Night Waiting

[1]

Friday, August 10, 2018

From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.  Hear my cry, O Lord.  Pay attention to my prayer.  Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.  I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him.  I have put my hope in his word.  I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn, yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.  O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love.  His redemption overflows.  He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.  Psalm 130:1-8^(NLT)

It’s hard to forget the angst of waiting for the dawn when you’re on sentry.  There is always something so unfriendly about the darkness.  It is no wonder Scripture uses darkness as a descriptive for sinful activity; it’s something that has inherent destruction about it, and always leads to no-good.

My unit in Vietnam did not have overwhelming casualties; we were in more secure areas than some.  However, we still had to be on guard.  When my turn came around to pull guard duty through the night it seemed they were the longest nights of the century.  We were posted by twos to the guard stations, and, although we became sleepy, the threat of an enemy sneaking into the camp was more than enough to keep us alert…and on edge!

During one moonless night shift it was so still and dark, even the sound of an ant breathing could disturb the silence.  Suddenly a firefight broke out in the valley below us.  It was truly unnerving to see the flashes of rifles and feel the thunderous concussion of grenades and mortars exploding, and the helicopter gunships above raining-down streaks of machine-gun fire.  In 20 minutes, that seemed three-weeks long, it was over, and you could see and smell the traces of leftover smoke from the explosions, floating, slowly fading to dark and quiet.  The memory of death, altogether dark and quiet; this is the fearful waiting of the night.

The Psalmist was hoping desperately for the dawn.  He compared his waiting to the angst of the military sentries longing for dawn.  But the kind of dawn he was longing to see wasn’t of physical threats of darkness and death; the writer of this Psalm was agonizing through the long night of darkness in the soul of his nation.  This was a spiritual void, a place of godlessness that created an unlit void in the God-shaped place we humans call our hearts.  When we walk in sin, we give power to the darkness to overwhelm and take us prisoner.

But the prophets pointed to the dawn:

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his servant?  If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God.  Isaiah 50:10^(NLT)

For You Today

The most unique departure from the constraints of nature and the physical absence of light, compared to spiritual darkness, is a matter of control.  In the physical realm, humans have no control over when the sun comes up…that’s God’s work. 

But we have the Lord God in which to trust, Who removes our spiritually-blind ways…and the switch of faith is always within reach – and entirely our choice.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Hope - Despair

[1]

Monday, July 30, 2018

For we live by believing and not by seeing.   

2 Corinthians 5:7^(NLT)

I’ve still got the dog tags from my stint in the U.S. Army.  Every soldier wears these for identification in case you’re wounded or dead and need to be identified.  There is a line on the tag which is for religious information; mine read no preference.  After all, I was 19, and knew everything.  I was in ignorance…literally.  I identified as an agnostic, one who couldn’t be said to be an atheist, but rather chose to simply say nobody can actually know if there is a god or not.  The word’s etymology says it all.  In ancient Greek gnosis is knowledge; if you put an “a” in front it turns into a negative (a·gnosis), and it simply designates the opposite of knowledge.  An agnostic says you’re against knowing!  How appropriate for a 19-year-old know-it-all!

Scripture declares that our faith (everyone has at least a seed of faith) is what will produce hope (as opposed to despair).  Faith, nurtured and given a chance to grow, naturally moves towards He who IS hope, Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, resurrected on the third day, ascended to the Father in Heaven, and coming again to judge the quick and the dead.

Now, at 19, this slow learner wasn’t ready to understand that, or admit it.  It was “safer” (so I thought in my 19-year-old wisdom) to toddle off to Vietnam with agent orange, bullets and bombs, and anti-personnel mines everywhere you walk, with any faith-belief system placed on-hold. Because, in my chosen ignorance – agnosticism, knowledge that you KNOW you can’t know anyway…well, the reality is, I just didn’t want to think my parents might be right.  The government had issued me a flak jacket, helmet, and M-14 rifle; that seemed a whole lot more protection than a god I couldn’t see.  I had 19-year-old wisdom, after all, and anyone that wise understands, it’s all up to chance, and the strong are the ones who survive and get it done.

Fast forward a half-century.

I’m a lot older now…and just a little wiser than that kid getting on a plane for Vietnam.  What I discovered in the interim is two-fold:

1.      It is only by the grace of the God I put on-hold that I was not killed that year in my agnostic wisdom and woke-up in hell.

2.      Even if a person is struggling with faith in God, choosing to believe what you cannot seem to prove is smarter than just ignoring Him with a fancy-sounding name, like agnostic.

There are, after all, only two possibilities:

1.      There is no god…it’s all as Karl Marx phrased it, that religion is the opiate of the masses, just a pacifier to suck-on to get through life without going mad.

2.      There is God…and, as Creator and Sustainer of all life, He is personal and has a prior claim on our lives, so we’d better get our stuff together and honor Him.

But, even putting aside the agnostic’s chief rationale, that you really can’t know for sure that God exists, there is a firm footing to be gained in choosing to believe anyway.  That footing (believe it or not) is Karl Marx – the opiate, (drug, if you will) of faith does indeed produce hope.  And hope is a whole lot lovelier than despair to walk around with, even if there isn’t a God.

From one who has been on both sides of that equation – I choose hope; I choose faith in God. 

And, incidentally, when I chose to walk by faith, and not by my willful agnosticism, a wonderful thing happened; my faith grew into hope in the faith once-delivered to the saints.  And I understood agnosticism is just as empty-headed as it implies.  You can know He is real, and His love will keep you with assurance that you are His, and loved.

For You Today

By the way, did you know Karl Marx was right at this point:  without acting on our faith, trusting in the God we can’t see – life will not make any sense, and will lead you to despair, and the ultimate choice for the agnostic or atheist – opting out.  There is a long list[2] of well-known people living against-faith who have done that – Ernest Hemmingway, Robyn Williams, and Anthony Bourdain, just to name a few.  In the end their disposition is not much different than one of the most famous – Judas Iscariot.

So, here’s the advice on struggling with faith – do what John Wesley, founder of Methodism, was advised by Peter Boehler[3] a wise Moravian missionary.  Wesley was struggling to have faith; Boehler said:  Preach faith until you have faith. 

So, my friend, walk by faith until your need for sight disappears!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] 23 Lists (celebrities who have committed suicide)

[3] See Boehler on Wikipedia.com

Wake Up Calls

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Thursday, July 5, 2018

Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”  Instantly, the man was healed!  He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!  But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected.  They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath!  The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”  But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”  “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.  The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.  But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.”  Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.  John 5:8-15^(NLT)

I’ve had quite a few wake-up calls in my 71 years.  Some of the things that happen to us are God’s way of getting our attention.  Here are a few of mine:

The Knees – when I was a freshman in high school the doctor looked at the lumps in my knees and called it something I couldn’t pronounce – osteochondrosis.  Even today I have to recheck the spelling on that one.  Here’s a brief definition:

Osteochondrosis is a family of orthopedic diseases of the joint that occur in children, adolescents and other rapidly growing animals, particularly pigs, horses, dogs, and broiler chickens.[2]

So, fine…my first wake-up call put me in the barnyard!  I spent a whole summer as a 14-year-old not playing baseball or getting off the couch!  But I did get to think a lot about why bad stuff happens to really good people (in my case…just why bad stuff happens).

The Bees – put me in the hospital.  I was helping Dad trim some dead branches out of the oak tree that threatened the back of our house.  I picked on the wrong branch; the one with a yellow jacket nest.  Dad was holding the ladder; he looked up when I started hollering.  (Later he told me he couldn’t see my face, it was covered in yellow and black creatures).  Anaphylactic shock from bee venom closes off your airway.  Dad raced his second-born to Doc Bleeden’s house only half-conscious.  Two days in the hospital was something of a vacation compared to jumping out of an oak tree to get away from the bees.

The Knee – this time wasn’t mine, but Harry’s when I was 16.  Harry and I played high school football together.  We were supposed to be on the same team, but this was practice, and Harry’s knee met Russell’s left side.  The spleen split, and I woke up three days later with tubes everywhere.  Once again…lots of time to think about it.

The VC’s (Vietcong) – As a nineteen-year-old, Uncle Sam thought I’d be useful in southeast Asia.  I would have preferred spending my two-year Army career in Colorado, or maybe Honolulu, but Vietnam was the order, and this time I had 11 months and 28 days to deal with heat and people who wanted me dead.  I did get to visit Honolulu, by the way; Elizabeth and I met there for R&R half-way through my Vietnam tour. 

The wake-up calls of my teens must have provided enough angst for my parent’s hair to turn white a few hundred times over. 

I’m familiar enough with these wake-up calls to know how it drives you to think about your mortality – that your days are numbered, and God has that number.  I’m also familiar enough with them to understand that, one of those wake-up calls may not do it; sometimes God needs to use a two-by-four to get our attention.  I’ll save that experience for another day!

For the man Jesus healed – a paralyzed beggar who had been that way for 38 years, sitting, begging – sitting, begging, every day for 38 years…one call just didn’t do it.  He met the King of the universe, who brought strength to useless legs, and gave him a new life…and all the man could do is report him to the human authorities, so he wouldn’t get a ticket for carrying his mat on the Sabbath!

Russell finds it hard to condemn this man…I’ve had more wake-up calls than that, and still didn’t get the message.  I’m a lot older now, and a little bit wiser; I’m learning.

For You Today

Everyone has bad stuff that comes our way.  For me it was bees, knees (several times), and VC’s.  For you…well, you know those, don’t you? 

Have you learned, like I’m beginning to learn…that God wants your attention…one way, or another?  It’s true…wake-up calls are a gift; don’t waste them.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Wikipedia

Lenten Walk - Part 14

[1]

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven.  He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf.  Hebrews 9:24^(NLT)

When I was six or seven my younger cousin Gary stayed with us for part of the summer.  I’m certain the dog days of August, and the patience of both sets of parents wearing-thin had something to do with this plan! 

Gary brought with him several armies of little plastic toy soldiers.  Our backyard provided plenty of sandy “wilderness”.  For two kids being raised in Post WWII America, playing “battle” was a pretty common experience.  We spent hours outside in the sands of my childhood home devising all kinds of scenarios where our troops would be in imminent peril from the enemy’s superior numbers.  Somehow, through some magical turn of events (which we always put off until Mom called us the first time for dinner) there would be a heroic stand against the forces of evil, and our boys were victorious; we always won!

Fast-forward a dozen years and it wasn’t the August sands of our backyard, but the heat and dust of South Vietnam.  There were no plastic action figures to move fearlessly through the perils to win the war before dinner.  This was real, scary, and, for a 19 year-old boy from Long Island, an excruciating introduction to the ugliness of what it means to have a sinful nature, the result of fallen humanity. 

More than 50 years later, the comparison of the invincibility of playtime with toy soldiers in the early 1950’s, and the extreme mortal vulnerability I experienced around my 20^th birthday being the action figure some generals moved around, is still vivid enough to enter my dreams at times.

I have relived the emotions over the years as we hold our parades for the warriors who manage to return; the uniforms are smart and starched, and the music is inspiring.  Sentiment runs high for the courageous warriors; we praise their sacrifice…and then Mom calls out the back door that dinner is on the table…and we know it’s time to get back to real life.

This isn’t cynicism, but something of a realistic sadness that, whatever doesn’t fit with our playground, idealistic, heroic ideas of war, we cast-off as irrelevant – including the soldiers that no longer fit in a culture that cannot deal with the roller-coaster effects of their PTSD-driven anger.  We conveniently move-on, as if the call to wash-up for dinner trumps the anguish of the soldiers we placed in harm’s way.

The Temple in Jerusalem had become a backyard playground for religious leaders.  They went through the motions which only a settled, religious, repeated experience can provide.  The shock experienced when Jesus showed up and turned over centuries of ceremonial pretense in the religious community was like an earthquake on steroids. 

Jesus put an end to the endless ceremonial sacrificing of animals in Jerusalem’s Temple when he came to be the ultimate sacrifice.  And when He entered heaven to stand for us, offering His own blood as payment for our sins there was, and is, nothing left to do; Calvary was the war to end all wars. 

For You Today

Lent should remind us that the battle is over, and the victory has been won.  It should remind us that the cost was ultimate, and we should put away our action figures and be all grown-up into Christ.

All else is petty.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Living In a War Zone

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Monday, October 16, 2017

But you, my dear friends, must remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ predicted.  They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires.  These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you.  They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.  But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life.  In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.  And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering.  Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment.  Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.  Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.  All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord.  All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time!  Amen.  Jude 17-25^(NLT)

Living in a war zone is not the happiest place on planet earth.  Most of us do not want to be in a place of combat.  Yet, there are enough of those places in our journey through life to validate the old phrase out of the frying pan, into the fire!

The effects of living too long under the stress of actual combat circumstances can leave one empty and debilitated.  There are a lot of names for it:  battle fatigue, combat neurosis, combat fatigue, shell shock, anxiety disorder, survivor guilt, posttraumatic stress disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder associated with serious traumatic events and characterized by such symptoms as survivor guilt, reliving the trauma in dreams, numbness and lack of involvement with reality, or recurrent thoughts and images[2].  Medical studies show PTSD occurs in as much as 35% of Vietnam Veterans, 50% of survivors of natural disasters, and as high as 80% of survivors of manmade disasters, such as the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India in 1984[3].

It is a reality that the human mind was not meant to live in horror!  I have dear friends, family, and have personally experienced the PTSD effects of living in a war zone.  I am thankful for the unselfish dedication and skill of those who help victims of all kinds get through the dark periods of remembering the hell that never should have been!

Jude warns that divisions in the church would be a constant threat to the spiritual health of Christians, because war-like conditions are brought about when selfish ambition takes over.  If you have followed Christ, and been part of the church, you understand; despite the smiles on Sunday, there are spiritually shell-shocked believers in every pew.

Jude also offers the Rx for spiritual PTSD – mercy, plenty of mercy!  Those of us in the church who have tried to follow Christ faithfully, and been helped along the way with our own wavering faith, are to be there for others.  We are to be an example of what genuine faith looks like; we are to be hands-on, standing committed to shore-up the faith of those who stumble.

Contrary to the cynical remark about the church of Jesus Christ being the only army that shoots its own wounded…the genuine Church is the one that follows the example of her Master, willing to bear one another’s burdens, and even die for each other.

For You Today

There are many today who are walking around hollow-eyed, emptied of hope, and ready to give up.  Some are “former” believers, blown-apart by the struggles of the war zones of our culture.  They need someone to come alongside and be their hope while Christ becomes their salvation.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of:  Pixabay.com

[2] Synonymns.com

[3] McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine, ©2002

No Need to Knock - part 2

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Friday, January 6, 2017

 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”  Galatians 4:6^(NLT)

There is nobody in the world who can call me Didah but my grandchildren.  I hate the sound of it from adult lips (perhaps enough to fight),

but when my grandchildren (or their children) say it, my heart melts like a snowball in a microwave!  I even drive a car with a license plate that proclaims it!

Abba is the Hebrew equivalent of Daddy.  Only little, loved children can say that!  If being a true child of a loving, caring, Heavenly Father doesn't make your heart laugh, you either have a bankrupt notion of true fatherhood, or you’re  stone-cold dead.

Now, there is only one thing that ever stands between God and His child having this kind of fellowship – sin.  We are all subject to temptation and falling.  But when we fall into temptation, our fellowship can be restored, as well as intimacy that allows us to enjoy the laughter of God, by repenting of sin:

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.  1 John 1.9^(NLT)

The reality about prayer, even intimate prayer where you can cry, Abba, Father, is that not all answers are yes, but every answer will have the full attention and wisdom of a loving Father who loves you and wants to hear from you. 

Adoption tells us we are wanted.  Abba tells us we are enjoyed. 

According to Scripture[ii], the promises of God are certain, and unquestionably true.  What is the promise Paul mentions as he writes to the Galatian believers? 

And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac.  Galatians 4:28^(NLT)

And like all children are expected to come home, so are Abba’s children expected in their home, Heaven.  Beloved, the laughter of God means we are wanted, enjoyed and expected home.  Home is a place called heaven, and it is wonderful beyond our imagination.  It is a place ringing with laughter and joy and love.  It is the place of God. 

A relationship with the Father means no knocking on Heaven's door like some stranger.  It means walking right in, wanted, enjoyed, expected. 

When serving in Vietnam in 1968 I got my orders to return home.  I wrote Elizabeth, telling my bride what time the flight would arrive.  The plane ride home was long, filled with turbulence and storms.  But, when I stepped off that plane, my whole family was there to greet me.  For the first hour there was nothing but hugging and kissing and tears and laughter.  It was the genuine laughter of reunion and the promise of much communion together.  I was home.

That, however is not even the smallest hint of what the reception in Heaven will be like. 

It’s similar in that, there, you have a family waiting to welcome you.  But, oh, not just your spouse, children, earthly mother, or father, or a lost sibling, or friend.  You have a heavenly Father, and an elder brother by the name of Jesus.

For You Today

There’s enough political mess, and horror show on the nightly news to make one cynical and full of despair.  Now might be a good time to lift your hands and eyes towards your real home and, with no need to knock, open the door wide with one word:  Abba!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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NOTES

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[i] Title image: By Scrypted (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

[ii] 2 Corinthians 1:20