PARKS BROWN

Number Two. XO. VP. Hand of the King. Deputy. Assistant. You before me.

The chain of command is critical to accomplishing a goal. The support role not only serves the leader, he reflects the leader. The primary attribute of a second in command is to have a servant spirit and the ability to put others before themselves. Although the role of Number Two may garner some attention, second fiddle doesn’t get main billing.

I learned the value of a humble but strong second in command at an early age…by watching TV. On Star Trek, it was obvious Captain Kirk could have never survived going where no man had gone before, unless Spock was by his side. Years later, Game of Thrones reiterated the importance of the Hand of the King across the Seven Kingdoms. Everyone knows, The Yellowstone and John Dutton could not function more than a week without Rip.

Television characters are fictional but the example holds true in real life. Back in the day, we had a local Congressman who was well known across the state and nation. The fact was, he gathered the attention but it was his strong and humble wife that made the man. The running joke was, if his wife had married the gas station attendant, the guy who owned the gas station would be in Washington and the ‘Congressman’ would be pumping gas.

The power behind the throne always runs on humility and service. College doesn’t teach you to serve the needs of others and the title of ‘servant’ isn’t held in high esteem. Regardless, no one can deny the necessity and importance of putting others before yourself.

In real life, Jesus is the OG. Christ followers have confidence in an eternal life and destiny because ‘taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness…he humbled himself and became obedient to death.’ Number Two in the Godhead is the Number One reason for living (and dying) in the here and now of 2026.

There is a verse in the book of Philippians rarely spoken during the week and even less often preached on the weekends. ‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility consider others better
than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.’ Phil. 2:3-4. Do you know ANYONE claiming this as a life verse?

The old Latin expression, ‘Sic vos non vobis’ is translated, ‘not for ourselves but for others.’ As with many old expressions, this one is disappearing from our lexicon and regretfully our actions. It may be difficult to find anyone living out this mantra except on TV. But, the Bible reminds us the Creator of heaven and earth values and rewards this character quality. Because Jesus made himself a servant, ‘..God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name..’

At the core of being a humble servant of others, is forgiveness. I am FAR from divine and I do not live and work in a world surrounded by humble people who ‘consider others better than themselves.’ Therefore, I am constantly reminded of not only THEIR shortcomings but my own as well. The day to day of serving others can prick like a thorn. An apology starts the process of forgiving and is the key to healing a wound.

Forgiveness is exemplified with Christ’s actions on the cross but you don’t have to be divine to give it. As the line in the song goes, ‘Forgiveness, it’s the last thing on your mind today and the hardest thing to give away, it always goes to those who don’t deserve.’ Life is a two way street, but forgiveness is a freeway for moving on.

Not everyone is good at apologizing so it helps to listen well. Apologies may sound crude and not be how you want it said, but they are genuine and from the heart. Some of the best examples of a genuine apology may be on TV and in the movies. In Urban Cowboy, Bud apologized to Sissy ‘clear back to the first time I hit you.’ An apology can go a long way to giving and getting forgiveness. Apologies are known as repentance in the Bible and that’s the ticket to eternity.

In the book written to the Corinthians, Paul describes a thorn in his flesh that was such an irritant he ‘pleaded with the Lord to take it away.’ In context to our discussion, thorns can be people, relationships and the practice of putting others before yourself. The words in red are a reminder that God’s power is made perfect where the thorn of putting others first can make us feel weak. When we humble ourselves, when we are persecuted or misunderstood and when we flat out screw things up, is when the power of Christ CAN rest on us.

The point is, in everything, at all times, consider others before yourself. If you want a REAL challenge with REAL reward…in humility, consider others BETTER than yourself. Our service to others, reflects who we are as well as who we serve.

Strive to put others before yourself. Aim for second place. Embrace the thorns in your life.

‘History has a strange habit of looking inevitable in hindsight and improbable in real time.’

This quote points out the importance and value of listening well. History isn’t written on a blog or social media post. History is written in books. When we had a functioning free press, we could hear history being made in real time. The ability to listen well gives us the ability to see the present more clearly and know what history will look like.

It’s easier to understand what is happening in the present if we learn to listen well. It’s also possible to know what is yet to come if we listen to the right source.

If there were access to sources on the ground in Ukraine or Taiwan it would increase the probability of seeing the history in those countries unfold. The same is true in cities and states across America. Noise, chatter and lies are secondary to hearing crickets. All of this assumes a willingness and ability to listen well. A source is essential. Wisdom and discernment are critical to choose and believe among all the voices we hear.

Anyone who considers themselves a Christ follower knows we make the choice to listen and believe (or not) what we hear. The Bible says things we don’t like but it IS Truth. Eve had the choice to believe and accept what she heard. Gideon had the choice to take 30,000 plus men into battle or listen to God and whittle the number down to 300 even when it made NO common sense. Noah had never seen rain or had any idea what a boat was, but he listened and followed the instructions given to him. On the other hand, Lot’s wife didn’t listen well and heed the warning about not looking back. We all know the consequences.

In 2026 one of the obstacles in listening well is the volume of chatter. It’s not just social media. Our political leaders, institutions and even churches espouse conflicting and changing views. The medical community redefines recommendations every few years. One day the mere accusation of being a Nazi can end a career and the next you can be supported for office with the tattoo on your chest. No new wars may prove a slogan and not a policy. Voices can stay the same but the message is constantly changing.

We live in a world that demands we listen well. People constantly change. We are told intelligence is becoming artificial. New studies with supporting data can alter what we hear and think. The definition of a vaccine changes. Recommended cholesterol levels change like the weather. How many shots to give your children varies from one administration to another. Doubt rules the day. Once the seed of doubt is planted, the real test of listening and understanding begins.

The Bible refers to understanding as wisdom. God’s Word is two steps ahead of how to understand and deal with doubt stemming from change. James put it bluntly… ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to you.’ For those not well versed, asking God for wisdom is also known as prayer. When we pray and ask God to give us understanding, James reminds us ‘it will be given to you.’ He continues, ‘But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.’ Have you stood on the shore and watched the instability and unpredictability of waves? Kinda resembles the headlines and history being written in real time, doesn’t it?

The ever changing opinions and advice from people is a major factor effecting how and who we listen to these days. The Creator of it all, the God of the Old Testament and his Son, Jesus is the only voice to listen for and trust. He does not shift and change with the times. Nothing can alter who and what God is. But, HE will alter how you listen. He will make the probability of the future become more clear.

There is no new Disclosure Day or data to negate the Word of God. If a production causes you to doubt and question the voice or Word of God, your entire life may start to be blown and tossed about. Christ calls that building your life on shifting sand and not the rock of Truth. James said when this happens you ‘should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in everything they do.’ Sound like anyone you know?

When Jesus left this side of the dirt, He said there was more to listen to, more than we could handle, and He would take care of that for His followers. For those who choose to commit and submit, God promised us a friend. A source to support our ability to listen well. A guide, an advocate, someone trustworthy of listening to. “‘But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is to come.'”

The Holy Spirit makes history visible in real time. The Holy Spirit makes the improbable, probable. Only the Holy Spirit speaks truth in real time and gives understanding to what is and is to come.

Listening well requires being able to discern among all the voices clamoring for our ears, eyes, hearts…and soul. Get back to listening to the Holy Spirit first second and last. Recognize His voice. Trust and follow His Truth alone.

When our oldest child learned to speak he would quizzically look around and ask, ‘Heard that sound?’ He was fascinated by sounds and curious where they came from. Children want to understand what is being said and where a sound comes from. When we learn to identify what we hear, we classify the origin and determine if it is worthy of further attention or a noise to ignore. The sense of hearing is a gift from God.

As we have wandered away from reading books and classical literature, few remember the famous line uttered by Shakespeare’s character, Macbeth. Macbeth summarized life as “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Although these words reflect great despair and nihilism, I wonder if we are a nation who epitomize this quote.

Shakespeare captured this bleak attitude of life in 1600. The same degree of melancholy has been around since creation and prospers today. As leaders, corporations, churches and individuals live by the mantra, ‘It is what it is’, we live in silos and become deaf to hearing what is being said by anyone outside our own echo chamber.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus told his disciples the ability to hear was given by GOD according to our hearts and relationship to the Creator, the God of the Old Testament and His son, Jesus…not an ultra-terrestrial or inter-dimensional being. As we submit to God’s will and way given in the Bible, listen and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit, our sense of hearing and understanding increases. As we wander from Him, our ears hear less, our hearts become unresponsive and our lives are not good and fertile soil.

Before you only hear this as Christianese, unwanted advice or simply words from an old book, evaluate YOUR willingness to listen and understand what is being said in the world today. Do you ignore white evangelical males, black females, Republicans or Democrats simple because of their sex or color and affiliation? Christ said the heart of such a person ‘has grown callous: their ears are hard of hearing and they have shut their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back-and I would heal them.’

WE need healing. Our nation and world needs healing. Jesus made a simple agrarian analogy. Life is either good soil from which we can grow and prosper..or it is full of rocks and weeds. There is much we hear that can choke out and obfuscate what God says. There is much to worry about at home and abroad. Deceit may come in the form of financial wealth or worries. Lies are spread by people who speak half truths or change positions from one day to the next.

Many have concluded it is best to shut out the conflicting sounds we hear. This may happen with good intentions but the practice may result in becoming deafened to THE truth. James, the brother of Jesus, did not believe in Jesus for 33 years…until he rose from the dead. James did not listen and understand what he heard from the brother who grew up in the same house with him. If James’ ears were deafened by his unbelief, we should all be put on notice.

The end of all things is near. Your job…relationships…life…maybe even what you have thought to be truth. Become like a child again. Reignite your desire to hear what is being said and by whom. Open your ears to the Holy Spirit, be healed and make sure you can say… ‘HEARD THAT SOUND!!’

Wander: To stray, to move without direction.
Astray: Wandering, lost, on the wrong path.

I’ve been trying to finish this blog for almost 3 months but I keep wandering away and never complete it.

Devices plunge us into an ecosystem of interruption technologies that can make our knowledge base a mile wide but only a few inches deep. Studies show the internet and cell phones decrease our attention span and increase our proclivity to wander from a task. I believe there is a deeper reason behind all of our wandering.

Wandering is so ubiquitous it’s become a form of entertainment and national past-time known as scrolling. We’ve wandered from reading books to texts. Letters have been replaced by e-mails. Conversations have given way to voice messaging. We are wandering from the people and nation we were. Politicians, governments, institutions and churches have wandered so far from their original course can they be trusted to lead us back?

Buckle up. The point I want to make is that as a human race, we have wandered so far we border on being astray. To keep from wandering farther and farther, we need to remember how far we’ve come…and where we started.

Let’s begin with…The Bible. The Word and the fear of God was historically the path to knowledge and wisdom. Now, we have Grok and ChatGPT as the sources consulted. At one time everyone believed in intelligent design until some wandered towards evolution. Now, many of those evolutionists are wandering towards aliens as our Creator. The United States Department of War recently declared there have been 4 alien species recovered from crash sites. Grays, Nordics, Insectoids and Reptillians. That’s a far piece from God creating man and woman in His image.

When I was young there was cussing and bad language on the playground but NEVER on TV. Now, the F-bomb and GD litter almost every program. Its not just civil language we have wandered from, we’ve strayed from the value of life. Yes, abortion is the low hanging fruit, but watch a movie or Netflix production and notice the men and women killed as collateral damage in every scene. Try putting a number to the body count of good and bad guys. No more Clint Eastwood gets the ONE raging psycho killer or bad cowboy.

Once heralded as the bastion of amateur athletics, the NCAA now pays student athletes with millions raised by NIL. Academic students lean on artificial intelligence to write their papers. The educational system is turning out graduates who are technologically adept but not educated. Parents send their children to these institutions of higher learning with the encouragement to follow their own truths. When parents wander from teaching their children to know THE truth and there are only two sexes, we can’t be surprised a Supreme Court Justice won’t define what a woman is.

Politicians and parties on both sides of the aisle have wandered from anti-war to pro-war, from protecting free speech to defining hate speech. Gone are the statesmen who used inspiration and words to write the Declaration of Independence or the first Proclamation of Thanksgiving. Statesmen have been replaced by politicians using polls, speech writers and AI for whatever the masses want to hear. The political elite have wandered from statesmanship to whoever has or can raise the most money.

The Bible is replete with accounts of wandering before technology was invented. The first book in the Bible records the story of Cain being under a curse and driven to be a ‘restless wanderer.’ The exodus of the enslaved Jewish people from Egypt was less than a two week journey but lasted 40 years while wandering around the dessert. The Biblical reason why people and nations wander is a lack of faith IN or obedience TO, God. Wandering from the fear of God to apathy of Him doesn’t lead anywhere good.

The Bible teaches, wandering is either allowed or orchestrated by God. The devil’s greatest trick is not to convince people he doesn’t exist, it is to manipulate and control our wandering with the intent of defining or changing our eternal destination. This partially explains why the mark of the beast in Revelation 13 is an economic mark. When you can’t buy or sell unless you have the mark, it’s the ultimate way to manipulate and control. Speaking of which….

Central Bank Digital Currencies are centralized programmable entries. Wandering from physical money allows someone else to control when and where you spend your dollars. This control may be under the guise of ‘monetary policy’ needed to reign in inflation or spur growth. The reason may be controlling what books you can purchase or institutions you can support. Regardless, CBDC’s need enormous amounts of storage for controlling and keeping track of all the data they generate. Do you really think we’re building thousands of more data centers to store your wife’s pictures of the kids and grand-kids??

The two men who grew up in the same house with Jesus spoke to wandering. James said Christians should look out for those who wander. ‘If anyone wanders from the truth and someone brings them back on course, whoever does it will save the person from death AND cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19). Jude called out those who lead others to wander. He said they were the same as fallen angels that were led astray by Lucifer in rebelling and falling from Heaven. The culprit behind wandering is not always a device…or flesh and blood.

If you’re aiming for heaven, it’s dangerous to wander far because the ‘road is narrow and the gate is small.’ Fellowship with like minded Christ followers and a good church body is essential. It is critical to be in a Bible based church that preaches Jesus and not the benefits of AI in finding our way to God.

2026 is just getting started. We are all prone to wander. Tether yourself to the Word so you don’t go astray.

This time of year trees begin to bud and the grass begins to turn green and grow. The difference is noticeable but it’s far from magic. The changes in appearance and substance is solely attributable to the change in soil temperatures.

Nature is a stark reminder growth and change is based on warmer soil temps. The same is true in our lives. If you aren’t changing and growing, odds favor you’re stuck in the winter of your life.

Farmers and fishermen are usually the first to recognize it takes warmer temps for ANYTHING to move around, grow and produce. Life jumps into a higher gear when soil temps rise in plants, animals…and people.

One of the best known parables in the Bible is found in Matthew 13. This parable draws the analogy between our lives and the soil of the earth. Jesus said the fruit derived from the soil in our lives varies depending on the condition of our hearts, our soil temps. Elementary schools teach (or they used to and still should) the heart is responsible for pumping blood to regulate and maintain heat/temps in our bodies. The question is, ‘What’s YOUR soil temp?’

Your soil temp is measured and SEEN by the passion you exhibit for any given person, activity or thing. Do you get jacked up for the Masters golf tournament next month, the start of Major League Baseball, fish starting to bite, college and high school spring football practice? Weigh your intensity for any activity to determine the temperature of your soil and life.

A lot of things can make the soil temp of your life rise and fall. When this happens, the soil you are made of is also revealed. Jesus uses soil quality and temps to reveal your heart and show what you’re made of…and what you serve. The Bible speaks directly to the issues of the day it was written AND the issues in 2026.

Now, I’m going to make it more personal, relevant and pertinent to our lives. Does your soil temp rise when you’re given the chance to share what God HAS done or IS doing in your life? Do 65 million aborted babies get a rise in your blood/soil temp? How about the high school or college you attended teaching your children there are 7 genders in addition to a man and a woman? What about being made to attend DEI training to keep a job and provide for your family? Does the temp of your life’s soil rise at all with these questions?

Take the few examples I used to discover what your soil type and temp is today. Are you apathetic about any of the topics I mentioned. Are you concerned about losing your job or being cancelled? Are you are anxious about discussing such things and think it’s political, not fundamental to your daily life AND eternity. Maybe such things concerned you at one time but not now. The Bible calls this rocky and shallow soil. The soil you are can vary day to day, week to week and year to year. Your soil TEMPERATURE is the key to allowing God to grow and mature whatever soil condition you have right now.

If you claim to be a Christian it is essential to live and love with a high soil temp. When quizzed about the greatest commandment, ‘Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”‘ This kind of zeal and passion doesn’t grow in soil that is lukewarm or apathetic about your faith. In the Message translation, more words in red speak directly to the soil temps of our lives. “‘You’re not cold, you’re not hot-far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit.'”

God can use all types of soil to plant His seed but it’s incumbent on each of us to determine the temperature of our soil in order for it to grow. In addition, it’s on us to have friends and a fellowship that will continue to plant the seed so we can hear and understand the message about God. Regretfully, too often the seed gets planted when we are poor soil with low temps and nothing takes root. Maybe we were living one lifestyle when we were young and although that is in the past, we haven’t had the seed planted in us again.

If you care about someone, BE a person who sows the seed in every conversation and each relationship. Speak and act with a high enough soil temp that it warms the ground all around your life. You never know when a friend (or a stranger) has perfect conditions for growth and “‘…the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.'”

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to have low soil temps. Low soil temps don’t grow anything. Christ reminded us to be alert and awake for His return. Nothing and no one is alert and awake when the soil temps are low. Nothing grows.

Zeal is defined as intense, passionate, eager devotion in pursuit of an objective. In other words, a high soil temp. God wants us to be zealous for Him. ‘…Hate what is evil: cling to what is good…Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.’ Romans 12 9-11.

Keep your passion and zeal for the Kingdom high. Maintain a high soil temp in your life