked. “I went there to find peace.” Did you? “Yes.”

I’ve told you all I know, but suffice it to say I found Nobel Laureate James Allison inspiring, AND I find Ruth Williams inspiring. If she decides to move back to Colorado Springs, her house won’t be far from where we live. I will see her again.

She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household… She considers a field and buys it… She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong…Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come…Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. (Proverbs 31.15 – 17, 25, 29, ESV)

It’s Memorial Day, and some of you have come to look forward to remarks by our former pastor John Ed Mathison. Why try to reinvent the wheel?

I have a friend, well into his 80s, who will have done what this soldier is doing – putting flags at the graves of veterans.

Now, on to John Ed…

We can casually sit back and enjoy backyard barbecues, boat rides, and beach bashes, but the meaning of Memorial Day is that almost 1.5 million men and women have died so that you and I might enjoy our freedoms. We look to Thanksgiving as a day when we pause to give thanks for the things that we have. Memorial Day is a day when we pause to give thanks to the people who fought and died for the things we have. – Dr. John Ed Mathison, May 25, 2022

And let’s add a paragraph from Elliot Eisenberg, the “Bow-tie Economist” who writes a daily 70-word blog:

While Memorial Day is now all about cookouts and travel, it’s the national holiday honoring military personnel who died defending our freedom; Veterans Day honors all who’ve served. Memorial Day was first recognized as “Decoration Day” in 1868, shortly after the Civil War. In 1971, it was formally made the last Monday in May. Spend at least a moment giving thanks to those who gave their lives. – Elliot Eisenberg, May 22, 2026

…and Jesus:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15.13, ESV)

I’ve already written about the commencement speech I attended at the University of Texas by a Nobel laureate. It was about changing the world, and if you missed it, I encourage you to check out that blog. Good lessons. But I’m not sure it matches a commencement speech by country singer Eric Church at the University of North Carolina (UNC). Kudos to my son Mark for posting this on our family’s chat.

If you click the picture, you can listen to the entire speech, worth the 18 minutes. He likened one’s life to the strings on a guitar. Here’s the overview:

• Low E: your faith
• A: your family
• D: your spouse (choose carefully!)
• G: ambition balanced by resilience
• B: your community (e.g., for these kids, their UNC community)
• High E: your uniqueness

Don’t let any of your strings get out of tune. I want to focus only what he said about the Low E, the foundation string, your faith:

Your faith is the low E of your life. The thing that sits at the very bottom of you. Your belief in what this life is for. What you owe. What holds the universe together when science reaches the edge of its own explanations and shrugs.

Eric’s faith is in Jesus although he didn’t mention Jesus in the speech. He was raised in a Christian home.

Faith’s a big part of my life and it’s always been a part of my life. – Eric Church

Here’s what I want you to take away from this blog. It’s what he said about faith:

The people who tend to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone in the extraordinary ones. They still hurt. They will still sit in hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions at 3 in the morning, but they have a foundation to return to. – Eric Church

This is remarkably close to what our long-time pastor Dr. John Stevens used to say:

When you’re sitting in the waiting room of the ER or the OR, it’s too late to work out your theology.

In Eric Church’s words, we need to “tend to our faith in ordinary seasons” so it will be there “in the extraordinary ones.” We recently attended the memorial service for a 3-year-old who was murdered by his father before the father committed suicide. The mother discovered them when she returned from a business trip. Unimaginable.

I don’t know the family well, but it’s not clear to me that their foundation was solid…or solid enough. All the uncle talked about was his anger. I get it. I’d be furious myself, and there’s a whole set of “Psalms of Lament,” e.g., Psalm 35, where the psalmists were angry. But the uncle’s eulogy was never tempered with “But Jesus…”

Folks, our faith in Jesus is our foundation, and the foundation of that faith is our daily time with him, which I write about frequently. You never know when the unimaginable will happen.

The people who tend to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone in the extraordinary ones. – Eric Church

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. – Jesus (Matthew 26.41, ESV)

I’m late posting this, but we should not ignore the passing of John Perkins, strong believer, who, having escaped Mississippi, went back to preach the gospel and fight for the rights of others.

If we are going to help others understand who Jesus is, our own lives must reflect his character and love. – John Perkins, June 16, 1930 – March 13, 2026

Russell Moore, executive editor of Christianity Today, wrote Why John Perkins Stood (Almost) Alone, March 18, 2026. The article is worth the read in its entirety. Here are some snippets:

He was no martyr the way the word’s been reduced and degraded. The psychological category of martyr complex did not fit him at all. He was a Black Mississippian of one generation, and I am a white Mississippian of another, and I could see what he was up to. He had left our home state, after all, and come back with a burden—to preach the gospel, to see lives changed, to stand up to white supremacy and the oppression of the poor, and to empower people to escape from poverty.

And he did that in the Mississippi of the 1960s—a race-nationalist police state that sought to make examples of everyone who, like Perkins, did not “know their place.” He was beaten, jailed, and hounded in every way possible, but he never yielded. Neither did he give up on what drove him to act in the first place. He never gave up on reconciliation. [Sit with that paragraph for awhile!]

…

To those who wanted to honor civil rights and care for the poor but couch their concerns in vague generalities about “the divine,” Perkins thundered, “Jesus!”

And to those who wanted to keep the Jim Crow mentality, just substituting modern complaints for the language their grandparents would use, Perkins stood with the Bible: “Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts” (James 5:4).

Let me interrupt. Shortly before his death, Marvin Olasky told this story in his article In Life, Facing Death, also worth the read in its entirety.

Perkins’s grandma and other relatives, who worked as sharecroppers, raised him. He dropped out of school in the third grade and gained his first lesson in economic exploitation at age 12. He worked all day hauling hay, expecting to be paid $1.50 or $2, a typical day’s pay in 1942. Instead, a white man paid him 15 cents.

Russell Moore continues:

Perkins combined preaching the gospel, registering people to vote, advocating for justice and civil rights, and starting neighborhood initiatives to give the poor hope—not only for the life to come but also for escaping poverty now. Yet he never gave up on reconciliation, even with those who hated him.

…

Perkins stood with ideas and action and the kind of moral authority that can come only from testing those ideas with his life—standing for something true and loving something real. That’s the kind of witness Perkins was. And that’s what made him seem so strange in this juvenile, demoralized time.

Life has not always been kind to black people or Jesus followers. John Perkins tried to make a difference.

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy… (Hebrews 11.35 – 38, ESV)

Have you ever been to revival service or a big event where a lot of people were making serious life-change commitments? Have you made such a commitment yourself? “I promise to read my Bible at least an hour daily.” Or, “That’s it. No more [fill in the blank].” Did it stick?

One fun thing about reading Jeremiah (or the rest of the Old Testament) at the rate of a chapter a day is that we can slow down and see things we might have glossed over in the past. I had such an experience in Jeremiah 34.

King Zedekiah had a big ceremony, “made a covenant,” that the people should free their Hebrew slaves:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them, that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother. And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again. They obeyed and set them free. (Jeremiah 34.8 – 10, ESV)

Wow! How cool is that? But…they re-enslaved them.

But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free, and brought them into subjection as slaves. (Jeremiah 34.11, ESV)

Bad choice!

And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts— the officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives. Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. Jeremiah 34.18 – 20, ESV)

What’s this about a calf cut in two? They made a covenant! Meaning, they had said, “cross my heart and hope to die” – a covenant, which in those days meant cutting an animal in two and walking between the pieces. It’s in Genesis 15.

But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other... (Genesis 15.8 – 10, ESV)

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land… (Genesis 15.17, 18, ESV)

As a pastor from my youth thundered in a sermon, “GOD walked between the pieces!” That is, God pledged himself in that covenant. In Jeremiah, the people pledged themselves and “walked between the pieces,” meaning, “If I don’t hold up my end, cut me up.”

Covenants mean something, but the ceremony apparently didn’t change the hearts of the people. They had a high point:

• They released the slaves
• They pledged to honor the slaves’ freedom by walking through the pieces.
• No doubt, the slaves were throwing themselves a party.

A revival service! I don’t know how long the promises lasted. Maybe until the wealthy had to cut their own grass, cook their own meals, and wash their own dishes. They went back on their promises, and God judged them for it.

Big meetings and emotional commitments don’t get the job done without daily follow-through. Accountability, for example. Discipline.

When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. (Ecclesiastes 5.4 – 7, ESV)

Back to Jeremiah, I’d be remiss if I skipped the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31. The problem is, I don’t know much about this text. I think I’ve heard one sermon on it, about which I remember nothing. So let’s see what God says to us. We’ll learn together!

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD:

• I will put my law within them, and
• I will write it on their hearts. And
• I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And
• no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For
• I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31.31 – 34, ESV, bulleted for clarity)

Are we there yet? “I will put my law within them…and write it on their hearts.” Jesus promised:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16.13 – 15, ESV)

John wrote:

But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth…Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father…But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. (1 John 2.20, 21, 24, 27, ESV)

John is saying that we know the truth and don’t need a teacher. Jeremiah said, “No longer will each man teach his neighbor…” But John is teaching! Jeremiah reports that the LORD declares, “I will put my law within them…” I’m leading some men through Every Man a Warrior, and we’re working very hard to get God’s Word into our memories!

So maybe this one of those “already and not yet” passages.

Yes, “I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2.19 – 22, ESV)

Yes, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. (Ephesians 1.7, NKJV)

But we still need teachers:

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (Titus 2.1 – 5, NIV)

But there will be a day when ALL of the New Covenant will be fulfilled:

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22.3 – 5, ESV)

A few days ago, we let a Nobel Laureate teach us an important lesson:

When data tells you the world’s not quite what you assumed, have the wisdom to listen and the courage to act. – Dr. James Allison

Here’s a low-level, somewhat related example. What do you do when you make a mistake, and someone points it out?

I’ve written before that I’m a huge fan of Seth Godin, a marketer who writes a daily blog. A few days ago, Seth misspelled Mount Rainier, leaving out the first “i.” A common and very minor mistake, which would most likely go unnoticed by most people. I saw it and wrote him a brief note, complimenting his work, pointing out the error that he might want to fix in the online version, and telling him specifically, “No need to respond.” I really meant “no need to respond” because I was monitoring his website and would see when he had fixed it.

A few hours later, he responded anyway:

good catch

thanks Bob

Four words, and they made my day! And, naturally, when I went back to the website, he had also fixed the error. “The wisdom to listen and the courage to act.” AND, taking the extra 10 seconds to express gratitude.

A good example for us all.

The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. (Proverbs 15.31, 32, ESV)

I quoted Pastor Tim McConnell quoting Dick Eastman yesterday. I hadn’t realized that Dick passed on April 21. The Headquarters of Every Home for Christ, of which he was president for 34 years, is not far from where I live. I pass it frequently.

I’d be remiss not to repost the organization’s brief obit of Dick:

Today, we mourn the passing of Dick Eastman.

He believed two things throughout his whole life.

That prayer could change anything.

And that every person on earth deserved to hear the name of Jesus.

He gave everything he had to both.

Dick served with Every Home for Christ for over 46 years, including 34 as international president. He authored 17 books on prayer and evangelism with more than 3 million copies in print. Under his leadership, the gospel reached families in 215 nations, resulting in over 250 million people responding to Jesus.

But the numbers only tell part of the story. What Dick cared about was faithfulness. Showing up. Praying when no one was watching. Believing God for the impossible and then getting out of the way.

He leaves behind his beloved wife, Dee, daughters Dena and Ginger, and nine grandchildren, who were the joy of his life.

He fought the good fight. He kept the faith. And, today, Dick Eastman finished the race.

We love you, Eastman family. And we are praying for you today.

Dick Eastman 1944 — 2026

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4.7, 8, ESV)

PS Dick was an ordained minister with the Assembly of God (AG) denomination. A more detailed biography, Mentor and Man of Prayer, is on their website.

I had already scheduled yesterday’s blog on Changing the World when I read something from Tim McConnell, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs. He reminded us what really changes the world. Tim wrote, quoting Dick Eastman:

What Are You Praying For? There is a world in need of hope, in need of repair, in need of grace, in need of Jesus. Let’s learn to pray this week for Renewed Creation. {From Romans 8.19 – 22]

Dick Eastman, the President of Every Home for Christ, went to be with the Lord a few weeks ago. A leader in prayer movements in our times, Eastman wrote:

To be faithful in prayer is to share with God in His plan to change the world. Throughout every generation it has been the praying saint who has altered the course of history…Beloved, it is not age, experience, talent, or material wealth that makes the difference in the destiny of men and nations. Prayer alone will change the world, from our neighbors to the nations. It is true that God may use age, experience, talent, and material wealth to help carry forth His purposes, but only when each is properly backed by prayer. Without prayer, every effort is wasted, for it leaves God out of the picture. Wise is the statement that there is much we can do after we have prayed but nothing we can do until we have prayed.

Thanks for the reminder, Tim.

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6.16 – 19, ESV)

I recently returned from a quick trip to Austin, Texas, for the graduation of a friend from the University of Texas. I attended only a “small” ceremony: one of two held by the School of Natural Sciences in Moody Center, the basketball arena. There were probably about a thousand graduates. Prominently displayed below the giant screen in the center of the arena was this tagline:

What starts here changes the world.

That will preach. I shared it with the men I’m doing Bible study with when I got back. I told them that I firmly believed that what starts here–in this Bible study–changes the world.

We were treated to a living example. The graduation speaker was Dr. James Allison. Here’s part of his bio from the official graduation program:

Jim Allison (B.A. ’69, Ph.D. ’73), the 2018 Nobel laureate for physiology or medicine, is recognized internationally for his foundational discoveries in T cell biology that launched the field of cancer immunotherapy. He has spent a distinguished career studying the regulation of T cell responses and developing powerful strategies for therapy of many cancer types, establishing the field of immune checkpoint blockade therapy for cancer. Work in his lab led to the development of the life-saving cancer drug ipilimumab, the first immune checkpoint blockade therapy approved by the FDA. Ipilimumab has been approved as part of the therapeutic regimen for metastatic melanoma, renal cell carcinoma and lung cancer. Allison’s current work seeks to improve immune checkpoint blockade therapies currently used by clinicians and identify new targets to unleash the immune system to eradicate cancer.

Reread it. The dude, a graduate of the University of Texas, class of 1969 (one year after I graduated from Clemson!), developed a revolutionary cure for cancer! In 1969 he was sitting right where today’s graduates are sitting now, waiting to walk across the stage. 49 years later, he’s accepting the Nobel Prize. Eight years after that, he’s talking to the graduates about his work.

Here are a few snippets from his 10-minute speech:

• I was studying T cells rather than going directly at the cancer cells themselves.
• Something was actually a brake and stopped T cells from working. That was not the expected result. I decided we need to learn how to “disable the brakes” on the T cells.
• Some said it was a career-ending fiasco to keep with this, but science isn’t a democracy, votes don’t matter. Data matters.
• We showed that blocking this led to cures for cancers which were deemed as incurable.
• This wasn’t because someone won an argument. It was because when things weren’t turning out as we expected, we admitted when we were wrong and kept going to find the answers.
• Don’t settle for the first and easy explanation. Persist. Meaningful work often takes longer than you expect.
• Don’t underestimate the ability of determined people to change the future. I know it because I’ve seen it. And just as it says up here, “What starts here changes the world,” you can change the world.
• Think clearly and follow the evidence before you. And when data tells you the world’s not quite what you assumed, have the wisdom to listen and the courage to act.

“The wisdom to listen and the courage to act.” Amen.

I found the experience inspiring. It’s not everyday you’re in the same room with a Nobel laureate who shared wisdom applicable to any endeavor. If what you’re doing isn’t working, “have the wisdom to listen and the courage to act.”

For example, churches all over the world are running the same “Sunday morning play” – a huge emphasis on the Sunday worship service while universally bemoaning a lack of disciples among their members. It’s like trying to teach someone to play piano by taking them to concerts. Paul told (pastor) Timothy what to do:

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

Jesus, also, was clear – “teaching them to observe…”

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, ESV)

PS You can read Dr. Allison’s (very technical) Nobel Prize acceptance speech for detail of his work. Here’s a less technical article from Time Magazine.

PPS Here’s an inspiring early success story:

In 2006, when Allison was at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, he met the first patient treated with a drug derived from his research, who was part of the early studies on the therapy. Sharon Belvin was diagnosed with late stage melanoma at age 22 and was told she shouldn’t plan to start a family or expect to have many more years to live. After receiving the drug, Belvin’s doctors were surprised to see her tumors disappear. Allison was brought to tears after hearing her story, and nearly 20 years later, Belvin now has her own family and stays in touch with him. “I talked to her a couple of weeks ago,” he says. “She’s fine and her kid’s about to go to college.”

A final word: in the spiritual realm, there is only one thing that changes the world. Stay tuned.