The Man Who Lived Too Long

"Then Isaiah said, 'This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?' And Hezekiah answered, 'It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees'" (2Kings 20:19,20). 

I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME! Time isn't supposed to be messed with. Standard time is time as God intended it to be. 

I think Judah's King Hezekiah would agree...

Hezekiah was told he would be healed of a terminal disease and would be given fifteen additional years of life, but, weak in faith, he insisted on a sign. The prophet Isaiah first proposed that the shadow on his sun dial move forward as a sign, but Hezekiah insisted that the shadow move backward.

Right, I thought. Fall back: an extra hour to sleep, or in Hezekiah's case, extra years to live. 

Unfortunately, Hezekiah squandered his bonus years: He showed Israel’s treasures to a Babylonian probe, a vanity that led to her captivity 140 years later. Furthermore, he fathered a son, Manasseh, a terrible man, who took Judah over a cliff and into ruin. Hezekiah's epitaph could have read: "Here lies a man who lived too long."

Sometimes I wonder: Will I too ”end before I finish, or finish and not finish well” and know…

The darkness of a spirit

grown mean and small,

fruit shriveled on the vine,

bitter to the taste of my companions,

burden to be borne by those brave few

who love me still…

No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet,

A joy to all who taste;

Spirit-sign of God at work,

stronger, fuller, brighter at the end. —Robertson McQuilkin, “Home Before Dark"

It all depends on Him.

David Roper

11.7.20

Hereafter

"As for me, I know that my redeemer is living and 'after this' he will raise me up out of dust. In the 'hereafter,' when my (leprous) skin is removed and I'm no longer in this body, I shall see God—I shall gaze at him for myself—and I will see one who is my friend. Oh, how my heart yearns for this" (Job 19:25-27).

This text was in my Lenten reading this morning and the translation is my effort to better understand it. It’s Job's Great Confession, "wherein he himself plants the flag of victory above his own grave" (D.J. Wiseman).

"You can write this indelibly in a book, or carve it ineradicably in stone," Job insists (19:24). "This is what I know and what my heart yearns for: Someday I shall shed this pain-plagued body and see my Old Friend face to face.

Oh, how our hearts yearn for this. 

David Roper

3.13.21

PS: There’s an old joke about the author that asked his friend, “Have you read my last book?”—to which his friend replied, “I sure hope so.” Well, I may have written my last book. It’s entitled Walking in Grace and Glory, 90 days in the Psalms. It can be ordered from Amazon, or the Our Daily Bread site: odb.org 

What We’re Here For

Carolyn and I have been watching a British television series about a stolid, plainspoken Chief Inspector and his brash, young assistant who protect and serve a small village in Northumberland. It’s a murder mystery set in 1964 with some significant asides about moral integrity.

In one scene an elderly couple, who own a small pig farm, agree to take in a seriously disturbed, homeless teenager. When asked how they could accept this challenge at their age and with their meagre resources the old man quietly replied, “It’s what we’re here for.”

 

Love and heart-kindness. It’s what we’re here for.

David Roper

3.9.21

Love Never Ends

“Love never ends..." (1Corinthians 13:8).

 

Life plays a dirty trick on us as we age: The verbal skills we relied on, the knowledge we spent a lifetime acquiring, the facts and figures we once could retrieve on demand—all these skills and acquisitions begin to fade away. "I don’t remember" becomes our response to most questions, the answers to which we knew just a short time ago. 

 

We become dull, inarticulate, fumbling for words to express the tangle of thoughts in our minds. We reach for a fact or a memory, but it flits away and perches just beyond our reach. We're tongue-tied in the present of bright young minds. We feel that our treasured role with family and friends has come to an end.

 

But love never ends. We may not be able to dazzle our friends with our breadth of knowledge and witty repartee, but we can show a sincere interest in the things they’re interested in. We can ask a question and we can listen. And then we can ask another question and listen some more. We can show others that we care. 

 

“Love never ends,” or so it is written—the one thing we’ll be doing forever. Why not get started right now?  

 

David Roper

3.4.21

Wasteful Grace

 

Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!

Sunset faints after sunset into the night,

Splendorously dying from thy window-sill—

 

—George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul

 

“From [Jesus’] fullness we have all received, grace in exchange for grace” (John 1:16)

 

“David, quick, come look,” Carolyn calls from the kitchen. I trundle in to see why she’s so excited. 

 

Our kitchen window faces west and Carolyn is gazing through it at a spectacular Idaho sunset. Orange, red, gray, purple and colors I have no name for, splashed across the horizon in kaleidoscopic display. God with his paint pots and brushes, at it again. 

 

“Hurry,” Carolyn says, “get the camera,” but by the time I find my iPhone (which is never where I put it) the sunset has faded away, “splendorously dying” from God’s window-sill, a one time show of extravagant beauty, never to be repeated, but matched by the next peerless, made-to order-display.

 

God’s grace is like his sunsets: uniquely drawn up for each particular day. I wonder, then, what once-in-a-lifetime display of goodness God has in mind for you and me this day? 

 

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. 

 

David H. Roper

3.3.21

The Fools God Chooses

 

Exaltation comes neither from the east

Nor from the west nor from the south.

But God is the Judge:

He puts down one,

And exalts another. —Psalm 75:6,7

 

"God gives us the leaders we deserve." It’s an old and apt saying. We vote our conscience, but God determines the outcome. Aye, “'Tis mystery all!”

 

We go for the game-changers, the movers and shakers, men and women who get things done. God, however, establishes the human framework of a nation: "I myself set up her pillars" (75:3). He raises up rulers—able leaders, fools and naves—to get His work done.

 

Here's Paul's take: "For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth" (Romans 9:17). 

 

Pharaoh? A pompous, egocentric, duplicitous fool. Yet God in His wisdom exalted this man to bring salvation to His people and ultimately to the entire world. 

 

So let's not panic when elections don’t go our way, nor should we rail against those that God has chosen. He will render justice at the proper time (75:2). In the meantime, he's working in and through those He has chosen to accomplish His will.  

 

That's true of the state we're in right now. 

 

David Roper

The Supplantings of Grace

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 

are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?

 

—Lord Byron

 

Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree,

Instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;

And it shall be to the LORD for a memorial,

For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Isaiah 55:13).

 

It’s not enough to eradicate thorns and briers. There is more: Towering cypress trees and multihued myrtles can spring up where nettles once encumbered the ground.

 

It’s not enough that God removes our transgressions. He does more: He replaces each vice with a virtue, so that the site of old evil becomes a place of rare beauty and grace. 

 

Where cynicism once abounded, hope and optimism emerge; where sarcasm flourished, kind, gentle words appear; where malice produced anxiety and turmoil, forbearance now brings tranquility and peace; where lust grew rampant and unrestrained, pure love springs up. This—the transformed life—is the living and lasting sign of God’s work, the memorial he seeks (55:13d). 

 

And how does this transformation take place? We must “seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (55:6). 

 

There are moments when God can be found: when our hearts grow tired of transgression and we ache for holiness. This is God calling us, reminding us that he is near. We must then act “in season before desire shall fail,” A.E. Housman said.

We must look toward God and his Word for his help: Ask him to make us like Jesus, for, “as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth, making it bear and sprout,” so God’s Word will not return to him empty, but will accomplish what he desires and achieve the purpose for which he has spoken it” (55:10.11).

 

“My ways are not your ways,” God says, “nor are my thoughts your thoughts” (55: 8). How are God’s ways not like our ways? Unlike our ways, God’s ways work!

 

David Roper

2.24.21