My Mom and Dad have a lot of pictures hanging on the walls of their home. They also have a lot of plates. The kind that used to be popular years ago, with pictures of tourist places and churches. They have a number of the latter. Churches they at some point were members of, including ones that they took me to. There is one in particular that I remember from my early years. It is Talbot Park Baptist church located on Granby Street in Norfolk, Virginia. I remember it being a good-sized church located right next to the Masonic Temple. We went to that church three times a week. Sunday Morning, Sunday Evening, and Wednesday nights. I was also a member of the children’s choir and I am pretty sure I went to Vacation Bible school there also. We did the same for Ocean View Baptist when we changed churches because that church was closer to our home.

It is the Sunday Mornings that I remember the most. Some of them anyway. I remember that I didn’t like the services. I thought the preachers expected children above a certain age to attend but preached over their heads. In other words, I was bored sitting in the sanctuary between my Mom and Dad. I filled in all the o’s and p’s and other letters in the church bulletin with one of the pencils located on the back of the pew in front of me next to a visitor card. I got pinched on my arm because I would not leave alone the rubber gaskets that held the empty glass communion cups after drinking the “wine” from them. I would remove them with a popping sound and then stick them back in. This irritated my dad a lot. I tried to pass the time by reading a book. Before the service, I used to visit the church library and check out an orange-covered biography. I would read about Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Alva Edison, or some other famous American instead of listening to the preacher. This practice was acceptable as long as we were not sitting near the front of the church. I didn’t like sitting in one of the front pews at all. I kept thinking the pastor was staring at me. One Sunday night, Mom stayed home and Dad took my brother Rodney and me to church. Our Training Union classes ended earlier than his so we decided to ignore the closed signs and climb a carpeted set of stairs to find a seat. We were the only two up there. Dad couldn’t find us until someone pointed to the two kids sitting on the front row of the empty balcony.

On another occasion during our time at Ocean View Baptist, Rod and I asked to be excused to the men’s room just before the morning service started, Dad said go but make it quick. We didn’t come back for a long time. Dad finally came and found us in the bathroom playing soap bar basketball. We were standing in the middle of the room taking turns squirting a bar of soap out of our hands and trying to make it land in the sink that was about six feet away. He was mad and leaving Mom behind, marched us out of the church and across the golf course to home where we caught the end of a belt on our behinds.

We both thought it was worth it, we were not in the boring service. I pulled a comic book out from under my bed and felt just fine.

I said I didn’t like sitting at the front of the church. I was not allowed to read when there because Dad thought the pastor might see me and know that I was not paying attention to him. Which I was not doing. One particular Sunday Morning at Talbot Park, I was really antsy so I started visually examining the hard-of-hearing aid that was hanging on the back of the first-row pew in front of me. This helpful device looked like the receiver part of a candlestick telephone. An idea came to me and I acted on it.

“B-RING, B-RING” I made that ringing sound, picked up the receiver, and held it to my ear for just a second

“It’s for you! ” I said as I offered it to my mom.

That is when the trouble really started. The pastor heard me and I swear he was trying not to laugh and not miss a beat of his message. There were snickers from the folks all around me, but not from my dad. I got a thump on my ear and a voice whispered into it.

“You are in big trouble young man!”

At that point, I found myself in the same position as a young man who was also misbehaving in church. His father had also had enough and as he was dragging the boy out to receive his just deserts, the boy looked back into the sanctuary and cried out:

“Y’all pray for me now!”

In times of trouble, including the self-inflicted kind, our first response should be to pray. It is usually an instinctive response. Unfortunately, many folks go to God only during moments of trouble looking for Him to bail them out, to rescue them. This world is full of evil and trouble and we should go to God in prayer constantly not just when we are stuck on the side of the road so to speak.

Like David, we should run to God in prayer all the time, including those times when we are in trouble, even when that trouble is self-inflicted. The more we pray the better off we are, and when we pray for others the better off they are also. So I will pray for you and I ask all of Y’all to pray for me now also.

Psalm 140

A Psalm of David

1 Rescue me, Lord, from evildoers;
    protect me from the violent,
2 who devise evil plans in their hearts
    and stir up war every day.
3 They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s;
    the poison of vipers is on their lips.[b]

4 Keep me safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked;
    protect me from the violent,
    who devise ways to trip my feet.
5 The arrogant have hidden a snare for me;
    they have spread out the cords of their net
    and have set traps for me along my path.

6 I say to the Lord, “You are my God.”
    Hear, Lord, my cry for mercy.
7 Sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer,
    you shield my head in the day of battle.
8 Do not grant the wicked their desires, Lord;
    do not let their plans succeed.

9 Those who surround me proudly rear their heads;
    may the mischief of their lips engulf them.
10 May burning coals fall on them;
    may they be thrown into the fire,
    into miry pits, never to rise.
11 May slanderers not be established in the land;
    may disaster hunt down the violent

12 I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor
    and upholds the cause of the needy.
13 Surely the righteous will praise your name,
    and the upright will live in your presence.