I went to work, taught my classes, and came home. I have talked with my daughter about a pet turtle, and even went to PETCO to look at several. She really wants a pet to take care of.
I have prayed today, and God was never far from my mind. Even though I was talking about thermodynamics and other physics-like subjects with students, my mind was not really altogether on my subject matter.
I did not really notice the time that went by today. It seemed to be a hazy experience, like being in the Dentist chair breathing gas- you go through all the motions and even respond correctly to questions, but the experience seems insular. I know I talked to students, and even gave advice on changing classes for a student.
Nothing today was different from yesterday, except that my mind has been working without my permission on a different problem. A different drum beat is sounding in my ears today. My heart has been changed somehow without a good medical reason.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon going to a facility that cares for the elderly and the infirm.
I helped with the Nursing Home ministry Sunday afternoon, and I met a few people. We sang songs, and I spoke for a few minutes about the salvation brought to man by God that, even though the heavens and Earth would pass away, would never be abolished. Then I spoke about the need for salvation and how salvation can be had easily through obedience to the Word of God. After telling the group about Peter’s instructions for salvation, we closed the service.
Afterward, a man sitting in the very back asked to be baptized. We talked with him, and as he was very elderly, carefully explained repentance and baptism to him. He insisted that he needed to be baptized.
So, yesterday the Pastor and I checked this man out of the facility, brought him to the church and baptized him in Jesus Name.
This gentleman is very aged, and suffering from senility to a degree. He was a helpless individual with no future to speak of. He could not dress himself or get around. Carrying on a conversation was difficult. His time left on Earth may be short. Yet he adamantly wanted to be baptized. He said he wanted all that God had for him.
As he went down in the water, he was focused on the process of holding his nose and breath. When he came out of the water, there was a pronounced change in the look of his countenance and he was emotionally stirred. He said “in the name of Jesus”. He was so happy, and quietly went with me back to the car for the ride back to the home. When I witnessed the change in this man, at the same moment a change occurred in me also.
He listened and obeyed the Word, just as a small child would. He simply accepted what he heard and obeyed.
I have had a good day not because everything is the same, but because everything is different.
I have constantly wondered how this man has been faring, and how the other residents are doing at the nursing home. I have stopped several times today and asked God to care for this man and his needs. I wonder right now how he has done today. I have known this man a total of 48 hours.
What, you may ask, is so profound?
God has answered a prayer today.
My heart is totally changed, completely switched around. I have not worried about work or bills or even food. But I have constantly been thinking about how our newest convert is faring. How the folks at the home are doing.
You might be curious about my mental state right now, but I am fine. Never better.
You see, I have been praying that God would open my heart and fill it with compassion and care for the lost as much as possible. I asked Him to let me “see with His eyes” when I look at people. Just one time, just so I can sense the need of people and feel a small portion of the love that God gives to us.
I now realize that God allowed me to meet this fellow at the nursing home, and help get him to the church, and He let me see the change in his life in order to let me “see”. It has taken me a day to figure it out, but there is no doubt. I cannot shake the feeling in my heart. I cannot get the image of that change in the face of this man out of my mind. I feel such an intense desire to go back and talk to each one of those folks in the home. To find out how they are doing. Is all well with them today?
I think I know to a small degree how God sees a lost soul, and how He is concerned. A small measure no doubt, but enough. I am changed forever.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Strength from Weakness. Unity from Diversity.
As I sit here tonight thinking about the kingdom of God and my opportunity to be in it, I have decided that there is a strange connection between me and everyone else in the kingdom with me.
Consider that each of us is so different. I am a small person with a small life; I am not powerful or terribly skilled and I have no inheritance on this Earth. I am limited in thinking ability and vision; even though I have tried to expand my horizons, I am terribly limited.
I look to my left or right and I see similar people, entirely similar yet different. We all hail from wildly different backgrounds and have tasted defeat and shame and maybe only a little success as far as our society would estimate. Many of us have had the test of time upon us and have failing parts connected in the same fashion, while others have yet to taste time and run around with boundless energy with no particularly useful point in mind.
I have skin of a particular type, while my brother standing next to me has another type. He likes certain types of food, and I appreciate another. My musical tastes are not really quite like yours, I am certain. In the workplace this demographic can lead to small and isolated groups who do not work effectively.
So what is it that makes me want to find my place next to you in a worship service, work along side you in the Spanish ministry, toil to help in a kitchen or just encourage our neighbor? Why am I anxious if you miss a service and no one knows why?
Why do I concern myself that you are having a hard time with your rent, or that another of you has a child in trouble, or that young person over there is in need of a mentor? Why do I care that your Aunt has cancer and wake myself early in the morning to pray for this stranger?
How can such a mishmash of weak human diversity ever be used of God or be useful in the kingdom of God?
What causes us to work together in any way, small or large, to affect any thing in God’s plan to find the hurting and the halt? We are all wholly ineffectual taken alone.
Unity.
We are all tied together by the hope within us. We are all seeking the same thing. We all want to find God in our lives everyday so that we can hear Him say “well done”. We gladly throw ourselves at His feet, right next to each other, elbow to elbow, so that we can find His presence in our lives. “Where two or three are gathered together…”
He gives the weak strength.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with
wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isa. 40:29-31)
Consider that each of us is so different. I am a small person with a small life; I am not powerful or terribly skilled and I have no inheritance on this Earth. I am limited in thinking ability and vision; even though I have tried to expand my horizons, I am terribly limited.
I look to my left or right and I see similar people, entirely similar yet different. We all hail from wildly different backgrounds and have tasted defeat and shame and maybe only a little success as far as our society would estimate. Many of us have had the test of time upon us and have failing parts connected in the same fashion, while others have yet to taste time and run around with boundless energy with no particularly useful point in mind.
I have skin of a particular type, while my brother standing next to me has another type. He likes certain types of food, and I appreciate another. My musical tastes are not really quite like yours, I am certain. In the workplace this demographic can lead to small and isolated groups who do not work effectively.
So what is it that makes me want to find my place next to you in a worship service, work along side you in the Spanish ministry, toil to help in a kitchen or just encourage our neighbor? Why am I anxious if you miss a service and no one knows why?
Why do I concern myself that you are having a hard time with your rent, or that another of you has a child in trouble, or that young person over there is in need of a mentor? Why do I care that your Aunt has cancer and wake myself early in the morning to pray for this stranger?
How can such a mishmash of weak human diversity ever be used of God or be useful in the kingdom of God?
What causes us to work together in any way, small or large, to affect any thing in God’s plan to find the hurting and the halt? We are all wholly ineffectual taken alone.
Unity.
We are all tied together by the hope within us. We are all seeking the same thing. We all want to find God in our lives everyday so that we can hear Him say “well done”. We gladly throw ourselves at His feet, right next to each other, elbow to elbow, so that we can find His presence in our lives. “Where two or three are gathered together…”
He gives the weak strength.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with
wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isa. 40:29-31)
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Inroducing...
This is my grandson Joshua. I have shown this photo to everyone at church and at work who would hold still. Now I am providing this image to you so that you can see for yourself how engaging and charming my grandson must be. Resist if you can.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes. Psalms 119:83.
During the days of the ancients, when traveling across the wilderness in search of pasture or water, the family resided in a woven goat-hair facility; a tent. Several scriptural references resort to simile and analogy based on the tent. When God spoke to Isaiah in chapter 40 verse 22 he was alluding to the phenomenon of seeing star-like points of light in the roof in the daylight, just as the stars are arrayed in the outside sky at night. This passage uses the and as a way to connect two statements conveying the same idea. So the sentence after the semicolon is repeated using synonyms:
It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
The goat-hair weave of the tent roof would keep out water because the fibers swell when wet. The roof would allow ventilation when dry and this was important as well.
Drinking water, milk or wine was kept in a skin with one end plugged, usually by a small end of a horn or other hard material. When inside the family home, the bottle hung from a tent pole, and inside the tent was an open fire. Since the tent was made of woven goat hair, no chimney was used. Often the top part of the tent was filled with smoke from the fire.
The animal skin would, over time, pick up the residue of the smoke that would ruin the taste of the fluids kept inside. Eventually, the skin would shrivel up and harden, becoming useless.
The day comes when you also seem pretty much useless. Having a bad day is a fairly common event for the “grasshoppers” that inhabit the earth. In fact, God writes that He sees our inability and remembers we are just “dust”.
There are many who suffer physical debilitation because of accident and aging. Disease can turn you into a useless “water skin” as far as the eye can tell. David knows this well. His statement in the title passage tells about his experience with the impact of the decay of a human body.
Remember God’s statutes. God is faithful to remember them. One of those statutes is important to remember when you feel like a smoke damaged water skin.
Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. (Isaiah 40:28,29)
The Psalmist is telling of the ruin that all people will have in life, yet he is encouraging you to maintain your integrity with God and remember “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Sometimes, at the weakest points in our life, God makes even a small smile from you blow open the doors of hope for some hapless “grasshopper” without a chance for help in the whole world, because you exert HIS strength.
During the days of the ancients, when traveling across the wilderness in search of pasture or water, the family resided in a woven goat-hair facility; a tent. Several scriptural references resort to simile and analogy based on the tent. When God spoke to Isaiah in chapter 40 verse 22 he was alluding to the phenomenon of seeing star-like points of light in the roof in the daylight, just as the stars are arrayed in the outside sky at night. This passage uses the and as a way to connect two statements conveying the same idea. So the sentence after the semicolon is repeated using synonyms:
It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
The goat-hair weave of the tent roof would keep out water because the fibers swell when wet. The roof would allow ventilation when dry and this was important as well.
Drinking water, milk or wine was kept in a skin with one end plugged, usually by a small end of a horn or other hard material. When inside the family home, the bottle hung from a tent pole, and inside the tent was an open fire. Since the tent was made of woven goat hair, no chimney was used. Often the top part of the tent was filled with smoke from the fire.
The animal skin would, over time, pick up the residue of the smoke that would ruin the taste of the fluids kept inside. Eventually, the skin would shrivel up and harden, becoming useless.
The day comes when you also seem pretty much useless. Having a bad day is a fairly common event for the “grasshoppers” that inhabit the earth. In fact, God writes that He sees our inability and remembers we are just “dust”.
There are many who suffer physical debilitation because of accident and aging. Disease can turn you into a useless “water skin” as far as the eye can tell. David knows this well. His statement in the title passage tells about his experience with the impact of the decay of a human body.
Remember God’s statutes. God is faithful to remember them. One of those statutes is important to remember when you feel like a smoke damaged water skin.
Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. (Isaiah 40:28,29)
The Psalmist is telling of the ruin that all people will have in life, yet he is encouraging you to maintain your integrity with God and remember “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Sometimes, at the weakest points in our life, God makes even a small smile from you blow open the doors of hope for some hapless “grasshopper” without a chance for help in the whole world, because you exert HIS strength.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
