17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand…
So say verses 17 and 18 of Ps. 139. The Psalm Tiffany read for us and which Esther loved.
How precious are your thoughts…
Here are some thoughts I found expressed in a book of poetry and quotations kept by Esther.
From the Keswick Hymnal,
When I stand before the throne
Dressed in beauty not my own,
When I see Thee as Thou art,
Love Thee with unsinning heart,
Then the Lord shall I fully know,
Not til then…how much I owe.
From Elizabeth Elliott,
The whole purpose of life, I believe, is to learn to know God. This is life eternal.
From a prayer by Phillips Brooks,
Oh Lord, by all Thy dealings with us,
Whether of joy or pain, of light or darkness,
Let us be brought to Thee.
And at the very opening of the book Esther has written,
Into Thy hands I commit my spirit.
You learn much about a person by what they note and quote.
When Esther quotes Dante saying,
The Lord’s will is our peace.
…She reveals much about the inner disposition of her soul and her perspective on life.
Quotes and notes can also act like marker stones along the path of one’s journey.
For example we know that Esther, with husband Leslie and family spent many years in pastoral ministry which included several parsonage stops along the way.
One dog eared page in Esther’s book has this quote from Flora Thompson,
Poverty is no disgrace, but tis a great inconvenience.
We can only imagine how this line might have applied to the various parsonage situations the Whiteheads experienced through the years!
Or how about this delightful peek into Esther’s family life?
Esther tells a story from Christmas 1951 while living in the parsonage in Vancouver B.C.
She writes,
Les and I talked with Mark about baby Jesus and the stable and why he was born there because there was no room at the inn.
After Jane was born (two weeks later), Mark was all concerned and wanted to know if there was any room for her at the hospital.
…A footnote on that same page says that this story was later included in a Christmas sermon by Dr. C. Dorr Demarary.
We could spend hours reading through Esther’s precious thoughts and would find spiritual treasures a plenty in them.
One thing her notes make clear is that Esther’s thoughts centered on God’s thoughts.
How precious are your thoughts O God.
It was God’s thoughts which Esther pondered and which she shared with others.
And she drew on those thoughts from scripture.
Like her book of quotations, Esther’s Bible was filled with notes and quotes.
When you open her Bible you see that Esther has filled every available blank space on the cover pages with quotes, verses and references.
Its’ as if she was already busy engaging the text before she even got to Gen. 1:1!
Another thing we see in her Bible is that on in the margin of each page, Esther has the date she read that page. Follow the dates and you see she daily read her way through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
Esther loved the Bible.
She quotes Billy Graham who says,
The Bible is food for the soul.
Esther was a biblical nutritionist.
She was constantly feeding on God’s word and serving it up to others.
Throughout her life we know that Esther led numerous Bible study groups large and small.
She took time to be with others in the word.
Matt told me that he and his mother would enjoy 3 or 4 phone visits a week and they always included scripture sharing and discussion.
Esther wrote notes to family and friends using the scriptures to encourage, instruct and speak to people’s situations from God’s point of view.
She also helped grandchildren and others to memorize verses, psalms and chapters.
Hers was the Wesleyan practice of scriptural conversation.
John Wesley asserted that Christians should be so familiar with God’s word that their very language should become a blend of common speech and scripture.
I have personally had conversations with Esther where she would seamlessly move back and forth from speech to scripture. It was like warm music being played in our conversation.
I discovered that Esther had the lovely practice of reading the Bible through in a year for someone.
She would pick a person like Matt or Jane or Mark or perhaps a grandchild then buy a Bible for them and read it through.
While reading it she would fill the pages with notes and comments and then when finished she would gift that Bible to the person for whom she had been reading it.
Isn’t that wonderful?
Scripture was the script for Esther’s life.
God’s word oversaw the goings out and the comings in of Esther’s daily life.
In response to the One who was familiar with all her ways, Esther was becoming intimately acquainted with all the ways of that One through scripture.
The path of her spiritual journey was being lit by the lamp of God’s word.
For example Ps. 139 in v. 7 asks,
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
This is the affirmation that God is everywhere.
There is nowhere we can go where God is not.
…Even the darkest most remote places on earth…like a crowded refugee camp in Tanzania for example.
Scripture scripted Esther’s walk toward social justice.
Because God is just and in Christ is reconciling all things unto himself, Esther made sure she was involved in that reconciling reality!
For several years Esther worked with World Relief to help settle refugees throughout the Pacific NW.
While living in the Warm Beach Senior Community she worked tirelessly with the African Refugee Ministry team to visit churches throughout the state presenting the refugee camp needs to congregations and taking love offerings for that work.
Those offerings were mostly small ones from equally small sized churches and yet in time Esther helped to raise over 100,000 dollars in support of the refugee ministry.
Like Jesus, Esther took God’s love to the marginalized. She was about redemption for the last, the lost and the least.
And like Jesus, she found such work an uphill climb.
A revealing note in her book reads,
A Xenophobia revival is making the task of organizations which support refugees particularly arduous.
…Esther was no Xenophobe…she held no aversion in her heart to strangers and aliens.
Esther suffered from redemptive colorblindness which limited her to only seeing people with the vision of God’s love for them irrespective of their ethnicity.
Esther knew from Scripture that she lived in a world where the darkness of sin endeavors to hide people its’ cloak.
But she knew from her favorite psalm that with God,
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Esther believed that God can see in the dark where we can’t. That in fact God turns night into day and brings dawn to hopelessly night engulfed situations.
I specifically asked that when Ps. 139 was read in this service that the entire psalm would be read including verses 19-22.
I recall that during one of the first times I made a hospital visit to someone when a student pastor I read Ps. 139 to the patient.
After reading aloud all those great verses about God’s thoughts, light and presence with us, even from the womb to the end of our days, I got to the last verses and was suddenly reading the psalmist’s venting of wrath against God’s hated enemies and the look on the patient’s face changed from bliss to concern!
She even said to me after the reading…
Oh I never read those last verses…they just ruin the psalm!
I made a note to myself then and there never again to include those verses among my texts for pastoral care with people!
What was the psalmist thinking here?
Why ruin a perfectly good psalm with stuff about hating enemies when later in the gospels, Jesus would clearly be against doing that…right?
Well the point here and why I believe Esther read and applied all the verses of Ps. 139 to her life, is that when the psalmist says,
Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
The psalmist is standing with God against sin, wickedness and all the unrighteousness of fallen humankind.
These verses aren’t a so much a vindictive against people as they are an affirmation about committing to stand with God on the side of right.
They are about making God’s cause our cause.
And the fact that these verses are followed in vs. 23-24 by a plea for God to search the heart and life of the psalmist in order to make sure he is right with God, tells us that verses 19-22 need to be read in the context of a humbleness of spirit.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
This humbleness of spirit permeated Esther’s life as she walked the paths of social justice and of soul winning.
Justice and Evangelism for Esther were both scripted by God’s word and guided by God’s heart.
In sharing the saving news about Jesus Christ with others, Esther never did so with a holier than thou attitude. She was never condescending in her soul winning.
In fact, Esther was the perfect fisher of people.
She knew that God included all types of fish in his catch and she was always aware and grateful that she herself had been caught in the net as one of those types!
Esther had a marvelous openness to people always seeing them as included in the sphere of God’s love no matter what type of fish they were…common or odd!
Like Acts 17 and Paul in the marketplace of ideas, Esther went where the people were and connected with them and their contexts.
She was a relater of the good news…showing people how God’s saving work in Christ was relevant to their lives and situations.
Wherever people were at, cynical religionists, tentative seekers or avowed unbelievers, Esther was always operating in I Peter 3:15 mode.
She was always prepared to give an answer to everyone who asked her to give the reason for the hope she had in Christ.
With the way everlasting as her concern, Esther was always cultivating relationships with people.
Her sister Eunice told Matt that when she herself arrived to begin living at the Warm Beach Senior Community she soon met nine different people who each told her they were Esther’s best friend! Esther had made each of them feel that special.
In the ER after her fall while everyone was showing their concern for Esther, her one concern was that someone would contact the young woman she was to have Bible study with and tell her Esther couldn’t make it this week.
Esther loved people because God so loves the world.
And like God who gave his son for the world, Esther gave herself for others that they might know him who loves them.
Scripted by God’s word, Esther was a new creation conversationalist.
She was an illuminated witness to the God who lights the darkest places and brings hope to the hopeless.
Esther leaves us with the sure witness that God had created her inmost being…God had knit Esther’s life together from the womb to the end of the days which were ordained for her.
How vast were the sum of God’s thoughts in Esther’s life.
In her own words of testimony Esther writes,
I gave my heart to Jesus when I was a child of 6 years old…Although I was very young, I understood that I had not given my heart to Jesus. I remember speaking to my mother and telling her I wanted to be “saved.” She knelt with me by our library table and I prayed and entered the family of God.
There have been bumps along the way and many trips to the altar, but there was solid ground under my feet and that first decision has held firm.
This would be Esther’s desire for each of us.
That we would each know the One who saves and make him known to others.
And now as we are parted from her for a time we are assured by her favorite psalm that when she awakes she will still and ever be with her Lord.
May the life and witness of Esther E. Whitehead-Jackson be an encouragement to each of us to trust in the God who is present in all things…bidden or unbidden, he is there…Esther’s life assures of this.
Amen.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
...rants by Me on-Limited Grace and A Lack of Extended Forgiveness
Lately I keep hearing about examples of limited grace and a lack of extended forgiveness.
NPR did a piece last week about a fundamentalist church congregation that likes to show up at funerals for gay soldiers and proclaim God's wrath on them and their families. They do this with signs that read things like God hates fags! and Thank God for another dead gay soldier. I just can't see Jesus taking this approach. ...Pharisees yes, Jesus no. I think Jesus would want to reach out to the grieving family and not make things even harder from them to be open to God's love and leadership in their lives by using some self-righteous, ham fisted and wrong headed witnessing tactics. These church folk say that the reason the US Armed Forces is currently experiencing casualties in the middle east is because America tolerates gays. So does this mean that the logic of their argument is, that if we got rid of all the gays tonight then tomorrow forward our armies would be invincible? Think McFly, think! Didn't Hiltler try this for his army with the Jews? Or was it the Ark of the Covenant I forget.
Recently I experienced a wonderful weekend of spiritual renewal led by an amazing Spirit-filled woman who's daily walk with God rivals that of the apostle Paul. Yet someone came to me after and suggested that because this woman was on the stout side body type wise, that this person felt her ministry was less valid. Overweight Christians (this would be the average America person including me) unite! WOW is this person missing God's point! Talk about the wrong focus! In I Samuel 16:7 it reads, The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” In saying it is finished Jesus was announcing to the world that the doing which was needed in order for salvation to happen had in truth been finally accomplished. Jesus did it so now it was done. Salvation was a done deal. There is nothing we need to do to experience it other than use our faith to bask in it and let it permeate us. That’s all.
Outside or inside? Shallow or deep?...where are we focused?
And then I have a dear friend currently struggling with God's forgiveness in his own life (who doesn't?).
We all wrestle with the works and grace issue, the doing and done thing. Some of us can't handle that God really loves us and we don't have to earn that love or merit God's forgiveness...in fact there is nothing we can be or do to earn these things. Others of us though receive God's gift of grace, but then once saved we go right back to what I call White Knuckle Christianity. WKC is when God saves us by grace and then we take over again and try to become a new person by pulling ourselves up by our own self-help boot straps.
Grace has saved me and now I must try harder to be better! Sound familar? Dr. Henry Cloud of Boundaries fame asks us to think who are we, the person riding in the ambulance or the driver of it?
So here's my parting thought on the lack of forgiveness we show others and ourselves and the limited amounts of grace we seem to despense to the same:
…Not do, but be.
…Be inside the done.
As theologian Karl Barth says,
In His death He exercised judgment according to His wonderful righteousness, and He did so once and for all for the sins of all men. Is not the result of this just judgment mercy and forgiveness for all? Who, then, is not included? Which category of particularly great sinners is exempted from the pardon effected on the basis of the death penalty carried out at
Amen brother Barth.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
The Way of Peace
Its Christmas Day 2010 and I am thinking of the angelic announcement, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors. (Luke 2:14). We usually read and say this as simply, Peace on earth and Good Will toward Men. Anyway you translate it the idea is of course that with Jesus' birth the possibility of peace among humans is enhanced, perhaps even truly enabled. But how?
Human history has been anything but a peace parade! The very fact that what Jesus came to bring, namely grace, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation shows us that the world is full of their opposites. The world is a vivid contrast to each of these divine gifts. This is true with individuals, small groups and nations with nations. The need for peace on earth is demonstrated daily by the discord within each of ourselves on the micro and macro scales. The need is real, but again what is the way for finding the meeting of the need? Dietrich Bonhoeffer sheds some light on this for us.
I have been reading a recent bio of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas called Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Bonhoeffer is the Christian theologian who was an activist in the resistence movement in Germany against Adolf Hitler. He was also involved in one of the many plots to assassinate the dictator and was later executed for it. At age 28 Bonhoeffer addressed a gathering of German church leaders and gave his now often quoted and memorable Peace Speech. This was a call for Christians to hear God's Word and obey it. In the speech Bonhoeffer points to the path to peace and that path is a radical one. I believe this way answers the question for us about how peace can be achieved among humans. Here's a quote from the speech:
There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.
On this Christmas Day I am reminded that the babe born in Bethlehem was, as the hymn writer says, Born to die, that man might live. The way of peace and of the reconciliation which brings that peace, is the way of the cross. It is by death to selfishness that the way is cleared for peace to reign. Only when we choose not to take offense, but love and forgive the offender, will we be following in the way of the Prince of Peace. This way of the cross can be taken by us in our daily interactions with others and our world. It is a hard way, because it is not a natural course for us. But when we take it we are demonstrating our trust in the One who lived, died and rose again to take that path ahead of us and bid us follow after him upon it.
Human history has been anything but a peace parade! The very fact that what Jesus came to bring, namely grace, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation shows us that the world is full of their opposites. The world is a vivid contrast to each of these divine gifts. This is true with individuals, small groups and nations with nations. The need for peace on earth is demonstrated daily by the discord within each of ourselves on the micro and macro scales. The need is real, but again what is the way for finding the meeting of the need? Dietrich Bonhoeffer sheds some light on this for us.
I have been reading a recent bio of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas called Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Bonhoeffer is the Christian theologian who was an activist in the resistence movement in Germany against Adolf Hitler. He was also involved in one of the many plots to assassinate the dictator and was later executed for it. At age 28 Bonhoeffer addressed a gathering of German church leaders and gave his now often quoted and memorable Peace Speech. This was a call for Christians to hear God's Word and obey it. In the speech Bonhoeffer points to the path to peace and that path is a radical one. I believe this way answers the question for us about how peace can be achieved among humans. Here's a quote from the speech:
There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.
On this Christmas Day I am reminded that the babe born in Bethlehem was, as the hymn writer says, Born to die, that man might live. The way of peace and of the reconciliation which brings that peace, is the way of the cross. It is by death to selfishness that the way is cleared for peace to reign. Only when we choose not to take offense, but love and forgive the offender, will we be following in the way of the Prince of Peace. This way of the cross can be taken by us in our daily interactions with others and our world. It is a hard way, because it is not a natural course for us. But when we take it we are demonstrating our trust in the One who lived, died and rose again to take that path ahead of us and bid us follow after him upon it.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Amazing Plot Twist.
Told in two acts, the first is about a wealthy executive named Kingo Gondo (Mifune) who mortgages all he has to stage a leveraged buyout and gain control of a company called National Shoes, with the intent of keeping the company out of the hands of its other executives. Gondo disagrees with the executives over the direction of the company. One faction wants to make the company a modern mass market low quality manufacturer while the founder of the company tries to keep it conservative with good quality. Gondo believes he can split the difference by making high quality modern shoes. Then he is told that his son has been kidnapped. Gondo is prepared to pay the ransom, until he learns that the kidnappers have mistakenly abducted the child of Gondo's chauffeur, instead of his own son.
The kidnapping occurs in parallel with the corporate buyout drama and Gondo is forced to make a decision about whether to pay the ransom or complete the buyout. His vulnerable position is exposed to the other executives when his top aide betrays him to protect himself. Finally, after a long night of contemplation and pressure from his wife and the chauffeur, Gondo decides to pay the ransom. This decision essentially seals his fate, as the other executives now have the power to vote him out of his directorship, leaving him hopelessly indebted. This move ends up making Gondo into a national hero, while the National Shoe Company is vilified and boycotted.
The second act follows police procedure as they put together clues to find the ransom money, and the kidnapper. It is revealed that the main kidnapper is in fact a medical intern at a nearby hospital, whose sole motive is his hatred for Gondo which stems from jealousy. His apartment is directly under Gondo's significantly larger house on an overlooking hill, one of the many hints of the film's title throughout the film. As the kidnapper gets rid of his accomplices by causing them to overdose on drugs, the detective hatches a plot to catch him when all seems lost. The detective lures him out of hiding by pretending that his accomplices survived his attempt to dispatch them. Most of the ransom money is recovered, but too late for Gondo to avert financial ruin. With the kidnapper facing a death sentence, he and Gondo finally meet face to face at the very end, and motives and feelings are examined.
For me the most dramatic moment of the film is when Gondo learns who has really been kidnapped. Now that he knows his own son is safe should he pay the ransom for the son of his lowly chauffeur? It’s a wonderful and unexpected twist in the plot. There really is no reason why Gondo should involve himself further. Why jeopardize the big business deal he is about to complete? His whole future rests on that deal and ransoming his driver’s son would virtually mean the ruining of that deal. And yet that is what Gondo does. He pays the ransom, not out of logic, but compassion. Kurosawa uses this plot device to reveal his character’s humanity.
This reminds me of a similar plot twist found in the Biblical story. Fallen humanity gives God no reason to be saved. All have sinned, all have fallen short of God’s glory, yet God reveals his divinity by saving us. In fact God becomes human to do so. It is as if we are all the children of some lowly, undeserving and minor worker, yet that does not stand in the way of God providing the ransom payment for us.
Kurosawa was on the right path…but it seems that God took things even further!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Thoughts on July 4th
In 1983 I had the privilege of traveling with Dr. Charles Kirkpatrick who was then General Secretary for Free Methodist World Missions. Through a series of circumstances God had enabled me to become a link in contacting the leadership of the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship. These were pastors and congregations who had been disenfranchised by the Hungarian State Church and who were then basically homeless having lost churches and parsonages which had been taken away from them by their government.
Some really great things happened on the trip and now we have a seminary in Buda Pest and a strong Free Methodist presence there. But I will never forget the moment when we landed at the Buda Pest airport.
We had taken off from Sweden for the last leg of our trip where I had been on a Swedish chocolate buying binge just prior to take off! As our plane rolled up to the terminal I looked out my window to see soldiers with automatic rifles standing at the foot of each plane’s stairway. I suddenly realized I wasn’t in Kansas any more!
This was especially confirmed later that night when driving to our host’s apt. we were stopped by police and had to show our papers.
…Just like in some Cold War spy movie!
These and other experiences from that visit in what was then known as an Iron Curtain country have given me a deep appreciation for the independence we enjoy in this country.
Today our nation celebrates that independence and much will be rightly made of it.
We thank God today for those founders who courageously pursued a vision of human government which may genuinely be called enlightened and unlike anything known before it. We also pay homage to the thousands of Americans which have sacrificed themselves to protect our independence in conflicts at home and abroad. Our heartfelt prayer today should be God bless America…God bless our leaders and our people with the wisdom and courage to live the right and just way in this fallen world of ours.
As Prov. 14:34 says,
Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a disgrace to any people.
And that is the issue isn’t it?...Sin?
No person or people can be free if they are not free from sin. No one is genuinely independent when bound by sin.
When God intervened to deliver his people from bondage in Egypt God did so by rescuing them from the powers of the gods of Egypt. The people’s salvation was realized as they discovered the living God and were led out to follow him in faith and obedience. This transformed these former slaves into the independent nation of Israel. Their freedom came through their relationship with God and whenever they forsook that relationship they found themselves in bondage once again.
This weekend millions of people across our nation will use the 4th as a reason to celebrate. Whether they will be genuinely thankful for America and the freedoms they enjoy here or just use the holiday as an excuse for self indulgence is up to them. But unless there is acknowledgment of sin and the need for repentance, individually and nationally, the celebration will be hollow at best.
As the Lords says 2 Chron. 7:14,
…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Individual and national sin is linked for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
This is why the ultimate source for independence is not a human vision or document, but the grace of God and the cross of Jesus Christ. God’s Word, not the words of man, is the way.
As we celebrate those patriots who suffered under the burden of foreign tyranny and sought to bring a solution to save this nation from it…to declare its’ independence from such power…let us not forget the One who came to bear the burden of the weight of everyone’s sin and to offer himself as the means whereby God can deliver us from its’ tyranny.
Some really great things happened on the trip and now we have a seminary in Buda Pest and a strong Free Methodist presence there. But I will never forget the moment when we landed at the Buda Pest airport.
We had taken off from Sweden for the last leg of our trip where I had been on a Swedish chocolate buying binge just prior to take off! As our plane rolled up to the terminal I looked out my window to see soldiers with automatic rifles standing at the foot of each plane’s stairway. I suddenly realized I wasn’t in Kansas any more!
This was especially confirmed later that night when driving to our host’s apt. we were stopped by police and had to show our papers.
…Just like in some Cold War spy movie!
These and other experiences from that visit in what was then known as an Iron Curtain country have given me a deep appreciation for the independence we enjoy in this country.
Today our nation celebrates that independence and much will be rightly made of it.
We thank God today for those founders who courageously pursued a vision of human government which may genuinely be called enlightened and unlike anything known before it. We also pay homage to the thousands of Americans which have sacrificed themselves to protect our independence in conflicts at home and abroad. Our heartfelt prayer today should be God bless America…God bless our leaders and our people with the wisdom and courage to live the right and just way in this fallen world of ours.
As Prov. 14:34 says,
Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a disgrace to any people.
And that is the issue isn’t it?...Sin?
No person or people can be free if they are not free from sin. No one is genuinely independent when bound by sin.
When God intervened to deliver his people from bondage in Egypt God did so by rescuing them from the powers of the gods of Egypt. The people’s salvation was realized as they discovered the living God and were led out to follow him in faith and obedience. This transformed these former slaves into the independent nation of Israel. Their freedom came through their relationship with God and whenever they forsook that relationship they found themselves in bondage once again.
This weekend millions of people across our nation will use the 4th as a reason to celebrate. Whether they will be genuinely thankful for America and the freedoms they enjoy here or just use the holiday as an excuse for self indulgence is up to them. But unless there is acknowledgment of sin and the need for repentance, individually and nationally, the celebration will be hollow at best.
As the Lords says 2 Chron. 7:14,
…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Individual and national sin is linked for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
This is why the ultimate source for independence is not a human vision or document, but the grace of God and the cross of Jesus Christ. God’s Word, not the words of man, is the way.
As we celebrate those patriots who suffered under the burden of foreign tyranny and sought to bring a solution to save this nation from it…to declare its’ independence from such power…let us not forget the One who came to bear the burden of the weight of everyone’s sin and to offer himself as the means whereby God can deliver us from its’ tyranny.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Contextualizing Life
Yesterday I went to my daughter Elizabeth’s graduation ceremony. She has completed her B.A. as a History major through the University of Washington. She graduated on the Dean’s List. When she began college she was a single Mom. For the last four years she has managed being a mother, a student, and later a wife with a home to run. Throughout she has maintained an A grade level and not lost her sense of enjoyment for her studies. I am very proud of her to say the least!
At the ceremony the head of the History department talked about the study of history as a means for contextualizing a person’s life. I was struck by that insight. We live in such an instant society where the NOW seems so important and history is what happened last week or last month or maybe, if you stretch it, five or ten years ago at best. Once on a flight home I sat next to a high school age boy and a twenty something woman. At one point they began discussing life and especially his school experience and he made the remark, I just don’t get all this history stuff. I mean what does my knowing about the Civil War have anything to do with my life today?...My heart sank.
George Santayana (1863-1952) philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist said, Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. Maybe a more contemporary application of his observation might be that failure to understand history can leave a person and a culture without a context.
Has anyone checked recently to see where we are going as a society? From individuals to our nation as a whole we appear to have very little sense of direction other than the to do lists of the moment. People live their lives today like they are adrift. They have lost their moorings. Could it be a loss of context…mental, emotional, historic and spiritual? Are we only preoccupied with self and its’ interests? Sure seems that way. Perhaps that is the best we can do when we have little or no historic framework for our lives…for our culture?
At the ceremony the head of the History department talked about the study of history as a means for contextualizing a person’s life. I was struck by that insight. We live in such an instant society where the NOW seems so important and history is what happened last week or last month or maybe, if you stretch it, five or ten years ago at best. Once on a flight home I sat next to a high school age boy and a twenty something woman. At one point they began discussing life and especially his school experience and he made the remark, I just don’t get all this history stuff. I mean what does my knowing about the Civil War have anything to do with my life today?...My heart sank.
George Santayana (1863-1952) philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist said, Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. Maybe a more contemporary application of his observation might be that failure to understand history can leave a person and a culture without a context.
Has anyone checked recently to see where we are going as a society? From individuals to our nation as a whole we appear to have very little sense of direction other than the to do lists of the moment. People live their lives today like they are adrift. They have lost their moorings. Could it be a loss of context…mental, emotional, historic and spiritual? Are we only preoccupied with self and its’ interests? Sure seems that way. Perhaps that is the best we can do when we have little or no historic framework for our lives…for our culture?
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Last December I went in for my annual exam. After several years of exercise and weight lifting I went to the doctor's with a cocky attitude! I couldn't wait for the part where he asked me to take off my shirt so I could show off the results of my weight lifting labors.
The next day I did the routine blood work...the day after that the nurse called to tell me my PSA count had doubled since last year's exam. What followed was a journey from January to May of antibiotics, tests and finally a biposy. Cancer. Early, but aggressive. WOW who would of thought?
On May 18 I had four hours of robotic surgery. Now I am on the mend. Not so cocky now. More aware of Who is really in control of things.
For months now James 4:13-16 has been cycling through my mind with great regularity.
It says,
Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.
Too bad it takes a jolt from cancer or some such thing to remind us we are not actually the Captains of our Fate, but rather creatures in the hands of the living God.
...Awesome, yet GOOD what better hands to be in than His.
The next day I did the routine blood work...the day after that the nurse called to tell me my PSA count had doubled since last year's exam. What followed was a journey from January to May of antibiotics, tests and finally a biposy. Cancer. Early, but aggressive. WOW who would of thought?
On May 18 I had four hours of robotic surgery. Now I am on the mend. Not so cocky now. More aware of Who is really in control of things.
For months now James 4:13-16 has been cycling through my mind with great regularity.
It says,
Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.
Too bad it takes a jolt from cancer or some such thing to remind us we are not actually the Captains of our Fate, but rather creatures in the hands of the living God.
...Awesome, yet GOOD what better hands to be in than His.
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