What God Has Prepared!

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).

My friend Gus passed away a few weeks ago. Gus was a fellow trout fisherman. Weekends usually found him in his little boat on a nearby lake, casting for fish.

I got a letter from his daughter Heidi the other day. She told me she's been talking about heaven with her grandkids since Gus went home. Her 6 year old grandson, who also loves to fish, explained what Heaven is like and what Great-Grandpa Gus is doing: "It's really beautiful,” he mused, "and Jesus is showing Grandpa Gus where the best fishing holes are."  

Isn’t it odd that we know so little about Heaven? Why should we be told almost nothing about our next destination?

Perhaps it’s that we human beings have no categories to comprehend it. On one occasion, when Paul reported his visit to Heaven, words failed him. He saw things that “cannot be told” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). He didn’t mean that it’s improper to speak about Heaven, but that it’s impossible to do so. There are no words by which the facts of Heaven can be imparted to our senses.

But having said that I think the problem lies deeper than mere inadequacy of human language and comprehension. Strange to say, to know more than we know might harm us.

What I mean is this: We might gain a little comfort from knowing the details of Heaven but it would not be the highest comfort, for it is not the knowledge of Heaven that comforts and assures us, but the knowledge of God Himself. Because I know Him and I know how good He is, I can leave this life and everything in it with utter confidence that Heaven will be “a wonderful place, full of glory and grace.” It will be “really beautiful” and Jesus will show me where the best fishing holes are, because, I must say, that’s the sort of God that He is!

DHR

Things Above

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” —Colossians 3:1

Our valley can be very cold in the winter. Clouds and fog roll in and blanket the ground, trapping frigid air under warmer layers above.

It’s cloudy and cold in the valley, but you can rise above it. There’s a road nearby, Bogus Basin Road, that winds up the flank of Shafer Butte, a 7500’ mountain that rises out of the valley. A few minutes of driving and you break out of the fog and emerge into the warmth and brilliance of a sunlit day. You can look down on the clouds that shroud the valley and see it from a different point of view.

You can’t make yourself happy in conditions that are contrary to happiness, but you can rise above them. Little by little you can learn to withdraw from them, refusing to allow your thoughts and actions to be governed by them. You can climb up out of your misery and gloom, sit for a time on the hillside and look at things from God’s point of view. You can remind yourself that the sun is always shining even if it has not been shining on you and that everything in the valley will soon pass away. And though you can only stay for a moment you will have gained a perspective that only the mountain can know.

This is faith—the means by which we rise above our circumstances and find courage and calmness for the day.

DHR

Death Watch

"In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die” (Isaiah 38:1).

I read this morning about a new gadget, the Tikker Death Watch, a wristwatch that ticks off the seconds until you die. The watch-wearer fills out a questionnaire, inputs age and the countdown begins. (The watch employs a logarithm used by the federal government to estimate life expectancy.)

Swiss inventor, Fredrick Colting, a former grave digger it should be noted, got the idea for the watch when his grandfather died: “It made me think about death and the transience of life, and I realized that nothing matters when you are dead. Instead, what matters is what we do when we are alive.” (One potential customer quipped that he would "Blast some Ethel Merman one last time while sipping latte.")   

King Hezekiah of Judah had a "Death Watch" of sorts: He was gravely ill and the prophet Isaiah said the countdown had begun. The king, who was the only 38 years old at the time, begged for additional days. God in his mercy gave him fifteen years. Sad to say, Hezekiah squandered those years, exposing Judah's treasure to the Babylonians, a self-serving decision that led to the Babylonian Captivity some years later. He also fathered Manasseh, an awful man that led the nation of Judah into moral ruin.

St. Peter had a “Death Watch” as well: "The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self- controlled and sober- minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace..." (1 Peter 4:7-10).

What can we do with the moments that remain? Fret about them or fritter them away?  Here’s Peter’s guidance: Pray, love those inside and outside of God’s family and use your spiritual gifts to serve others. Put another way, do the things that have eternal significance.

In the words of a plaque that hung on the wall of my boyhood home:

Only one life will soon be past;

only what's done for Christ will last.

And when I am dying how glad I will be,

that the lamp of my life has blazed out for Thee.

David Roper

1/8/14

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Far from The Madding Crowd

"But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God..." —Psalm 73:16,17

Some years ago my son Brian and I agreed to haul some equipment into an isolated Idaho backcountry ranch for a friend. There are no roads into the area, at least none that my truck could negotiate, so the ranch manager, a young man named Ralph, met us at road's end with a wagon hitched to a brace of mules.

On the way into the ranch, Ralph and I started chatting and I learned that he lived on the property year-around and rarely ventured outside. "What do you do in the winter," I asked, knowing that winters in the high country were long and bitter. I also knew the ranch had no electricity, radio or telephone service other than a satellite radio. I wondered what Ralph did when the snow piled up to his cabin's eves.

“Don’t you get lonely,” I asked. “Nope,” he replied. "How do you endure the isolation?” I asked. "Actually," he drawled. "I find it right peaceable."  

Solitude is not loneliness. Loneliness is the result of inadequate intimacy and meaningful activity. John Milton, I think it was, pointed out that loneliness is the first thing God saw that wasn't good.

Solitude is something else. It is a matter of finding a quiet place far from the crowd. Sometimes our hard-pressed souls long for isolation more than anything else. There's “too much noise in the air, too many sounds, too loud, too near.” Our ears ache; our bodies tense. Where can we find the solitude that our hearts crave?

Somewhere I came across this odd little haiku:

I wish that

I could enter in

And close the door

Of my small house

To dwell alone

As little shellfish do.

Me too...

But how can I "dwell alone" in my crowded, buzzing, noisy, busy world. "Not here. There is not enough silence" (Eliot).

I came across a story the other day that gave me an idea: I have a namesake, David 1 of Scotland, who’s mostly unknown to us these days. In his day he was one of the most powerful and influential kings of his age, though he was better known for his godliness and wisdom. His gentle rule "softened the barbarity of the nation." (If you know anything about Scottish Highlanders that's saying a lot!) One of his courtiers wrote, "I confess that I found in the king a monk, in the court a cloister."

I like that idea: a monk and his cloister. Caught up in the dangerous conditions of his time and harried on every side by violent warlords, David’s mindset was that of a contemplative monk. The contentious court was his cloister: Even in that dangerous environment he could withdraw for moments of contemplation and prayer from which he emerged to bring peace to his nation.

We can do that. In the midst of our pressure-filled, dense–packed days we can withdraw into our hearts for a moment or two to reflect upon God's loving kindness and mercy. We can stay in that quiet place until the noise around us fades away and a sense of God’s presence envelops us. We will find in that quiet God-filled place the peace that the world has taken away. Our hearts will be quieted and stilled.

Then we can bring that peace with us into the world.

DHR

Thou mak'st a secret chamber, holy-dim,

Where thou wilt come to help my deepest prayer.

MacDonald, George. “A Diary of an Old Soul

Snug As A Bug in a Rug!

“I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8).

When I was a child my family lived for several years in a house my father built in the cedar-breaks west of Duncanville, Texas.

Our house had four rooms: a small kitchen-dinette area, two bedrooms, one on either end of the house, and a "great room" with a large stone fireplace in which we burned two-foot-long cedar logs. The fireplace was the sole source of heat in the house and the place we gathered in the evening. It was the center of physical warmth in our home.

There were five people in our family: my father and mother; my sister, Pug; my cousin, Pally; and me. As I mentioned, we had only two bedrooms. My father and mother occupied one bedroom, my sister and Pally the other. I slept year-round on a screened-in porch with canvas screens that rolled down to the floor. Summers were delightful; winters were bitter cold.

"Poor child," you say, but I loved it. I can remember dashing from the warmth of our living room through the double-doors that opened onto the porch, tip-toeing across a frost-covered wooden plank floor in my bare feet, leaping into bed and burrowing under a great mountain of blankets. Then, though rain, hail, sleet and snow lashed our house and the wind howled through the eves like a pack of wolves, there in my "chamber blest," safe from the world “where the wild things are,” I snuggled down in sheltered rest. "Snug as a bug in a rug," my mother used to say. I doubt that any child ever felt so warm and secure.

Now I have the greater reality: God himself. He has become my shelter from the wintery storms that now encircle me. Now, ensconced in Him and enveloped in the warmth of his love, I’m "safe and secure from all alarms." Snug as a bug in a rug.

David Roper

12/13/17

Read: Ps 91:1-16

Pie Crust Promises

"Will you stay if we promise to be good?"

"That's a pie-crust promise. Easily made, easily broken!"

-Mary Poppins

I'm usually unsatisfied with my behavior no matter what time of the year it is. Nevertheless I make no New Year's resolutions, for such promises, easily made, are easily broken. David learned that lesson well when on one occasion he resolved to hold his tongue...and couldn't do it.

David was angry with God, yet he knew he shouldn't vent his anger in the presence of God's enemies. (It's always wrong to speak against a friend, especially in the presence of his enemies.) So he resolved not to speak. "I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin," he vowed. "I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence."

For a short time he was able to restrain himself, but "the fire burned," David fumed and erupted.

"Show me...my end, and the number of my days," he lamented. "Let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath." Thus failed resolve leads us to consider the brevity of human existence and its frailty. 

We are eternal creatures with perfection in our hearts, and the perennial desire to move toward it. Yet we exist in time and space as imperfect, flawed human beings, utterly unable to keep our promises. "The Spirit is willing, but the flesh (our unaided humanity) is weak." That's why our resolve breaks down and we fall back to old habits and patterns of behavior.

There is only one way to make any real progress toward righteousness: it is to know our limitations. So David prays, "Cause me to know my end," literally, "my boundary" (vs. 4). Change begins with humility and the awareness that our resolve is mere "breath" (vs. 5). We voice our resolutions and they dissipate like breath into thin air.

Enduring change does not come by vows, decrees, New Year resolutions and strong resolve, but solely by the grace of God. Our part is to want righteousness and to pray for it. God's part is to bring it about in his own time and way. "Man proposes; God disposes, an older generation of Christians used to say.

This too David learned: "Now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. Save me from all my transgressions... (Then) I was silent; I did not open my mouth, for you did it!" (vs. 7-9).

There is an echo in Paul's promise: "The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it!" (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

DHR

                                             Just Like Me

                                  Little Jesus wast Thou shy
                                  Once and just as small as I?
                                  And what did it feel to be
                                  Out of Heaven and just like me?

                                         -Francis Thompson

The Incarnation "is the central miracle asserted by Christians," C. S. Lewis said. "They say that God became Man." This is not myth or legend. It happened though it can scarcely be imagined. "The Word became flesh and dwelled among us" (John 1:14).

Matthew and Luke explain the process in terms of a virgin birth, or more accurately, a virgin conception, for Jesus' birth was normal in almost every way that matters. It was his conception that was unique: Mary was his mother, but he had no human father. As the old text puts it, Mary "had known no man." This was the virgin conception. (Not to be confused with the "Immaculate Conception," the Roman Catholic doctrine that Mary was free from original sin, or the "Immaculate Reception," a Franco Harris catch in a play-off game against Oakland in 1972.)

Mary herself was concerned with this question, for nothing in the Old Testament necessarily led to the expectation that the Messiah would be virgin born: "How can this be?" she asked the angel, who then explained, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:34, 35).

This is mystery. Once, for a very special purpose, God dispensed with long line of descendents. With his naked hand he touched Mary and made a tiny child that was...well, himself. "The Father became the daughter's son" (John Donne).

How can this be? I do not know. All I can say is what the first writers said: the child was "conceived by the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:20). This was inexplicable then as now, and yet was acceptable, a staunch belief enshrined in the earliest creeds. Today it stands at the heart of our faith.

But does it matter? Of course it does. "All this took place," Matthew informs us, "to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:  'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel'-which means (Matthew translates), 'God with us'" (Matthew 1:23).

This is an answer to the question that plagues us from time to time: Does God care? Does disease, pain, infirmity, handicap and death overwhelm him as much as it does us? Does God weep? Does it matter to him that little children, who have nothing to do with the evil in this world, so often suffer and die? Dostoyevsky's cynic, Ivan, asks of human suffering, "What do the children have to do with it? Does God give a rip?

One answer is the Incarnation, the birth of the God-Man, for in him God entered fully into our suffering. Pain was his lot in the slow ascent from a struggling, kicking embryo to an utterly dependent baby; through gangling, awkward adolescent to become "the man of sorrows." Through all, he was "acquainted with grief." "In all our afflictions he was afflicted." He understands. He cares.

Dorothy Sayers says it far better than I: "For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is-limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death-He had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever the game he is playing with His creation, He has kept his own rules and played fair.  He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself.  He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death.  When He was a man, He played the man.  He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile."

Jesus' conception, though one of a kind, is timelessly typical of what is eternally true of God. He "never undoes anything but evil, never does good to undo it again. The union between God and (human) nature in the person of Christ admits no divorce. He will not go out of nature again..."  (C. S. Lewis, Miracles, p. 123). He is, and has always been, Immanuel: "God with us: so much unlike us and yet so much like us. Thus he understands and cares.
  
DHR