Thursday, August
17, 2017
Then I saw in heaven another marvelous event of great
significance. Seven angels were holding
the seven last plagues, which would bring God’s wrath to completion. I saw before me what seemed to be a glass sea
mixed with fire. And on it stood all the
people who had been victorious over the beast and his statue and the number
representing his name. They were all
holding harps that God had given them. And
they were singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the
Lamb:
“Great and marvelous
are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty.
Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and glorify your
name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you,
for your righteous deeds have been revealed.”
Revelation 15:1-4(NLT)
I have this
love-hate kind of adversarial relationship with my radiation mask. Every weekday for the past few weeks I’ve
willingly climbed on the table and two sweet technicians begin their torture
routine:
Head back…no not that way…c’mon lift those knees a bit…shoulders down…more…! Then
comes the mask (which was custom-made to fit my facial and shoulder contours) pinning
me to the table with little fastening clips that hold a preacher in place so
the radiation can fry my vocal cords.
Well, more accurately, so they can fry the tumor on my vocal cords.
That mask presses me down more tightly than ugly is found inside an
envelope from the IRS! I hate that mask;
I love that mask! There are times in
life when you wake up to a startling fact:
not everything which opposes you is really the enemy.
Who
we are and What we do
Ambivalence,
those mixed feelings, when you despise something, yet there is something
redeeming that pulls you towards it…is something we find in many passages of
Holy Scripture. Mostly this is because
Scripture deals with who we are, and what we do.
Human
beings are created in the image of God with body, soul, and spirit. We possess the gift of autonomy, the freedom
to choose. Because we have free will to
determine how we live, we are also subject to the outcome of our actions. We love the freedom and often despise the
consequences. When we find ourselves hating
what we are experiencing, but deep-down knowing there is something necessary
about it, we have to remember the bad
news of our circumstance is often a messenger of hope.
So, how
should you act when that kind of messenger shows up?
When the
doctor said it was cancer, and made this barbaric medieval mask to make my treatment
more accurate and effective, I did not shoot the messenger!
When a
parent violently snatches her small child off the railroad tracks because there
is a train coming, that Mom is not the enemy!
When a true
friend delivers the news that you’re walking dangerously close to ruining your
reputation with something you’ve been planning to do, there’s a reason to stop
and listen.
And when
God sends the last of seven plagues on the earth, it will not be because He
despises mankind. Scripture declares it
will be the signal for unending eternal praise to begin, for God has completed
His promise of redemption…and the party is about to begin!
If my
doctor’s treatment to address the physical enemy in my throat works the way he
planned, in another 19 days my relationship with the mask will come to a
merciful end. A few weeks later I should
start to feel a whole lot better. It
will have been a difficult, but blessed relationship with my mask…my blessed
enemy!
For You Today
At times in
our lives it may seem like God is the enemy, that He’s trampling all the grapes
of wrath on your head. But never despair
in that direction; He is the truest of friends, faithful and strong on your
behalf. Be of good courage!
[1] Title Image: Russell
Brownworth (own work)
No comments:
Post a Comment