Candle Grove

By James Reynold Riley

Why do teenagers keep disappearing in Potterfield? Is it the monsters rumored to be lurking in the forest? The ghost ship that plies the waters of the lake? Something sinister afoot in the halls of the abandoned mental hospital? Or hostile spirits roaming the ruins of the old burnt capitol building? Seven high school kids are about to learn these answers as they face the dangers of a town with more darkness than they ever imagined. And come to grips with a faith they had always taken for granted...until now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449703905

James Reynold Riley

Chip Riley is a writer, youth minister, adventurer, and man-about-town. From his home base in Northport, Alabama, he consults for churches, writes novels and short stories, and travels the world in order to further a wacky scheme he is developing called The Grain Game. Chip finds that a great deal of youth discipleship material is boring to the point of excruciation. And that is one reason why he has written Candle Grove, the world’s first Biblically-based study material to include UFO’s, high speed boat chases, secret passageways, a murderous cult, and a mysterious island rumored to be the hiding spot for a stash of stolen Nazi gold. Chip is chronically disorganized, a terrible procrastinator, and wastes way too much time reading travel books and paperback thrillers...and yet, by the grace of God, has been known to be a fairly effective Bible teacher. He believes in the power of stories which--be they with super heroes, secret agents, star fighters, or any other kind of heroes--can lift our hearts to important places. And he believes this is especially so when they are directly harnessed to the service of The Greatest Story and The Greatest Hero the world will ever know. Whether traveling by rowboat on a river in India, camelback across the deserts of Egypt, or slip-and-slide with Grain Game kids in Romania, Chip is always on the lookout for the next chapter in the story.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE—DARKNESS

Hello. I’m pretty sure we’ve never met before, but after you’ve talked to me for a while it may start to seem like we’ve known each other for a long time.

I live in a town called Potterfield. I go to a church there called Candle Grove.

Let me tell you the story about the strange things that happened to me and my friends at church one time. Actually, I’m going to tell you lots of things about Candle Grove Church, but before that, we should go back and let me explain about our town.

The town was founded hundreds of years ago by two men: Mr. Potter and Mr. Field. Hence, the name: Potterfield. Mr. Potter and Mr. Field were very rich men. Over time, their descendants became even richer. And most of them continued to live here.

If you were on a road trip and you came through Potterfield, you wouldn’t stop to give it a second look. It’s too big to have what some people call small town charm. But it’s too small to really be called a city.

There are some strange things about Potterfield. A long time ago, it was the capital of our state. But then the capitol building burnt to the ground. After that, the property was flattened off and the capitol was moved to a different city.

Years later, they rebuilt the ruins of the old capitol building. Notice what I told you. They didn’t rebuild the building. They rebuilt the ruins. From scratch. They started at the exact site and set up broken columns and uneven brick walls in order to recreate the looks of the original capitol after it had been gutted by flames. Weird.

The one big state building that we do still have in Potterfield is the state hospital for the mentally ill. Some people would call it the insane asylum or crazy house or worse, but I guess that’s not polite. To be accurate, there have been two state hospitals for the mentally ill in Potterfield. The state’s need of rooms for the mentally ill outgrew the first hospital so they built a new one. Along with the new one, the ruins of the old asylum–I mean, hospital–are still here. I guess that saves us the trouble of having to go and rebuild them.

Sometimes teenagers like to take flashlights and go sneaking around in the ruins of the old mental hospital at night. They say it’s the creepiest place you’ve ever been in your life. I’ve never been. The local police don’t like it when kids go visiting out there.

Also in Potterfield, there’s a large number of a kind of tree called the Druid oak. They’re cool looking trees, especially in the spring. But some people think it’s strange that our town’s semi-official tree is the Druid. They wonder if it’s a really good thing to be overpopulated with a tree so closely associated with Druids, the fierce Celtic witch doctors of ancient times. The hospital in our town–the one for regular sick people, not insane people–still has the word Druid as part of its name.

And then there are the huge Indian mounds located just off the highway that runs to the south. The Native Americans, of course, are long gone but their mounds are still standing just outside Potterfield. You can go there to this day and see where they used to go up and perform their pagan worship rituals. When I was a little kid, it was cool because they even had a museum where you could go in and peer down into the open graves of those who died there. They closed that museum because a bunch of people thought that was disrespectful. Bummer. But you can still go have picnics and throw frisbees among the ancient worship mounds.

I should also tell you that near here, there’s a courthouse where the face of a ghost is permanently etched into one of the upstairs windows. You can drive by there and see the ghost any day you like. (But technically, that’s in the next county over, not Potterfield County.)

Rebuilt burnt capitals. Abandoned insane asylums. Druid trees. Pagan worship mounds. We’ve got it all in Potterfield. Really, it’s weird to think about that much crazy stuff being crammed into one not-so-big town. But to hear some people tell it, the things I’ve told you about so far only scratch the surface. Rumors and legends about this county include UFO sightings, strange creatures that live in the woods, a Civil War ghost ship, and even a lost treasure horde of gold stolen from the Nazis during World War II.

Now…so far I’m making it sound to you like Potterfield is nothing but Freaksville, U.S.A….but like I said earlier, to anyone passing through it would seem like a normal, sleepy town. On the main avenue, there’s nothing unusual (unless you count the 10-foot-high dog statue on top of this one little art gallery…but that’s not a supernatural mystery, just peculiar art.) Mostly, there are just shops and restaurants like the town’s favorite eatery, The Pots-Are-Filled Diner.

Oh, I should tell you that just about every store in town tries to capture some little joke about the town name. The pet store is called Pets: Our Field! The computer store is called ‘Puter-Filed. Even the local barber tries to get in on the game with Hairy Potter. Yeah, it gets a little carried away.

If you go on down to the end of the main avenue and take the highway that leads out to the north, you eventually come to Candle Grove Church on the outskirts of town. That’s where me and most of my best friends go to church. It’s not a gigantic church, but it’s not a small country church either. The best thing about Candle Grove is this: we have a great youth ministry.

On Sunday mornings, the highlight for me is hanging out with five other guys my age and then this adult who leads us. It’s during one of those small group sessions that this whole crazy story gets started. Our leader had brought us doughnuts that morning so we were all in there just kind of leaning back in our chairs, scarfing doughnuts, and drinking soft drinks. All of us, I should say, except one of my friends whose name is Knox. Knox is kind of a goof ball. No one thought anything about him being late. He’s always late.

Sitting to my left was Curtis. Curtis is the responsible one in our group. The girls think he’s good looking but he’s very shy around them and all people he doesn’t know well. He isn’t even aware that some of the girls call him by the nickname Cutest.

To Curtis’ left was Devon. Devon is the group’s resident brain. A greater friend you could never have, but you have to keep an eye on Devon. He’s very sarcastic and a great prankster. When Curtis and Devon work together, they’re unstoppable because they get a combination of Curtis’ common sense and goodwill with grown-ups and Devon’s evil genius.

Directly opposite me was our small group leader, whose name is Brendan. Brendan had been our leader the previous year and then volunteered to take us again. This was unheard of.

Continuing around the circle on Brendan’s left was Haley. Haley’s last name is Davidson. His dad is a motorcycle freak and tried to name his firstborn son Harley Davidson but his wife intervened at the last minute and made sure the name was misspelled on the birth certificate.

The last kid present was Brodie. We sometimes call Brodie by the nickname The Prophet because he’s always telling us about these crazy dreams he has. To be fair, as wild and silly as Brodie’s dreams are, there have been cases when his visions have turned out to be eerily correct. Once, Brodie had been telling us that he was having a recurring dream about a beautiful girl from Norway. Two weeks to the day when the dreams started, our school got a new exchange student named Gala from Oslo, Norway. She was–in every way–a dream girl.

That Sunday morning, we hadn’t gotten into the lesson yet because Brodie was really fired up about the dream he had had the night before. He kept insisting that unlike most of his dreams, this one had a deep spiritual meaning. He just wasn’t sure what it was.

Seeing a possible tie-in between the dream and the Bible study session he was holding in his hands, Brendan gave the okay for Brodie to launch into telling us all about it.

In the dream, Brodie told us, there was a search underway on Treasure Island. (If you lived here, you’d know that in our county there’s a huge lake called Lake Potterfield. In the middle of Lake Potterfield lies an island, about five acres, triangle shaped. Even though there’s nothing there but woods, leaves, and sticks, the island’s always been the favorite supposed location for the lost Nazi gold that I mentioned earlier. Thus the name: Treasure Island.)

Anyway, Brodie continued by telling us that during his dream there was an intense feeling of danger. So much so that he was almost willing to say that the dream was a nightmare. The danger was coming from some sort of big spiritual battle that was taking place on the island. It had felt like the battle was being fought over the lost treasure. But the treasure wasn’t gold. At least it wasn’t the kind of gold you would have expected the Nazis to have.

It was like, Brodie made large hand gestures, if the bad side found the treasure…all was lost. But if the good side found it…something great was going to happen all over the world.

Curtis was a doubter, Something great is going to happen because a treasure is discovered in Lake Potterfield?

Yeah, Brodie was lost in his own world, like something…spiritual. How would you say it?

Revival? I suggested.

Brodie snapped his fingers and pointed at me, Yeah! That’s it! Like the whole world was going to be changed if the treasure was taken out of the darkness and put into the right hands.

At this, our leader Brendan gave a slight pursing of his lips.

So, asked Haley, what happened in the end?

I don’t know, shrugged Brodie. There was the lake. There was the island. There was good and evil. There was light and darkness. There was the treasure. Then there was a flash and I woke up.

And from this, asked Devon, you knew that revival was at stake for the whole world?

Yeah, Brodie nodded, because it was like…one of those things in a dream that you just know but you don’t know why. But from the dream I’m sure…some kind of spiritual awakening was on the line…and darkness was trying smother it.

Interesting, said Brendan.

Devon turned to Brendan, Do you think there’s a deep spiritual meaning behind Brodie’s dream?

I don’t know, Brendan rubbed his chin, but I do know that today’s session is supposed to be about darkness. Brendan turned around the packet in his hand so that we could see that there on the header line was the word DARKNESS.

See! I knew it! Brodie was enormously pleased with himself.

And I, continued Brendan, am not going to miss this rare chance to disentangle you from your ongoing distractions and get you into the session.

Brendan passed us each a packet of material. The session went like this:

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DARKNESS

Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

1. Do you believe that there is really a war going on in this universe between good and evil? In Ephesians 6:12, there are four different words and/or phrases used to describe the side of darkness. What are those four?

In this verse, it says that the war is not against flesh and blood or…against things that we can see with our eyes. But is there any evidence we can see with our eyes that would show us that the war is real?

Have you ever had a day that was absolutely terrible? Have you ever somehow felt the impact of darkness on your life?

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…

2. According to this verse, what three things does this thief want to do? What is it that the thief wants to steal, kill, and destroy? What do you think motivates the thief?

Colossians 1:13-14 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

3. In Colossians 1:13, does it say that Christ is going to rescue us from the dominion of darkness or that He has already rescued us from the dominion of darkness?

But wait, how does that mesh together with Ephesians 6:12? One of the verses says that we’re at war with darkness…but the other one says that we have already been rescued from darkness.

Maybe this will help you: when Jesus walked and ministered on the earth, do you think He was free from darkness…spiritually free, that is? Okay, but do you also see that when Jesus was on earth, He was constantly in a battle against darkness, even though He was already free? What was the climax of Jesus’ battle against darkness? What is the connection between that climax and what it says in Colossians 1:13?

If you are a believer, do you remember the time when you were rescued from darkness? Was it long ago or recent? Was your decision for Christ something that seemed to happen in a split second or was it something that took shape in your heart over a long period of time?

2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ…

4. Who is it talking about when it says, the god of this age? Notice that there’s definitely a small g at beginning of that god.

According to 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this age uses the curse of blindness (or darkness) to do what?

Do you think if the god of this age uses darkness to keep unbelievers from coming to Christ, he can also use darkness against believers for some things (even though obviously, believers have been un-blinded on the issue of salvation.)

Do you think the god of this age tries to keep believers from enjoying the full benefits of the salvation that Christ has won for them?

Do you think the god of this age tries to keep believers from growing to maturity after they have been born again?

Do you think the god of this age tries to keep believers from being people who might lead other people to be rescued from blindness and darkness?

Note these scriptures:

Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world… and

Colossians 1:13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness…

Pray for an awareness of spiritual darkness and a desire to fight against it.

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Lots of Sunday nights, Brendan gets together with us and we all go out to eat. The evening following our session on darkness found us at our normal Sunday night gathering spot, The Pots-Are-Filled Diner. There was a special on fried chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, mac-and-cheese, and green beans with sweetened ice tea and cherry cobbler for dessert. That’s one of the best specials so that’s what we all had.

As we sat around the table, Brodie was still in high gear about his dream.

I’m telling you guys, he said, right after shoving in a fork that had been loaded with chicken tenders, mac-and-cheese, and the corner of a roll, this was more vivid and more powerful than any other dream I’ve ever had.

Good thing worrying about this dream hasn’t killed your appetite, noted Devon.

It can’t be a coincidence, Brodie insisted, after a big gulp of drink, that our session was on darkness the very morning I woke up from this dream about a battle against darkness.

So… Haley used his middle finger to launch a football he had fashioned out of the paper ring from around his silverware, I guess we should skip school tomorrow so we can go out to Treasure Island and battle evil.

I don’t know what we should do, shrugged Brodie, but–

At that moment I noticed our friend Knox come in the front door of the Pots-Are-Filled and crane his neck around to look for us. I waved to him and he hustled over in a tremendous rush. (Unheard of for Knox.)

Brendan mocked him, Look who decides to show up just as the food gets to the table.

Knox ignored Brendan’s jibe. Have you guys heard about Kirby and Trevor?!

By Kirby and Trevor, we knew that Knox was talking about, respectively, the star quarterback and wide receiver for the Potterfield High School football team.

Everyone at the table sat up a little straighter, bracing for bad news like maybe Kirby and Trevor had been hurt in a car accident or something like that.

No. What? asked Brendan.

They’re gone! said Knox, squeezing himself into our corner booth beside Devon.

What do you mean they’re gone? asked Curtis. Dead? Transferred to another school?

No, just gone! said Knox, still reeling as he thought about the news he was giving us. They went camping Friday night and they never came back home! They’ve just vanished!

Where were they camping? asked Devon.

Treasure Island! said Knox.

Quiet settled around the table. Knox looked from face to face, wondering why everyone else was looking at Brodie.

Finally, Brendan spoke up, Brodie, when you were talking about the people in your dream, who did you mean by that? Were Kirby and Trevor in your dream?

You mean I never told you? Brodie seemed puzzled.

Everyone shook their heads and kept their gazes firmly on Brodie.

No, Brodie said slowly. Kirby and Trevor weren’t even in my dream. When the battle between light and darkness was unleashed, the only people there on the island were all of us.

The Pots-Are-Filled Diner…Fine Dining for Potterfield Since 1956

Battered Chicken Tenders Meat and 2 Veg…$5.00

Fried Chicken Meat and 3 Veg…$6.00

Country Fried Steak w/White Gravy Meat and 4 Veg…$7.00

Chicken and Dumplings Desserts…$2.00

Poppyseed Chicken Casserole

Famous Pots-Are-Filled Meatloaf Water w/Lemon…$0.25

Grilled Chicken Teriyaki Other Beverages….$1.25

Homemade Lasanga

Macaroni and Cheese Meat and 4 Veg.

Green Beans w/Dessert and Drink…$9.00

Fried Okra

Fried Green Tomatoes Today’s Special:

Rice w/Brown Gravy Fried Chicken Fingers

Mashed Potatoes w/Brown Gravy Macaroni and Cheese

Homemade Dressing w/White Gravy Mashed Potatoes

Broccoli Casserole Green Beans

Squash Casserole Cherry Cobbler

Sweet Yellow Corn and Sweet Tea…$6.00

Broccoli and Raisin Salad

Cucumber and Tomato Salad Friday-and-Saturday-Only-Royale

Pineapple-Cheese Casserole Prime Rib and Fried Oysters

English Peas Cheese and Bacon Mashed Potatoes

Green Beans Almondine

Dragonfly Pie Hearts-of-Palm Salad

Banana Pudding w/Dessert, Drink, and Dessert Coffee

Blueberry Cheesecake …$19.00

Coconut Cream Pie

Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce All meals served w/Homemade Rolls

Apple Strudel

Caramel Brownie Tower

Cherry Cobbler

Sweet Tea

Unsweet Tea

Water w/Lemon

Raspberry Lemonade

Coca-Cola

Cherry Coke

Diet Coke

Dr. Pepper

Regular or Decaf Coffee

Hot Chocolate w/ Whipped Cream (winter only)

CHAPTER TWO—SPIRITUAL BOREDOM

The whole town was in a state of disbelief over the disappearance of Kirby Carlow and Trevor Marsden. But nowhere did the shock waves slice more deeply than at school.

We all go to Potterfield High School, the only high school in town. Our team name is the Dragonflies. And our colors are green and orange. Both of those are kind of strange, but we all like that name and those colors because we’re different from other schools. You can find Tigers, Bulldogs, and Eagles everywhere, but there’s only one high school in America with a giant orange and green dragonfly painted on the fifty-yard line of its football field. Everybody in Potterfield rabidly supports the Dragonflies. Every little boy in town wants to grow up and be a great Dragonfly hero. Even our famous tee-ball travel squad is called the Dragonflies, although some years ago, a group of parents wanted to change the name to the Little Dragonflies to distinguish the tee-ballers from the high schoolers.

Since none of the kids wanted to be called anything little a compromise was reached and the tee-ball team became the Atomic Dragonflies since atoms are little but extremely powerful when split. Two more colors were added to the tee-ball uniforms so that the Atomic Dragonflies became orange, green, red, and royal blue. Very memorable uniforms. Sorry…I’m getting off the subject…

Rumors about what had happened the night of the disappearance spread like kudzu growing along the highways in and out of town, but only a few of the facts from the police investigation made it out to the public.

The most mysterious twist in the case was that a family who lived on Lake Potterfield had come forward to confirm having seen Kirby and Trevor over on Treasure Island with a campfire going around sunset that Friday night. But police who had been combing over every inch of the island since the following Sunday morning had found no traces of any recent human activity there. Not even a burnt out fire on the beach where Kirby and Trevor had supposedly been.

Investigators had no evidence to go on and no one in Potterfield could name a single person with any motive to harm Kirby or Trevor. In fact, Kirby and Trevor were the most universally loved kids at Potterfield High. Aside from the fact that their athletic abilities made Potterfield a legitimate contender for the state football championship, both of them were neat stories on the purely human level. They had each been adopted as infants by separate Potterfield families, but raised as might-as-well-be-brothers from the day they were first brought to town.

All through childhood, Kirby and Trevor had battled each other for first place in any and every competition that was to be found for muscle or mind. Between them, by the end of their junior years, Kirby and Trevor held every major sports record in Potterfield (except for the Atomic Dragonfly tee-ball home run record, which had been broken a few years back by a little kid named Sherman.)

As tough as the disappearance was on the town in general, it was particularly devastating to our football coach, who was watching a potential state championship season going up in flames right before his eyes. Without our star quarterback and wide receiver on the opening night of the season—a countywide holiday in Potterfield—we were blown out at home by the pretty mediocre Robbinsburg Bobcats. There was a huge crowd in the stadium because everyone wanted to show their support for the Carlows, the Marsdens, and the school. But the mood during the game was downright somber.

The lowly feeling carried over late into Friday night when we were all spending the night at Devon’s house. On a normal Friday night we would have been out in Devon’s backyard wrestling on the trampoline, jumping into the lake off the upper deck of the boat pier, and gorging on Dr. Peppers and pepperoni pizza from our local Italian place called the Pasta-Thrilled! But the Friday night after the Robbinsburg loss, most of the pizza got cold and no one wanted to play. We all sat around in Devon’s upstairs playroom…bored and sad.

Our mood was so down, no one even brought up our lifelong goal of getting the trampoline up on the upper deck of the boat pier so we could have really high jumps into the lake.

I hate it when it’s like this, Curtis rolled the red solid 3 pool ball across the floor to Haley.

Haley kept the 3 but rolled the 10 blue stripe back to Curtis. It just seems wrong to be out having fun when we don’t know what’s happened to Kirby and Trevor.

I know, said Curtis rolling the 10 ball back and forth between his hands, but I wish there was something we could do about it. I hate just sitting up here being lifeless.

Well, offered Knox, look on the bright side. Knox was sitting on the pool table wearing swim trunks, a PHS football jersey, and gobs of green and orange face paint. He hadn’t removed his #1 foam finger since the game.

What bright side? muttered Brodie who was sprawled out on the couch watching a bead of moisture roll down his Dr. Pepper can.

Knox lifted his foam finger to emphasize his point, Brendan is always getting on to us because he says that we lead great social lives but very, very boring spiritual lives. Tonight…our social lives stink…so everything is perfectly in sync!

Woo-hoo, Haley lazily raised his fist into the air. That is great news.

Yeah, Devon nodded from his seat over at the game table. Brendan’ll be proud that we finally got everything balanced.

Curtis rolled the 10 ball back to Haley. Why is it that people like us who have been raised Christian have so much trouble…ah… Curtis kind of shrugged, …have so much trouble acting like we care about our…I don’t know…our faith?

I had no answer for Curtis, but I did know that I had thought about that question too. The room fell silent. Friday nights were never used to talk about our spiritual lives. We were always comfortable talking about church…but only the social part of church, not our relationships with God. Relationships with God. That sounded weird even just when I thought about it.

See? Curtis broke the silence that had greeted his own question. If you asked any one of us the question, ‘What is the single most important thing in your life?’ all of us would not hesitate to say that it’s our faith in God. And yet…it’s awkward even talking about that when we’re together. It never comes up at all. We avoid it without even trying.

Finally, I spoke up. Yeah, it is strange to think that the Bible talks about how we’re blood-ransomed by God’s Son…and we’re all being trained to be kings of an eternal empire that stretches out forever in all directions…

Knox finished my thought, …but it seems more cool not to ever really think about that but just to go and play video games instead.

There should be some kind of pill you can take, said Haley, that would make your soul the way it’s really supposed to be.

That kind of pill doesn’t exist, said Brendan when we were back at church Sunday morning. But again today we seem to be faced with another coincidence. Brendan held up the packet. Look at the topic of today’s session.

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SPIRITUAL BOREDOM

Malachi 2:1-2 ‘And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen and if you do not set your heart to honor my name,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me.

1. Do you think God wishes bad on anyone? If not, why do you think He would be putting a curse on someone’s blessings?

Is it possible for a person’s blessings to end up working against him or her? What would be the problem of having a life that is totally filled with comfortable houses, good food, plenty of money, and lots of toys to play with? Is it possible that all of those earthly blessings could curse you by pulling your eyes away from the things that are most important?

Look at the end of that passage. For what reason does God say that He is going to bring a curse on these priests?

If Christians haven’t set their hearts to honor God, where do you think they’ve set their hearts?

Do you think any of these things listed–in reality–are more important than God in the lives of Christians:

Having a comfortable place in life with friends you fit with?

Keeping up with the latest things in movies, t.v., music, clothes, etc.?

Possessions, especially cars, gadgets, and clothes? Making money? Sports?

Hang Time to be with friends or listen to music, play video games?

Social time, burning up the waves and cables with cell phones and i.m.-ing?

The tricky thing is that most of the stuff on that list isn’t really bad in and of itself. It’s a good thing to hang out with friends, to have fun, to be successful at sports and academics…and to wear clothes!

The problem is not these things themselves. The problem is what?

Do you remember the first of the Ten Commandments?

Exodus 20:3 You shall have no other gods before me.

2. Do you think God gave the Israelites that command for His own good or for theirs?

Here is something that you must remember: a big reason why God doesn’t want you drawing your satisfaction from earthly things is that He made you bigger than that. Your life’s not designed to run on just people, stuff, or fun events.

Imagine that your life is a vehicle on a journey and that your heart is like the fuel tank that enables the whole thing to move forward. Earthly blessings are like a cheap, low-grade fuel that burns too quickly and makes you run sluggishly. If you depend on them, you’re headed to breakdown and disaster. To run at full throttle your life must be fueled by God and His plans.

Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

When our lives are being fueled by a passion for God, everything works well–even on bad days–because our happiness, peace, and pleasure come from Him. When this is the case, even our possessions and our earthly relationships will bring us real pleasure because our hearts will be set on using those things to please God and to glorify Him.

But when the earthly pursuits take first place away from God…then those things will have to carry the weight of our lives by themselves. And they can’t. The Bible doesn’t say, Seek the other stuff first and then God’s kingdom will be added to you. It never works that way.

Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

John 4:14 …whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. This verse is speaking of salvation and eternal life in Christ. But can you see how Jesus’ thoughts here can also communicate truth to someone, already a Christian, but who has wandered off into spiritual boredom by trying to find joy from earthly things?

Remember the thief from last week? John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy… This week, let’s look at the second part of that verse: John 10:10 …I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Matthew 6:33: The Kingdom of Heaven brings the real blessings.

Matthew 11:28: Christ gives us rest (peace, satisfaction from God.)

John 4:14: Christ gives us the water that completely satisfies our thirst.

John 10:10: Christ gives us life to the full.

But when you push God out of His rightful place in your life and move earthly things in, your inner life doesn’t work right. Your earthly pursuits may go very well…but if you’re a Christian, in your heart you’ll still have the nagging feeling that something is wrong. Your prayer life will be uninteresting. Your Bible study will be boring and fruitless. Worship services will be a chore. In small group, you’ll just want the time to be over so you can get out of there. And when a leader asks you, What’s God doing in your life? there will be silence.

In short…spiritual boredom.

3. Do you think someone can be a regular, even a frequent church attender, and still fall victim to spiritual boredom?

Malachi 2:3 Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal of your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.

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Wait a minute, Devon interrupted Brendan before he had time to get rolling with Malachi 2:3. What’s ‘the offal of your festival sacrifices?’

Ah, well… Brendan shifted in his chair, that’s the leftover parts of the sheep.

Huh? said Haley. We were confused.

Well, Brendan cleared his throat. During the Old Testament era at the temple in Jerusalem they were commanded to bring sheep for sacrificing. But not every part of the sheep was suitable to sacrifice. Liver. Kidneys. Intestines.

Brendan paused…then reluctantly pressed ahead. Contents of the intestines.

You mean, Devon whispered, even the sheep poo-poo?

Brendan nodded.

Whoa! Knox almost jumped out of his chair. There’s a Bible verse where God threatens to wipe guts and sheep poop in the priests’ faces?!

Pretty much, conceded Brendan.

What the poo?! I mean…literally.

Because, Brendan answered, they were doing all their rituals and sacrifices and churchy things, but their hearts were not with God. It was all for show. They weren’t really loving God. They were just pretending…lying about it, basically.

And that made God, I asked, more frustrated than if they hadn’t come to worship at all?

Bingo, Brendan pointed at me and nodded. You can’t imagine how serious this is. The temple where the priests worked was a holy place. Sheep guts and poop weren’t welcome there. But there were sheep being brought for sacrificing all the time so…obviously…

What did they do with it? asked Knox, fascinated.

They scooped it all up and it had to be taken outside the city and burned just like it talks about it being ‘carried off’ in that verse.

They were going to be carried out of town and burned with the sheep poop?

Yeah, said Brendan, after it had been rubbed in their faces.

Oh, my gosh, Knox said softly. I can’t imagine that.

True, Brendan was ready to move on.

Knox continued, Although Haley pied me in the face with blueberry yogurt one Wednes—

Enough! Brendan snapped. Let’s finish.

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If your leader has explained to you what offal is, do you now see what an awful thing it is in God’s sight to be bored with Him…publicly committed to Him, but still just acting out the rituals of church?

Do you find yourself asking the question, Yeah, but what do I do?

Ezekiel 14:6 Repent! Turn from your idols…

4. This verse tells the people of Israel to repent. In order to repent, you first must admit what?

In doing this, you must admit…who takes responsibility? Who was at fault for the boredom?

And then, you must make a sincere commitment before God to do what? Repentance literally means a turning to the opposite direction.

Remember these verses from last week:

Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world… AND

Colossians 1:13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness…

Note these scriptures:

Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. AND Ezekiel 14:6 Repent! Turn from your idols…

Pray for an end to spiritual boredom. Pray that God will give you a desire to repent of the things that cause it.

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I get it, said Curtis. The lessons go together. The darkness that we talked about last week is all over the world that we live in…so it attacks us and brings us down into spiritual boredom.

And, nodded Brendan, keeps you from seeing what must be done about it.

Strange, said Devon. When you think about repentance, you think about drug dealers and voodoo priests and people like that. You don’t think about people like us needing to repent.

Ah, smiled Brendan, but we do. You guys all have some serious spiritual boredom going on in your lives. And so do I. The best thing we can do is to go home, close the doors of our rooms, and start by saying, ‘I’ve put so many things ahead of you God…and I’m so sorry.’ How long has it been since any of you guys have done something like that?

We all looked at the floor. That old, familiar awkward silence of small group returned.

Brendan looked at us. Go home and do it today.

We all began to shuffle out the door. Brendan called to Brodie, Did you have anymore dreams this week, Prophet?

Er, yeah. I dreamed that I met the President of the United States, but it was kind of odd.

How so?

It wasn’t the current president, shrugged Brodie. It was a president from back in history.

Which one? asked Curtis.

I don’t know. I’d have to see all their pictures to pick him out. I meant to look this morning, but we were late for church and mom was yelling at me.

So you don’t know if it was a real president, pressed Curtis, or just somebody in your dream who you thought was president.

No, Brodie said firmly. It was one of the real life U.S. presidents. I’m sure.

Hold on, said Devon, bolting out the door to the church parking lot. Now the rest of us had stopped in order to see where this was going. Moments later, Devon came bounding in with an American History textbook, Luckily, I didn’t do my homework so my book was still in my car!

Devon opened up the book to the inside cover where the pictures of the U.S. presidents were printed. Brodie ran his finger over the page and suddenly stopped when he came to a man with a receding hairline and a terribly serious expression.

It’s him, he said.

I leaned over Brodie’s shoulder to see. Calvin Coolidge. 1923-1929.

So… Haley said, I guess this is just one of your random dreams and not one that has any big meaning.

Now everyone was paying close attention to Brodie.

To be honest, he said, I do think the dream has meaning. Brodie paused as if to consider whether or not he wanted to say what he was really thinking. Then he let out a breath and plunged ahead, I think Calvin Coolidge has something to do with Kirby and Trevor’s disappearance.

You’re an idiot, laughed Devon.

Say what you like, said Brodie, I’m telling you. Calvin Coolidge. Brodie had the tone of a little kid who was certain he had seen a unicorn and was not going to back down from it no matter how many adults tried to reason with him.

Well, said Haley, we better call the police…

Devon finished, and tell ‘em to be on the lookout for Calvin Coolidge. The whole room dissolved into laughter (except Brodie.)

Speaking of the police… Brendan said.

We all turned our attention back to him, still seated with the Bible in his lap.

I received an interesting morsel of information myself this weekend.

With no further words, all of us reclaimed our seats and leaned in closely to hear what Brendan would say. Brendan is an incredible guy. As much as he likes to stay on task during Bible study, once you get him loosened up he can talk about anything in the world.

I have a friend of a friend of a friend in the police department who told me something that I’m not supposed to tell anyone else. We all nodded. This was good.

You know how there was that one family on the lake who said that they saw Kirby and Trevor across the water at their campfire on Friday night?

The group leaned in even more closely.

There’s a different family that’s come forward with new angle on what went on that night.

Did they see them leave the island? Curtis asked.

No, Brendan raised his eyebrows a bit. They’re claiming that between 2:00 and 3:00 on Saturday morning, they were awakened from sleep and went out on their deck to see strange lights hovering over Treasure Island.

CHAPTER THREE—REVIVAL

Potterfield was starting to be a depressing place.

Experts say that if a missing person is not recovered in the first 72 hours after vanishing, then the odds of recovering him alive start going way, way down. As the new school week got underway, everyone was aware that Kirby and Trevor had been missing four times that long.

The weather was not so great. None of us really liked any of our new classes. And the Dragonflies were facing a road game against the very good Taggart County Warhawks in which we all expected to be massacred.

On top of all that, my friends and I were feeling an unfamiliar emptiness in our hearts. All our peace was gone. A sense of embarrassment and underachievement gnawed at us every day.

Ever since our group came up into middle school, our parents and the adults that worked with us at Candle Grove Church had told us–sometimes gently, sometimes not too gently–that we were just about the worst slackers ever in terms of our relationships with God. That had never really bothered us enough to change anything. But that week, it was as if every warning we had ever been given about spiritual slacker-dom had finally pierced us. Seeing two of our classmates vanish–and probably forever–had somehow flipped a switch in us. The more I thought about it and the more we talked about it with each other, it was like that session on Spiritual Boredom from last Sunday had been written straight to us.

I believe the fancy church word for something like this is conviction.

No one in our group was happy (very strange for us.) And no one seemed to know what to do about it. I started having trouble sleeping at night.

That Wednesday night when we were all together at church, we decided that enough was enough. Some bold steps needed to be taken. So after all the youth programs were over, we went and found Brendan hanging out and helping clean up in the middle school room. Per the usual, we sent Devon in to take charge.

Hey, Brendan.

Hey, Devon. What’s up?

Ah, we were just wondering what you were going to make Saturday night.

Brendan stopped straightening chairs and turned to Devon. Saturday night?

Yeah, Devon nodded. We’ve decided that we’re coming to your house to eat supper Saturday night.

Brendan looked over Devon’s shoulder to see us all standing there in the middle school entrance. We smiled and kind of half-waved at him.

Oh, yeah, Brendan nodded. Well…I’m sure I’ll come up with…something.

Great, smiled Devon. And what time did you say?

6:00. How ‘bout 6:00?

Perfect. We won’t be a second late.

And we weren’t. At 6:00 p.m. on Saturday night (the night after the Dragonflies’ 63-8 annihilation at the hands of the Taggert County Warhawks) we pulled into Brendan’s driveway. There was a large column of smoke coming up from the backyard.

We went through the side gate and into the backyard to see whether Brendan, our supper, or both were going up in flames. It turned out that Brendan was not cooking on the grill–as normal–but had rigged up a special pit that contained a mini-bonfire in the middle of the yard.

Wow, offered Knox in sincere admiration.

You guys like fire, don’t you? asked Brendan.

We all smiled and nodded. We liked fire. Very much.

Great, Brendan shuffled the logs around so that they would be more than safe in his bootleg fire-pit. Let’s eat.

Supper was set out on the back patio. It was our favorite of Brendan’s meals: grilled cheeseburgers with tortilla chips and spicy cheese dip. After we were well into seconds, Devon dropped our bombshell.

"Brendan, we’ve decided that we want