Going and Not Knowing

"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).

When Abraham was seventy–five years of age, God called him from his home in Ur of the Chaldees to move to Haran, and then to Shechem, to Bethel, to Egypt, to the Negev, to Hebron… Rootless, homeless, “going…and not knowing.” That was the story of Abraham’s life.  

Age brings change, uncertainty, adjustment, transition from a familiar past to an uncertain future. It is movement from a family home, to a small apartment, to a retirement community, to a nursing home—the “last resort,” as one wag put it. 

So we, like Abraham, pass through paths unknown, making our way from one place to another, always traveling: “going…and not knowing.” 

But we could not be more safe for we dwell in the shelter of the Most High; we rest in the shadow of His wings. The "God of old" is our dwelling place and underneath are His everlasting arms (Deuteronomy 37:27).

Others may choose another habitation, but God is my dwelling place til traveling days are o'er and I reach my heart's true home. My days may be uncertain but my destination is secure: the place our Father prepared for His children long ago (John 14:1-4).

David Roper7.10.22

Please note: This will be my last post for awhile. I’m taking a break and “recalibrating” as my Google map app would say.

 

“Instead of…” "Instead of the thorn, a cypress tree will spring out of the ground; instead of a thistle, the myrtle bush—a living and lasting monument to God” (Isaiah 55:13).      It's one thing to eradicate thorns and thistles—barbed vines that encumber and impair those that pass by. It's another to see these plants turned into objects of towering strength and beauty.                    Ask God to do this for you: Ask Him to search you and show you the thorns and thistles in your speech and manner, the prickly ways that cause pain in others (Psalm 139:23,24). Ask Him to turn them into thoughts, words and acts that bless and beautify. God will do this in His own time and way, for Himself, for you and for others. It will be “a living and lasting monument” to God’s eternal goodness and grace. Wait for this. Expect it. God is able to do immeasurably more than you can imagine (Ephesians 3:20). David Roper 6.26.22

The Mountain of God

 

Let snow fall on Zalmon,

O mighty mountain, mountain of Bashan;

O many-peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan!

Why do you look with envy, O many-peaked mountain,

at the mount that God desired for his abode,

yes, where the LORD will dwell forever? 

—Psalm 68:14-16

 

Mount Zalmon is located in a chain of perennially snow-capped mountains between Lebanon and Syria with peaks that rise over 9,000 feet. In Canaanite mythology it was Baal's abode. 

 

Yet mighty Zalmon, a massive eminence, looks at little Mount Zion (2,300 feet) with "envy" for God has chosen it, as his dwelling place forever. And…

 

It shall come to pass in the latter days

that the mountain of the house of the LORD

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be lifted up above the hills;

and all the nations shall flow to it… (Isaiah 2:2). 

 

I’m reminded here of Peter’s words: “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you at the proper time” (1 Peter 5:5). 

 

So then, I say: I don’t have to be an mighty, “many-peaked” mountain to matter. I can be a little hill. 

 

David Roper

6.22.22

Open Wide!

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. —Psalm 81:10 

This verse begins with a direct quotation from the preamble to the Ten Commandments: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Thou shalt not; thou shalt not; thou shalt..." (Exodus 20:2).

Here in this psalm, however, where you might expect another list of rules, God offers a lovely grace-note: “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it."

Israel's history, like mine, is a tale of underachievement, yet God does not call for greater effort. He rather asks us to lay our "doing" down and receive what He has to give.

Trying to keep rules and make myself  a better person is a losing cause. I know because I tried it for years. God alone is the source of goodness for He alone is good. We must ask for his righteousness and keep on asking.

Long, long ago, on the Cross, Jesus did away with our wrong-doing. Now He lives to make us good children. If we open our mouths wide He will, in his time, fill us with love, joy, peace, patience, and all the other traits we admire in Him and seek for ourselves. He will feed us with the "finest of the wheat," and satisfy us with "honey from the rock" (Psalm 81:16).

"Honey from the rock!" Sweetness flowing from an unexpected source. Who could imagine that someone so "wholly other" could be so near at hand?

Weary, working, burdened one,Wherefore toil you so?Cease your doing; all was doneLong, long ago. —James Proctor

David Roper

5.30.22

* Photograph taken by our neighbor, Duane Gray. Used by permission.

Think on These Things

“Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8 The Message).

It’s generally thought that Paul had abstract thought in mind (right thinking) and that may have been his intention. I wonder, however, given the context of the book, if Paul is not encouraging us to think about the “things” that we observe in others.

Rather than fixing our minds on the flaws we see in our brothers and sisters would it not be better to think about those attitudes and actions that are “true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; the things to praise, not the things to curse?—the goodness that we see.

Rather than see, think and speak evil of others, would it not be better to fill our minds with these “things.”

David Roper 

The Life of Riley

 "I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking." —Carl Sagan

There's a little stream over in Eastern Oregon near the Idaho border called Riley Creek. It was named for "Judge" Riley, a prospector who grubbed for gold there in the 1870s, largely unrewarded.

Early one morning his partner left camp and discovered a rich deposit of gold near their campsite. He raced back shouting, "Wake up, Riley. We're rich!" "Wake up, Riley. We're rich!" Riley, however, was unmoved. He had died during the night in his sleep.

We live the life of Riley. We, "grunt and sweat under weary life," as Shakespeare said, and then we die. Why go on, we ask ourselves, when every beat of our heart, like a muffled drum, is marching us closer to the grave? Why work and toil and face an endless sequence of frustrations in a world where everyone sooner or later ends up under the ground?

Yet there is an odd hope that springs eternal, a "thing of feathers that perches in the soul," a wistful, flighty thought that perhaps some "thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue."

Mary Trumbull Slosson, a last century author whose quaint and profound folktales give a "glimpse of Joy beyond the walls of the world," writes of that hope in a story about a little boy that was "scaret of dying."

Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o' dyin'. Some folks is that way, you know; they ain't never done it to know how it feels, and they're scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa'n't very rugged, his health was sort o' slim, and mebbe that made him think about sech things more. `Tany rate, he was terr'ble scaret o' dyin'. `Twas a long time ago this was,—the times when posies and creaturs could talk so's folks could know what they was sayin'.

And one day, as this boy, his name was Reuben,—I forget his other name, —as Reuben was settin' under a tree, an ellum tree, cryin', he heerd a little, little bit of a voice,—not squeaky, you know, but small and thin and soft like, —and he see `t was a posy talkin'. `T was one o' them posies they call Benjamins, with three-cornered whitey blowths with a mite o' pink on `em, and it talked in a kind o' pinky-white voice, and it says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben? "And he says, "`Cause I'm scaret o' dyin'," says he; "I`m dreadful scaret o' dyin'." Well, what do you think? That posy jest laughed, the most cur'us little pinky-white laugh `t was,—and it says, the Benjamin says: "Dyin'! Scaret o' dyin'? Why, I die myself every single year o' my life." "Die yourself ! "says Reuben "You `re foolin'; you`re alive this minute." "`Course I be," says the Benjamin; "but that `s neither here nor there,—I've died every year sence I can remember." "Don't it hurt? "says the boy. "No, it don't," says the posy; "it `s real nice. You see, you get kind o' tired a-holdin' up your head straight and lookin' peart and wide awake, and tired o' the sun shinin' so hot, and the winds blowin' you to pieces, and the bees a-takin' your honey. So it's nice to feel sleepy and kind o' hang your head down, and get sleepier and sleepier, and then find you `re droppin' off. Then you wake up jest `t the nicest time o' year, and come up and look `round, and—why, I like to die, I do." But someways that didn't help Reuben much as you `d think. "I ain't a posy," he think to himself, "and mebbe I wouldn't come up."

Well, another time he was settin' on a stone in the lower pastur', cryin' again, and he heerd another cur'us little voice. ` T wa' n't like the posy's voice, but `t was a little, wooly, soft, fuzzy voice, and he see `twas a caterpillar atalkin' to him. And the caterpillar says, in his fuzzy little voice, he says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben? "And the boy, he says, "I `m powerful scaret o' dyin', that's why," he says. And that fuzzy caterpillar he laughed. "Dyin' ! "he says. "I `m lottin' on dyin' myself. All my fam'ly," he says, "die every once in a while, and when they wake up they `re jest splendid,—got wings, and fly about, and live on honey and things. Why, I would n't miss it for anything ! "he says. "I `m lottin' on it." But somehow that didn't chirk up Reuben much. "I ain't a caterpillar," he says, "and mebbe I would n't wake up at all."

Well, there was lots o' other things talked to that boy, and tried to help him,—trees and posies and grass and crawlin' things, that was allers a-dyin' and livin'. Reuben thought it didn't help him any, but I guess it did a little mite, for he could n't help thinkin' o' what they every one on `em said. But he was scaret all the same.

And one summer he begun to fail up faster and faster, and he got so tired he couldn't hardly hold his head up, but he was scaret all the same. And one day he was layin' on the bed, and lookin' out o' the east winder, and the sun kep' a-shinin' in his eyes till he shet `em up, and he fell asleep. He had a real good nap, and when he woke up he went out to take a walk.

And he begun to think o' what the posies and trees and creaturs had said about dyin', and how they laughed at his bein' scaret at it, and he says to himself, "Why, someways I don't feel so scaret to-day, but I s'pose I be." And jest then what do you think he done? Why, he met a Angel. He'd never seed one afore, but he knowed it right off. And the Angel says, "Ain't you happy, little boy?" And Reuben says, "Well, I would be, only I `m so dreadful scaret o' dyin'. It must be terr'ble cur'us," he says, "to be dead." And the Angel says, "Why, you be dead." And he was!

Spring posies, trees and creaturs are hints that there is hope for God has planned it that way. But spring alone may leave us with Reuben's worry: "I ain't a posy and mebbe I wouldn't come up."

Spring's hope may be only an illusion, a thought poet Richard Le Galliene picks up in a poem entitled "When I am Very Old." He writes of April baring her flowering breast "In secret woodlands, and, with eyes of dew/Lies to the others as once to me and you." That's why T. S. Eliot, in his pre-Christian days, thought April was, "the cruelest month."

There is a truer word: Jesus' said: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25,26).

Who said this? One who rose from the grave. Talk is cheap, they say. It's one thing to make a bold assertion; it's another to back it up. But back it up Jesus did by rising from the dead, "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection is the guarantee that God can bring us up and out of the ground. If we believe Jesus he assures us that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of us will continue after we die.

Living again means living out the thought of eternity that God has placed in our hearts; meeting loved ones lost through separating death; living in a world without blood, sweat and tears; seeing our Lord who loves us so much he gave up everything to unite us to him forever.

But there's another meaning I see: since we go around twice we don't have to go for all the gusto now. We may live in broken and ruined bodies for awhile; we may endure poverty and hardship for a time; we may face loneliness, heartache and pain for a season—but no matter. We don't have to have it all this time around. There is a second birth.

From my series: “For Heaven’s Sake"

David Roper
4.11.22

Like a Weaned Child

From Carolyn…

Good Morning, Friends,

So much of the world is in turmoil these days. As I look around so many of our friends have a measure of turmoil, pain and grief in their homes and in their hearts. Perhaps you can relate. Whether it's that one child who is always on your mind, or the next doctor's appointment for a health issue that does not go away, or too much month at the end of the paycheck. Or perhaps it is decisions that keep stacking up and you just don't know what change will bring.

As I was thinking of the muddles of life and the turmoil they can stir up in a heart,  it reminded me of something that happened years ago in Palo Alto. 

David and Ron Ritchie were asked to officiate at a funeral for the son of a missionary couple they knew. The young man rode with the Hell's Angels and died of a knife attack in San Francisco. The funeral was held in the woods in a basin in the Santa Cruz mountains. A large number of the Hells Angels all rode up together on their bikes. After the service where Jesus and the gospel were presented, the leader of the Angels came up to David and said,

 "I've got a putt and a pad and my 'ole lady, but I ain't got no peace." 

Sometimes in the turmoil we all realize we "ain't got no peace." Well, how do we get the peace God has promised, even after we have peace with Him?

Psalm 131 has been on my mind recently.

Psalm 131

A song of ascents. Of David

¹ My heart is not proud, Lo, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself. I am like a weaned child with its mother; Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.

I love that picture of a toddler resting on his mother, no fuss, no demands, no trauma. Just peace. And I have come to see it is possible to rest childlike on God and be at peace if we have done the two things above this picture. First, the psalmist had humbled himself before the Lord, not demanding or a proud look at the situation. Next, David realized and agreed that some things he will not understand. But God does. So David could rest peacefully and be content.

It wasn't that David just said, "Whatever." or "Oh well." But he was learning to trust God for the future. As he put his hope in the Lord he could wait in peace. Even when he did not understand. He knew the Lord as the child knew his mother.

This is not a one time thing, of course. But it is a posture we can take over and over.

Today I am praying for you to keep the picture of the peaceful child in your heart as I am praying to keep it in mine. I am praying you will find the  "peace that passes understanding" as you learn that the Lord is worthy of ruthless trust,  It's a process. The Holy Spirit is our Helper.

With Love from Above,

Carolyn

My Very Prop

“By faith Jacob worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.” —Hebrews 11:21 

There’s an antique umbrella rack in the entrance to our home in which we keep the canes and walking–sticks of several generations. One of my favorites is a slender staff with a gold–plated knob, engraved with the initials “DHR.” It belonged to Carolyn’s great–grandfather, Daniel Henry Rankin, whose initials, curiously, are mine. 

My study houses another collection: an intricately carved walking stick, hand-crafted by a friend, a shepherd’s crook from Israel, my father's peeled, apple–wood staff and his blackthorn shillelagh among others. 

Out in the garage there's a barrel filled with a collection of snowshoe and cross-country ski poles, wading wands and trekking sticks that I’ve gathered through the years. Now I've traded up to a bright-red “Nitro” walker. This is now “the staff of my age, my very prop" (Shakespeare), a daily reminder of my need to lean on God and his faithfulness. He has supported me in the past with his right hand; he is guiding me this day with his counsel; and “afterward he will receive me into glory” (Psalm 73:23,24). "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow." Who can ask for anything more?

Like old Jacob I too worship, “leaning on the top of my staff.” I’ve become rather fond of my prop. It reminds me every day that we all need Someone to lean on. 

David Roper
3.20.22

Lies Frae End to End

Some books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn’d:
Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,
In holy rapture,
A rousing whid (exaggeration) at times to vend (vent),
And nail’t wi’ Scripture.

—Robt Burns, “Death and Dr. Hornbrook”

“A man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last" (Acts 4:36-5:5).

Heavens to Murgatroyd! One lie, you die! 

Well, not exactly. This was a one-off to put down a marker: lying is serious sin. 

People who cheat, even a little, are generally dishonest in other areas. People know that and can’t fully trust them. "I’m not upset that you lied to me,” Fredrick Nietzsche lamented. “I'm upset that from now on I can not believe you.”

The fundamental reason to be truthful is Paul's reason: "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:9,10). God is the God "who cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). God's children, like their Father, are true through and through.   

Satan is the “father of lies." God is “the Father of light (truth)…” (James 1:17). So, I ask myself, "Who's my daddy?"

David Roper
3.17.22

Wrong Way Riegles

It was New Year’s Day, 1929. The University of California at Berkeley was playing Georgia Tech in the Rose Bowl. Roy Riegels, a Cal defensive back recovered a Georgia Tech fumble, ran laterally across the field, turned and scampered sixty–five yards in the wrong direction—straight toward Georgia Tech’s goal line.

One of his own players, Benny Lomm, tackled Riegles just before he scored for Georgia Tech. On the next play Georgia Tech blocked the punt and scored. 

During the half–time, Riegles hid in a corner of the UCLA locker room with a towel over his head. His coach, Nibbs Price, said nothing to him and very little to the team. Three minutes before the second half he said quietly, “The team that started the first half will start the second half. Riegles cried out: “I can’t, coach; I can’t go back in. I’ve humiliated the team, the school, myself. I can’t go back in.” “Get back in game, Riegles,” Price replied, “The game is only half over.”

Our failures may not be as conspicuous as Riegles’, but we all have our wrong–way runs and the memories that accompany them, recollections that rise up to taunt us in the night watches. There’s much of our past we would undo if we could, or redo. Louis Fletcher Tarkington wrote for all of us when she mused, 

I wish that there were some wonderful placeCalled the Land of Beginning Again,Where all our mistakes and all our heartachesAnd all of our poor selfish griefCould be dropped like a shabby old coat at the doorAnd never put on again.

There is such a place. It's found at the feet of Jesus, who freely sets our sins aside and puts us once more on the path of obedience. We must accept His full and free forgiveness and then forget ourselves. That we are sinners is undeniably true. That we are forgiven sinners is undeniable as well. We must take what forgiveness we need, put aside our "poor selfish grief” and get back in the game, for the game only half over.

“We remain such creeping Christians,” George MacDonald said, “because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments…. We mourn over the defilement to ourselves, and the shame of it before our friends, children or servants, instead of hastening to make the due confession and then forget our own paltry self with its well-earned disgrace and lift up our eyes to the glory which alone will quicken us….”

Price put Riegles’ miscue behind his back and got him back in the game… as does our gracious Lord.

What a coach! What a God!

David Roper

3.7.22
Excerpted from A Man to Match the Mountain

  

Fighting the Good Fight

"This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child...(that) you may fight the good fight, by holding on to faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this (conscience), some have made shipwreck of their faith" (1 Timothy 1.19)

In my first church, where I served for a time as a youth pastor, we offered a college prep course to graduating high school seniors to prepare them for college. We taught classes in theology and apologetics to provide a solid foundation for their faith, knowing that it would soon be under attack. 

Lately, however, I've come to see that most young men and women do not lose their faith in college because they’re overwhelmed by the logic of unbelief. They do so because they drift into sin. 

Temptations to sin abound, especially temptations to sexual sin, and most young Christians, away from the influence of parents, church, community and friends, are unprepared for these assaults on moral constraint. Little by little they sever their moral mooring-lines, drift out to open sea, founder on the shoals and "make shipwreck of their faith.".

This is the argument of the text above: The "good fight of faith" is waged by holding on to one's faith (the truths we believe) but also by keeping a good conscience (obedience to the truths we believe). The clause "by rejecting this" is the crux. The relative pronoun, "this" is singular and refers to the noun "conscience." "By rejecting conscience some have made shipwreck of their faith."

The verb “rejecting" is a strong word and means "to refuse to listen." We know what God is asking us to do, but we turn away from it to delve into sin and thus set in motion a chain of events that culminate in radical unbelief. The Message paraphrases the text this way: "There are some, you know, who...thinking anything goes have made a thorough mess of their faith."

Our consciences cry "foul" when we think and act contrary to the truth. If we fail to listen it will become more shrill and we must then try to assuage it. One way to do so is to deny the truth that's plaguing us. That rids us of the dissonance between our set of beliefs and our behavior. 

Then, the arguments we hear in the classroom that disparage the faith begin to take on resonance, gather strength and become more persuasive. Traditional arguments against the Faith are singularly unpersuasive when viewed objectively. It's when I want these arguments be true that they gain force and win my approval.

[It’s worth noting that apologetics (rational arguments for the faith) have little value in persuading non-Christians. They are, as John Calvin said, “secondary aids to our imbecility”—have some usefulness to encourage and strengthen those who already believe.]

How then do we fight the good fight and "hold on to faith" when that faith is challenged? By listening to the conscience as it's directed and corrected by God's word and then doing what he's asked us to do. 

And, it's worth noting, we'll always know what he's asking us to do.

David Roper
3.6.22

The Bush

One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is the account of Moses’ conversation with a bush, a story Jesus entitled simply, “The Bush” (Luke 20:37). 

This is the way Moses tells the story (Exodus 3). 

He was trudging through the desert trailing his father-in-law’s little band of sheep when he spied a bush. On fire. 

That in itself was not unusual for dry lightning often set fires in the desert. Nor was there anything special about the bush. It was a scraggly, old desert sage or creosote bush, one of millions, barely subsisting in the wilderness. But extraordinarily, the bush was not consumed by the flames. 

So Moses turned aside to see the sight, whereupon, he encountered a talking bush (or rather God talking in a bush) and entered into one of history’s most remarkable conversations.

God (in the Bush): “Moses, Moses!”

Moses: “Here I am”

God (in the Bush): “ I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians have oppressed my people… I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my children, out of Egypt.”

Moses: “Who me? WHO AM I?” 

(I think, had God called Moses forty years before he might have answered. “I’m your man!” for he was then a young man, a mighty warrior, full of self-confidence. But there’s nothing like trailing a band of moronic. malodorous sheep for forty years to draw down one’s sense of worth and well-being.)

God (in the Bush): “It doesn’t matter who you are. I will be with you.”

Moses: “Well then, WHO ARE YOU?

God (in the Bush): “‘I AM’^[1] is who I am. ’I AM' is the name I have given myself. What do you need, Moses: wisdom, love, courage, righteousness, power, patience?  ‘I AM’ all you need! … And that’s all you and I need to know. 

But, I ask you, why this indirection? Why speak to Moses in a shrub and not “face to face” as was God's custom. 

Because, you see, the medium (the bush) is the message: "If God is in it, any old bush will do.” 

David Roper
2.21.22

^[1] God’s name, probably pronounced Yahweh, is based on the Hebrewverb "I am."

"Winter into Winter"

Is that a deathbed where a Christian lies?  

Yes, but not his—’tis Death itself that dies.  

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

***

I’m fascinated by stories of "unreached people groups” and the means by which the gospel finds its way into these cultures. This week, while reading a history of England, I came across this report:

In 731, a British abbot, known to later generations as the Venerable Bede, wrote the first history of England: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. (The world also owes to Bede the practice of reckoning years from the birth of Christ.) 

Bede tells us that King Edwin, a 7th century king of North Umbria, called a council of his wisest retainers to consider their response to the evangel. Bede reports that one of the king's chief men gave the following speech, in which he compared our life to that of a sparrow flying through a hall in winter:         

The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, is like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your eldermen and theons, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.  

How dark and bleak. And how tragic. One brief moment of existence, “but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.” Why go on when every breath we draw is taking us into an uncertain, terrifying future? 

I think of friends and neighbors around me, living “without hope” (Ephesians  2:12), “passing from winter into winter again,” not knowing what is to follow. But, thank God, by His mercy we can be "born again into a life full of hope. through Christ’s rising again from the dead! We can now hope for a perfect inheritance beyond the reach of change and decay, kept in Heaven for us. In the meantime we will be kept by the power of God operating through our faith, till we enter fully into the salvation which is being held in trust for us at last” (1 Peter 1:3-5).

This is indeed “the doctrine that tells us something more certain” that “seems justly to deserve to be followed.” Heaven is “kept” for us and we are “kept" for heaven. It’s an open invitation; the door is wide open. Bede tells us that King Edwin entered in and many of the people of North Umbria with him.

Jesus said,, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25,26). This is the unshakable guarantee, the rock-solid assurance, the blood-bought promise. “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” 

Do you believe this? There is nothing “more certain.”

David Roper
2.13.22

Staying Put

I’ll stay where you put me; 
I will dear Lord
Though I want so badly to go.
I’m eager to march with the rank and file, 
For I want to lead them, you know.
I long to keep step to the music loud,
To cheer when the banner’s unfurled,
To stand in the midst of the fight straight and proud,
But I’ll stay where you put me, dear Lord.

In Homer’s version of the Odyssey, battle weary Odysseus sets sail for Ithaca after long years fighting in the Trojan War. He forsakes the voluptuous sea nymph, Calypso to go home to his wife Penelope and her needlepoint.

In a modern sequel to The Odyssey, Nikos Kazantzakis has Odysseus returning home and staying long enough to slay Penelope’s suitors, but he cannot cure his restlessness, and soon sets sail again for parts unknown. 

Kazantzakis echoes our nagging yen to move on.

 Certainly there may be good reasons to move to another place, but simple restlessness—“looking for a greater challenge”—is not one of them. Long ago I recognized my discontent for what it is: a longing for that elusive “something more”—that hunger for God himself that will not be satisfied until I reach my final home.

I met an old fellow some years back—Ralph was his name—who managed a backcountry ranch. I asked him if he ever thought of moving to a less remote place. “Why would I do that,” he drawled, “when I’m already where I want to be.”  

There’s a good deal of wisdom in those words, especially when we know that our present place is the place God has put us and thus is the place we want to be. We can "stay put” until he tells us it’s time to move on. 

"Oh restless heart, that beats against your prison bars of circumstances, yearning for a wider sphere of usefulness, leave God to order all your days. Patience and trust, in the dullness of the routine of life, will be the best preparation for a courageous bearing of the tug and strain of the larger opportunity which God may some time send you" —L.B. Cowman

David Roper

War and Peace

 “The sole cause of wars and revolutions and battles is nothing other than desire.” —Plato (5th Century BC)

“It is insatiable desires which overturn not only individual men, but whole families, and which even bring down the state. From desires there spring hatred, schisms, discords, seditions and wars” —Cicero (1st Century BC)

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask” —James (1 Century AD).

What causes revolution, war, schism, discord, sedition, border disputes, racial tension, marital spats, sibling rivalry? Why can’t we get along?

Ancient wisdom answers: Conflict stems from “desire,” a Greek word (hedone) from which we get our word “hedonism.” Hedonism is the belief that pleasure is the highest good. Taken to its extreme it is a relentless pursuit of personal pleasure without regard for others.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with pleasure. “Pleasures are shafts of glory,” C. S. Lewis said, intimations of God’s goodness and love, serendipitous occasions of his grace. Pleasures only become troublesome when they're snatched in the wrong way, or at the wrong time. 

The worst of it comes when the pursuit of pleasure puts us in conflict with another human being similarly inclined. Two drivers converging on the last parking space at a crowded mall comes to mind. One or the other is thwarted, a frustration that can escalate into lethal rage. “You want something, but don’t get it, (so) you kill,” James writes. The unguarded pursuit of pleasure leads to terrifying violence. James does well to warn us.

James’ solution is profoundly simple: When in the pursuit of pleasure you collide with someone pursuing his or her pleasure, rather than insist that your needs be met, stop, step back and “ask (God)." Bernard of Clairvaux wrote long ago, “What will you do if your needs are not met? Will you look to God to meet your needs? God promises that those who seek first the kingdom and his righteousness will have all things added to them” (from On the Love of God).

One proviso: We cannot dictate the time or terms of our satisfaction. It may be that God will give us what we desire straight away, or he will give it later. Or he may ask us to forgo the thing we sought, but give us the pleasure we sought apart from the thing we were seeking, for lasting peace and joy, of necessity, exist apart from natural causes.

Whatever, our Lord gives a “greater grace” (4:6), greater than any outcome we snatch on our own.

David Roper
1.31.22

Jacob’s Ladder

Jacob was on the lam, fleeing from Esau’s fury, and came to “no particular place,” as the Hebrew text suggests. As night was falling, he cleared a spot in the rubble-strewn ground, and found a flat rock on which to lay his head. He soon lapsed into a deep sleep in which he began to dream. In his dream Jacob saw a stairway, rising from the stone at his head, connecting heaven and earth.

The traditional ladder is such a favorite image it’s a shame to give it up, yet the picture of angels in ungainly apparel scrambling up and down the rungs of a ladder leaves much to be desired. The term usually translated “ladder” actually suggests a stairway or stone ramp like those that led to the top of ziggurats, the terraced pyramids raised to worship the gods of that era. The ziggurat with its steep stairway was a symbol of man’s efforts to plod his way up to God. It was hard work, but there was no other way to get help when you needed it (see Genesis 11:1–4).

It’s odd how that pagan notion has found its way into our theology. Some early Christian writers used the ladder as an analogy for spiritual progress, tracing the steps of Christian faith from one stage to another, rising higher by self effort. Walter Hilton’s literary classic The Ladder of Perfection is based on that notion. The  old camp-meeting song “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder”draws on that association. And who can forget “Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin? In each case the emphasis is on the ascent of man.

What caught Jacob’s attention, however, was the fact that God had come down the stairway and was standing next to him, for that’s the meaning of the preposition translated “above” in 28:13. (“And behold, the LORD stood beside him,” The same Hebrew word is translated “nearby” in Genesis 18:2 and  “in front of,” in Genesis 45:1.)

God was standing beside  him. The God of Jacob’s father, Isaac, and grandfather, Abraham, was in this lonely place with him, contrary to Jacob’s expectations and far from the traditional holy places he normally associated with God’s presence. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it,” Jacob declared with wide-eyed, childlike astonishment. “This [place] is none other than the house of God.”

Jacob got the message, but God was taking no chances. He highlighted the picture with a promise that would sustain Jacob through the weary days ahead: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go . . . I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised” (Genesis 28:15).

His promise is our promise as well. “God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5). He is present with you today—in the lonely place where you find yourself sequestered. Our Lord is with you every moment of every day. There is no moment when you are alone. You can say of every site and circumstance, “Surely the Lord is in this place.”

G. K. Chesterton was asked by a reporter what he would say if Jesus were standing beside him. “He is,” Chesterton replied with calm assurance.

David Roper 1.19.22

Adapted from the chapter “Jacob’s Ladder” in The God Who Walks Beside Us 

Grace Upon Grace (Upon Grace)

He said to me, "What do you see?” I said, “I see a lamp stand of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of  the bowl and the other on its left.”  And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.   Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace' to it!" (Zechariah 4:2–7).

Zachariah envisioned a menorah with a receptacle at the top to catch the oil that dripped continuously from two olive trees that flanked it.

"What is this?" Zechariah asked. This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit." 

Zachariah was called to encourage Israel's governor Zerubbabel and those associated with him who were rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, a structure that the Babylonians had reduced to a "great mountain" of rubble. "Carry on," Zechariah insists, "for the Spirit of God is an indefatigable source of strength and energy."

Thus, in like manner, you and I can tackle mountains great and small, not by our own strength, but by the ever-present resources that flow from the Spirit of God. "if we burn steadily through the long dark hours, it is because we have learned to translate into living beauty those supplies of grace which we receive in fellowship with Jesus" (FB Meyer).

What mountain (or mountains) do you face this morning?  A difficult encounter that looms before you? A relationship that has been reduced to rubble? A painful, sinful habit you've tried again and again to surmount? 

So carry on. The Spirit of God is with you, an unfailing, ever-present source of grace. "For from his fullness [you have] received, grace upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, ad infinitum" (John 1:16).   

David Roper 

1.16.22

It’s Impossible! (Thoughts on the New Year)

"Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets…’ Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'If it is marvelous (impossible) in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous (impossible) in my sight,' declares the LORD of hosts?’" (Zechariah. 8:4–6). 

Jerusalem had been reduced to a pile of rubble and yet, as Zechariah assured God’s people, the city would be built again: old men and women would gather in the parks and squares of the city to kvetch and kibitz; children would play in the streets. 

"Impossible," Zechariah's detractors muttered.

But we should never allow reason or common sense to tell us what God can or cannot do. He is the God of the impossible, the one who created perfect order (cosmos) out of primal chaos (Jeremiah 32:25). Nothing is impossible for him to do! (cf. Genesis 11:14; Job 42:2; Matthew 19:26).

He can reclaim a life that is ruined beyond reclamation. He can find a prodigal that is irretrievably lost. He can soften a heart that has hardened into stone. He can heal a church that is beyond repair. 

Indeed, "you will see greater things than this,” Jesus said (John 1:50). There is nothing that the LORD of Hosts cannot do! 

Got any rivers you think are impossible?

Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?

God specializes things thought impossible;

And He can do what no other power can do.

David Roper
1.2.22