Our customary afternoon walk was permeated with tepid warmth that almost matched my husband's tolerance of summer.  The day transformed quickly from a rainy, cold breeze to a soft, balmy infusion of sun and heat.  We walked in pleasant agreement that indeed, the Lord has endowed us with a good day, and our fitting response was a joyful reception of its gifts.  Or, at minimum, those were the sentiments warming my heart on this gentle stroll in the eye of summer.

I had waited for this season on long, interminable rainy afternoons, sometimes despairing that it would never come. My skin hungered for the breath of sun filling its pores, my eyes thirsty for light flooding unrestrained the slimming atmosphere.  Now that the sun is here to linger for a few more weeks, I want to spend my days bathing in its luxurious light, bottling its nourishing heat for the long and barren months of winter.  The society of our benevolent day star  is a dream unrequited - my hands are busy tilling the garden I am currently parceled in the cradle of summer.  

Summer, more than any other time, points my eyes to Home.  I dream of that place where the Son never sets - His brightness illuminating a land alive with music and color.  With my mind,  I sometimes walk paths of green meadows exhaling melody and color in hues so vivid that neurons cannot process.  In that place, the trees seem to sway their branches in a low and arched embrace, answering the flowers in a concert of captivating tunes.  Water clear as glass is hugging my feet, while rocks infuse the stream with flawless harmony.  I stop under the shadow of a tree not to gain respite from unfettered heat, but to allow the sounds to fill my pores with fresh awe for my undeserved lot in God's eternal summer.  

I dream of the City whose walls shimmer and burn with the radiance of precious stones.  The best day here is a dim shadow of that land beyond the veil that separates spirit from flesh, time from eternity, material from spiritual.   But, more than anything, I dream of Jesus...  What will I say when my eyes will at last see Him?  Will words even be needed?   I have thought of that moment many times...  I don't think I will ask Him any questions that seem so pressing on this side of the veil. The trials and toils of this life will be dissolved and forgotten with one look in His all-consuming eyes.  All I want to say as I embrace His nail-scarred feet is "thank you", for days and time without end.

In a few weeks, summer will be a sweet memory, and the longing for its return will awaken with the return of charcoal skies.  The celestial star will dim its light for many months, its glow tempered as Earth tilts away from its radiance.  Yet even in the midst of winter, my heart will retain the glow of  my eternal Home, its core set ablaze by the embers of God's eternal love in Christ Jesus.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,  for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more... But I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp. By its light the nations will walk, and into it the kings of the earth will bring their glory.  Its gates will never be shut at the end of the day, because there will be no night there. "  (Revelation 21:1, 22-25)

Night song

The songs bursting outside my windows were the sounds of a fleet of birds, obscured by night to my curious eye. It seemed as if all the winged mammals from across the vast expanse of Earth had traversed land and sea and convened here, at this midnight hour, in Jerusalem.  I listened with wander how so many birds could unite their melodies in one place, for their captivating sounds seemed to come from thousands of them.  I will never know if these winged songstresses had left other lands for that fateful  night in Chronos, on a hill in the beautiful city.  My ears had not experienced such a burst of happy sound from so many birds uniting their song in one place, and I suspect such an experience will not repeat itself in the parcel of space I call home.

At some point, I heard the voices of a group of women raised in a beautiful hymn whose words I couldn't decipher, yet whose melody moved my soul.  Later I learned that sisters from the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary have sung on the Temple Mount, and maybe it was these sisters that raised their worship that midnight hour in Jerusalem.

Every spring I wait for the song of the birds whose anthem heralds greater things to come.  Their cheerful tunes remind me that, very soon, the sun will linger longer than the night, and in its light the earth will breathe again.  From the womb of summer, berries of all varieties delight our palates and replenish our vitamin levels drained by winter.  Vegetables of many colors transform meals into feasts, and fruits of many kinds follow each other in rapid succession to satisfy our tastebuds and restore our mineral reserves.

One of the (many) reasons I don't like winter is the absence of  birds.  Only crows remain,  and their nagging tone is devoid of pleasure or melody.  Black, bleak and menacing, the crows remind me that all is not well outside Eden lost, and that one day we shall return to the City "whose builder and maker is God", to a new heaven and a new earth where birds will never cease to sing and light - the glory of God Himself - will never dim its glow.

The soul experiences the bleakness of winter as well, or "the dark night of the soul".  Fears, worries and doubts rush like the troubled sea into the inner chambers of the heart, seeking to drown out the coals of faith barely flickering in the night.  We toil and labor in our minds, our pillows drenched with wet sorrow.  Like Job, we dread the rising of the sun, for day renews our toils under the merciless threats of Pharaoh's henchmen.  But rise we must, and move, and find the light in the numbing darkness encompassing the land within.  In days and weeks like these, only the Breath of God will quicken our bony, lifeless forms into an "exceedingly strong" army.  His Breath is His Word, and the Words He speaks "are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).   In the thick of darkness' assaults, the fire of His Word will light our path, scorching the enemy within even as tribulations remain without.   "Fear not, for I am with you",  His Words sound in our ears as the Spirit burns them on our hearts.  If we lean close enough, we will hear a song rising from the heart of the Father, the pledge of His love rekindling the dying embers of hope.  

Summer is here, witness of winter's ended dominion, just as day testifies to the flight of night.  One day, when the eyes of the soul will be eternally dimmed and the doors in the streets are shut for the last time,  God's children will enter eternal summer.  The rains will no longer beat their weary bodies, the sun will not scorch their unprotected limbs, and Pharaoh's henchmen will not frighten them with heavy burdens.  Until then, the Father's love will quiet our souls through life's storms and His joy will be our strength through all our toils.  

"The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”  (Zephaniah 3:17)

The Last Hour

 These last few months, the forum of thought has been confused and muddied by a buffet of contradictory ideas.  I am specifically referring to ideas that explore realities beyond the earthly sphere,  well beyond the span of 70 or 80 years that our bodies are animated by Breath.  If our destination matters, then our journeys and their guiding philosophies matter just as much.  Now, more than at any time in recent history, it matters who Jesus is and what He is still saying today.

To those whose minds are set on the things of earth, Jesus is shiny.  Their Jesus is dressed in the latest runway fashion, owns a fleet of luxury vehicles, and circles the globe dining at exclusive restaurants and sleeping in presidential suites.  This Jesus writes blank cheques to every request, especially to the ones that expand their barns and raise their profiles.  The disciples of this Jesus casually trip over each other to the peak of excess, blasting their facade of gold as the seal of His blessing.  

To others, Jesus is all soft and bending when poked with trespasses and apostate wanderings.  Like an overindulging parent, He rarely disciplines the straying child under the pretense of love.  They follow from afar,  clothed in the swaddling cloths of a warped grace creed, stunted infants rarely drinking the pure milk of the Word.

To others, Jesus is all silence.  He never has an opinion, or counsel, or command.  Only their lifestyle is allowed to bear witness for such as tacitly observe this Jesus.  This Jesus readily follows, whether it be cultural trends or political dogmas.  He easily conforms to the "idea of the day",   shifting His form as needed to dethrone yesterday's truths with today's delusions.

But to those who are "born of God", loved and chosen before the foundation of the world, "rooted and built up in Him", Jesus is none of these things.  These have seen and tasted by personal experience Jesus "full of grace and truth".  Yes, Jesus is love - love uninterrupted,  stretching into eternity.  But love divorced from truth is a farse, the foundation for a grand delusion.  What parent can stay silent when their child is about to touch a burning stove?  What doctor can deny a patient's diagnosis in the name of being nice?  And yet that's what some expect of Jesus...  Silence, unconditional validation, even surrender.

While walking the dusty streets of Galilee or Capernaum, Jesus "went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil".  He had no place to lay His head, relying on the kindness of the mortals whose days He fashioned and whose substance He formed.  He had no food to soothe His hunger, stripping blades of wheat as He walked through dusty fields, healing the blind and raising the dead on the way.  When confronted with the sinners of the day, He denied condemnation and offered salvation.  In Him, men and women are made new, and hearts hardened by sin now beat with the rhythms of hope and new beginnings.  

Jesus called His disciples to radical love.  Love that is not overcome by evil, but overcomes evil with good.  Love that dies to self, to the world, to inordinate affections.  Love that "suffers long and is kind", love that is not envious, love devoid of pride.  Love that gives voice to those who cannot speak for themselves, love that advocates for the destitute (Prov. 31:8).   Jesus called His followers to an upside-down economy of transactions where the leaders serve, the meek rule, the persecuted rejoice.  He established His kingdom not by crushing opponents, but by enthroning Himself in the hearts of those who receive and believe in His Name.  To the least of these, Jesus is Friend,  Savior, and soon-coming King.  

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His Name:  who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God"   John 1:12, 13

Christmas

 Mary drew her Son close to her breast, the smell of His newborn skin enveloping her senses.  She could feel His breath exhaled in a soft mist rising in the cold air of the manger.  She looked at His face, now locked in a deep sleep she wanted to prolong for as long as possible.  She counted His fingers and His toes, as she had done so many times, enjoying His firm grip on her finger.  Looking at His tiny body wrapped in long strips of cloth, she felt like all the love of the universe had gathered and condensed in a  blazing stream of tender affection that not even death would be able to extinguish.   He was here, and she had grown overnight, her only mission now to nurture and protect the Baby resting in her arms.  How gently He rested in her young embrace, His quiet sleep filling her with new assurance.  She could see the moving of His tiny lungs with each rise and fall of the abdomen, His gentle purr filling her thoughts with wonder.  

Nothing about His origin or His birth was ordinary.  Mary pondered the time the Angel visited her, announcing His arrival.  He would be conceived of the Holy Spirit, the angel told her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her.  "He will be great", the angel said, "and will be called the Son of the Highest".   "You shall call His Name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins", the angel finally instructed.   Mary trembled under the weight of the messenger's words, fear and unbelief filling her tender soul.  For fifteen centuries, the prophets had spoken of the coming Messiah, and every Sabbath in synagogues across the land,  the hearts of her people swelled with the expectation of His coming.  Moses, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Micah...  She had heard the prophecies read hundreds of times of God's Anointed One Who would come to save His people.   Burdened by Roman rulers who outdid each other in cruel and barbaric acts toward her people, their expectation for Messiah was at an all-time high.  And now, He would finally come...

A soft cry interrupted Mary's reveries, and she wrapped Him tighter in the meager strips of cloth to shield him from the encroaching coolness of the night.  A few hours ago, wise men from the East had come in an astonishing procession,  driven to the manger in the thick of night by a bright and guiding star.  When they entered the stall, they knelt before the Baby, their aged eyes misting with tears.  They bowed long and deep, their reverence filling the manger with the fragrance of the Holy.  They spoke little and sang songs, their eyes transfixed on the tiny body in Whom the Godhead dwelt.  Then, in a final act of worship, they laid before Him costly treasures:  gold, frankincense and myrrh. 

What a night it had been, Mary pondered in silence as she recounted the coming of the shepherds.  After the wise men, the little manger filled with noise again as excited shepherds burst upon the humble stall.  They had seen an angel in the sky, they said, His light shining around brighter than the day.  "Do not be afraid", he said, "for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.  For there is born to you this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord".  As soon as the angel finished speaking, the heavens exploded with song, and untold choirs of angels heralded the great news.   The entire atmosphere was enveloped in light and in praise, and joy bathed and infused every fiber of their being.  They had to come and see the newborn King,  and, as they left, they loudly proclaimed the news about the Child.

Two thousand years have passed since God entered our world in the most vulnerable form, the body of a Baby.  This Child grew and lived a life without spot or wrinkle - a perfect life.  He never wrote a book, or led an army, or conquered an empire.  And yet, since His advent, our world has never been the same.  He came to save us from the sin that steals, and kills, and destroys.   He came to show us that God knows us, loves us and wants us.  He came to bring peace to a world forever at war.  This Christmas,  He will come again to every heart that makes Him room, and every chamber that is dark will explode with the life and light of His presence.

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

Fall is coming...

 For the last few weeks, fall has been stretching its chilly limbs into our atmosphere, warning us of things to come.  No, we have not experienced an arctic blast or any cataclysmic weather inversion system.   In fact, September has been unusually balmy,  the skies have been blue, the sun darting quiet heat into midday hours.  However, for someone who is highly sensitive to the the first and last embrace of light, the crispy mornings and brisk evenings have been a notably discernible change.  

I seem to be in the minority with this nostalgia over summer's departure.  The internet seems to have come alive with the changing of the leaves and the shedding of torrential heat as summer breaths its last.  The blogosphere is ringing with delight tidings of all things pumpkin and sweater weather.  The young and the young-at-heart are resetting their calendars, shifting focus and priorities with the demands of another school year.  Apples of various shades and blends of sweet-versus-tart are offered where once blueberries filled market stands, and squashes of all stripes are replacing the delicate salad bunches that spelt summer with their chlorophyll.  The bright colors mimicking summer gardens are replaced with hues of autumn's harvest and the earth that yields it.  Even though Autumn is yet to make its official entrance this Saturday, she has marked her crisp territory in the landscape of our lives, some happily heralding the season's arrival for weeks now.  

In climates other than where I live, fall is truly beautiful, turning forests into shades of red and yellow, bringing a welcome change to the dry exhale of summer.  Even here, fall can put a pleasant face for a day or two or some other crumb of time.  But, just as we begin to love fall back, a dramatic change cloaks the atmosphere with no respite in sight for many months to come.  The skies clothe themselves in sackcloth, sending bone-chilling showers for what seems like endless days.  Rain seems to be the only offering on Autumn's menu according to the laws of climate for our geographical location.  I am sure that the west coast is the birthplace of seasonal affective disorder, also known as "I am tired of the rain" syndrome.  Of course, please take my diagnosis with a grain of salt as I have no letter parade behind my name to qualify me for such pronouncements.

As dreary as fall can be on my morsel of the planet, I can still find joy in the rhythms of daily life if my heart is willing to receive it.  A few days ago I baked the first apple dessert of the season, reminding me of the sweet gifts of autumn.  Soft and juicy pears have been filling our fruit basket as Michal is a pear enthusiast, consuming them with the kind of glee I consume chocolate.  Our house is comfortable at night, as previously the summer heat had dissected our sleep with restless tossings.  The office is finally a pleasant haven for work for my extremely sensitive-to-heat husband.   Fall has brought some welcome changes indeed...

I am learning that each season has an allotment of wisdom, and there are abundant gifts to be gleaned with the changing of the weather.  I wish I had arrived at contentment amidst the graying landscapes earlier in life, but, "forgetting what is behind", I chose thankfulness today.  "God has made everything beautiful for its own time", and He has blessed this season with the abundant yield of the earth.  It is the time of harvesting the abundance of crops, of filling our barns with the fat of the land, of preparing and storing the fruit of men's toil and sweat since the scattering of seed.  Thanksgiving is the pulse of this season, marking our calendars with the reminder that God is good, and that He "richly and ceaselessly provides us with everything for enjoyment".  

Thanksgiving is the noble language of Autumn.  

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever" (Psalm 107:1)

Lessons from the BC fires

I sat near the window staring at the once blue sky, now stained in particulate gray and orange hues.  The day was young and hot, but the sun was hidden by the particles the fires breathe in their burning furry.  The indoor air was stifling and unpleasant,  teasing my trachea with a dry cough.  Despite experiencing the fires of near and distant forests for a few years now, we were caught again without an air purifier.  My airways were steadily protesting.  "Costco will fix that tomorrow", I made a mental note.  

Even though the air quality index had shifted a few digits to the right, we were in a fairly clean air bubble compared to my family.  My sister's house is in the belly of the inferno, and for days she was left to wonder whether her home would survive the rapidly-encroaching blaze.  In the rush to comply with the mandatory evacuation, she grabbed a few things for an overnight departure - or so she thought.  The one overnight turned into several days, and she is still not home. Her few things proved insufficient for the unexpected exile, and she had to replenish her exile wardrobe with some necessary finds.  

I thought about what I would take if the rush to evacuate came at an equally inopportune time as hers had come.  I looked at my newly-covered Bible, its pages glowing with life eternal and great and precious promises.  The Word will go first -anytime, anywhere - that was for sure.  The books will stay - there might be blue horizons beyond the burning skies where letters and tea blend in a sweet marriage of senses to expand the wisdom of the soul.  I scanned my wardrobe with my mind's eye, and I regretted that my green skirt would be ashes in this imaginary fire.  For the last few years, green had become the color of my soul, and I treasured its hues in living nature and inanimate matter, hence my green skirt.  

I scanned my possessions with my mind's eye, a dull sadness graying my thoughts.  I spent so much time throughout my relatively short life acquiring things that brought momentary pleasure.  I scoured stores and websites to fill an imaginary "need" to complement other imaginary "needs".  And here stood a potential fire, hungry and devouring, waiting to devastate without discernment my life's acquisitions in a few brief hours...

Up to this moment, my sister's house has been spared the deadly tongue of this fire.  Thankfully, the flames that consumed the books and the minutiae of my life remained confined to my imagination.   The fire was a living threat to thousands of people including my loved ones, so it is not a far-fetched exercise to explore the "what" of the "if" happening at my doorstep.  In fact, it seems like the entire globe is engulfed in fire - and the reasons are not as simplistic as the evening news would like us to believe - but that is the subject of a future rumination.

As I sit here writing under the soft hum of our newly-acquired air purifier, I am thankful that the atmosphere is slowly clearing and the air is becoming easier to breathe.  The sky is still an amorphous, ashy ceiling hiding the horizon.  I ventured for a walk tonight, and the absence of a cough confirmed that the air quality is improving, in case I needed a reliable confirmation.  It seems like our area has been spared the way of our faraway neighbors who are still praying for a breath of clean air.

I am thankful that this deeply-wounded planet is not my terminal destination, and this structure that houses my possessions is not my home.  I am made for eternity - made to dwell in a place so beautiful that the outer limits of my imagination cannot touch.  I am made to love and be loved by God - to know His peace that passes all understanding in the midst of untold turmoil and tribulation.  We are all made for Him - to know and to be known by Him.  To be loved without limits in spite of our failings and our deeply-seated insecurities, and one day, when we breathe our last spoonful of air, to be more alive than ever in His presence.  Today, when what we know is continually distorted or erased by the day's agenda, the love of God made flesh in Christ is the best news - and it is for everyone.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life".  (John 3:16)

Voices

Voices. so many voices... They are assailing our souls through the incessant stream of carefully-crafted news reports; through the billboards that tempt us to ignore the tenth commandment; through the violent invasion of media platforms that seek to mold us into the likeness of this age, to absorb us into the stream of this world until we act no longer as the image bearers of God. Voices savage in their call, sirens that lead to death of reason and ultimately eternal separation from God.

Most of the voices that seek to impose their authority on us have their origin in nefarious lords, kings of the underworld who walk among us in human form.  They beguile to destroy, to separate, to confuse. Sure, they may fly their message with the silver wings of a dove, but their inner bellies are vultures of darkness and deceit.  They are citizens of Babylon, and once again are uniting in their pursuit to reach a heaven without God, a salvation without the cross. 

To everyone whose heart is yearning for a higher tune, a small and gentle voice still speaks, still seeks.  This Voice is a call to love, a call to God, for God is love.  Love that still walks the paths of a long-ago tainted garden, Love that replicates itself in sons and daughters of that firstly-blessed couple, Love whose hands and feet are The church.  Jesus the Christ is The Word we are feverishly seeking for, the living water our burning souls thirst for.  There is no clarity apart from His message, no unity outside His banner, no peace away from His rule.  In Him there is no darkness-His robes are not the murky garb of deceit, but the brilliant vestment of truth.  "I am the way, the truth and the life", He said-and to anyone willing to listen, His cross speaks a message of freedom and eternal life.  To anyone willing to know  things as they are, go to the first stream, the first word, the first cause.  Seek Him in the Book that speaks salvation, the Book that unveils the plan of God, the Book that instructs in the paths of life.  The gate is very narrow,  and the road is difficult, but it is the only path to life.  Draw away from the maddening throng, away from the noise, and you will hear that still, small voice, you will hear life -maybe for the first time.


"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." (John 17:17)


"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

Spring

This evening Michal and I took our usual walk through the neighborhood, with no deviation from our usual route encouraged.  Across our complex, pink cherry blossoms with their delicate pastel flowers and liquid scent delight our eyes and fill our pleasure-chest.  Along the way, dark pink magnolias strutting their bold flowers frolic with gentle wind and light.  Red and white tulips with their cup-like flowers line the edges of white fences, intermingled with  blue bell-shaped blooms.   Lush green trees, some shyly revealing their infant flowers while others boldly flaunting large, white fingers of velvet and perfume, decorate gardens and alleys.

I have always loved summer with an unswerving commitment, but lately spring is the color of my soul.  This winter seemed especially dreary with interminable days of rain, chilling atmosphere and flesh with a dampness that seems impossible to shake off.  Months of grey skies have stirred a longing for sunshine, and warmth, and new life.  Our tree was a melancholic tangle of barren branches, sighing along with me for the anthem of spring-the call to flower and bloom again.  And now, after six months of charcoal clouds and liquid chill, the mantle of spring has cast its green breath on plants and people alike.

Probably the greatest symbol of spring is new life.  After months of bareness, nature is bursting forth with an explosion of color and scent, filling the earth with pulse and rhythm once dormant under the deadness of winter.  The occasional bird is warbling its happy melody under the spell of vibrant buds, and cotton-candy clouds are softly treading clear blue skies.  Everything sings and dances its thanksgiving to God, the giver of spring miracles, the Seed of life bursting in every living thing.

To every child of God stopped in their spiritual ascent by the frigid winter of long trials, this is your season of new life.  After every winter spring comes without fail-and as is in the natural, so is in the spiritual.   "Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes with the morning", and our endurance will be richly rewarded with God's promise of favor. For every trial of fire God has a promise of turnaround for good, even if sometimes its fulfillment takes place once this life has played its final act.  God gathers all our tears in a bottle and perfumes heaven with the scent of our unspoken cries and vociferous prayers.  One morning, the dark will give way to the light of His presence and we will walk out of our former prison.  No demon in hell will bar our exit, and no flood of opposition will drown our lapse to freedom's shore.  So stand, my brother, knowing that your Savior is king over every seen and unseen realm, and He is descending in your pit with freedom in His wings.  Stand, my sister, trusting that His promise to give you a future and a hope has been sealed with His blood.   Soon-yes, very soon-our faith will finally be sight, and our eyes will behold The One our souls have adored and our affections  embraced.  As a hymn of the last century affectingly declares, "it will be worth it all when we see Jesus"...

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18)

"To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.  In their righteousness, they be will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for His own glory" (Isaiah 61:3).

Easter

This weekend much of the world celebrated Easter.   Although many people did not necessarily celebrate it, most of the world was at least confronted with it by reason of it being a statutory holiday in nations with Christian roots.  In a world unspoiled by COVID19,  little hands would have eagerly hunted for the brightly-labelled chocolate eggs strewn across lawns, dropped down by helicopter (yes, this actually happened), or hidden and revealed by tightly-sealed clues by parents.  Churches all across the world would welcome men and women, the young and the old, for a time of reflection and thanksgiving for the supernatural gift of Passover.  Families would gather around the Passover meal with grateful hearts, experiencing anew the anguish of Good Friday, the victory of Resurrection Sunday, the contemplation of God's display of wrath and mercy through the means of a cross.

Easter is about a love story.  A redemption story.  It is not a clean, sterilized story that sparkles with the pastel colors we associate with Easter.  It is messy, because it involves us, and we are messy, and broken, and utterly incapable of fixing ourselves.  We are all infected with something far worse than COVID19.  It is the virus of sin, and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.  From the moment we are born, we exert a propensity toward rebellion, toward destruction.  The human heart is the wellspring of great evil and suffering, as testified by two world wars, genocides of nations, and countless injustices performed daily by "good" people upon their fellow human beings.  The human heart is anything but good, in spite of what our "enlightened" centers of learning would like us to believe.  This sin-problem is so great that it separates us from our Creator God, a God whose eyes are so pure that He cannot behold evil.  It is just that our sins be punished, and the punishment is nothing short of death-death physical and separation eternal.  God cannot close His eyes and dismiss our lies, our blasphemy, our idolatry, and roll the red carpet into His house we know as heaven.

Why would God allow His Son to be humiliated, tortured, blasphemed and ultimately given over to die the death of a criminal?  It begins with who God is.  God IS love, and love gives, and forgives, and transforms.  God loves every single one of us with a love that is independent of our stature  or life journey, and in His love He yearns to commune with us now and forever.  God's heart holds the perfect balance of justice and mercy and He can administer one without cancelling the other.  When Jesus died, He died the death that you and I deserved for those sins that we so easily dismiss: our theft, our "white" lies, our hate, our lust... He was separated from God upon that tree so that we would not be eternally separated from Him.  He endured God's wrath so we wouldn't have to.  Before He gave up His breath, He cried "It is finished."  We no longer have to build a stairway to heaven (not that we ever could).  We no longer have to torture our bodies and souls in an effort to bridge the  gulf between us and God.  All our work to reach God, all our efforts to atone for our wrongs is finished.  All that remains is faith -faith pure and unadulterated by human intervention.

God's Word says:  "If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9). It takes faith that Jesus Christ is God's final and only provision for our sins.  It takes a spoken confession to make Jesus Christ Lord of our lives.  He is not willing to share the throne of our hearts with other gods, such as materialism or new age philosophies.  It takes humility and repentance to recognize that we are deeply polluted by sin and in need of rescuing, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  

There is no better news in all the world than the message of Easter.  That we can be forgiven, restored and have peace with God is the greatest gift.  It cost God His precious Son to give, and it costs us nothing to receive.  It will cost us everything to ignore: eternal separation from God in a place called Hell-a place of torment, darkness and unending sorrow.   Look to Calvary, and behold Love wounded and bruised for us.  Look to the empty tomb, and see Love crowned with victory and majesty.  Listen within, and you will hear Love calling, seeking, wooing. 

Daily Word

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." (1 John 18)

The world as a whole seems to be marinated in fear.  Fear of a microscopic virus, namely COVID19, to which much power of destruction has been imputed.  Fear of economic collapse as life has been forced to a standstill.  Fear of loneliness, as small and large gatherings are prohibited.  The fear of death seems heightened as this invisible enemy, this front-stage virus, attacks and infects without predictable pattern or thought-out reason.  This fear has been greatly heightened by continuous news feeds that will not allow us to forget, to rest, to ponder the greater meaning of this season.  And in this murky water of confusion, a clear call emerges.  A call to remember that God loves His children, that He holds us in the palm of His hands, that nothing happens without His knowledge or permissive will.  When we know that God loves us, our hearts can be steadied and pacified, knowing that for every evil there is a Romans 8:28 solution, even if this ultimate good is only materialized in eternity.  God still clothes the lilies and  He still feeds the sparrows.  His eyes are continually upon us, administering His good and perfect gifts, renewing His mercies every morning.

Grandparents Day

Last year, Michal and I were invited to participate in Grandparents' day organized by Joshua's school, as stand-ins for his far-away grandparents.  Being assured twice by one of Joshua's classmates that we looked too young to be grandparents, we mingled freely with our beloved, honored to catch a glimpse of his scholastic world.  Joshua was happy to immerse us in his newest projects, to explore with us the meaning behind drawings, posters and painted treasure chests.  I sat at his desk and peered into his world through the objects hidden inside,  awed at how far he has climbed mentally and emotionally since our baby-sitting days.

One of my earliest memories of Joshua is the first time I saw him step outside, on a summer day .  He bent down, grabbed some blades of grass, and throwing them in the air, he exclaimed "wow!".  I was fascinated by his awe, for I never looked at grass with wonder,  never swelled with marvel at its vibrant color.  A few years down the road, when we would walk the sidewalk, me holding his hand and talking about the flowers, he would stop and exclaim again "wow"!.  There were many things that wowed him in those days:  birds dancing overhead, bees pollinating flowers, butterflies gliding beside us, large noisy vehicles... and the ice cream truck, of course.  In fact, one time he was so fascinated and disturbed by the advent of ice cream from this box on wheels that it arrested his monologue for the entire afternoon.

One of his great pleasures was to open and close our shower door for as long as the supervising adult-me-could  contain the absence of danger.  Or emptying all our bathroom cupboards and examining with glee the mundane objects of grooming.  Or pressing the button-in fact, any button-in the elevator, or the phone, or the dishwasher.  There is something truly riveting about those buttons that I haven't apprehended yet, with all the knowledge that adulthood was supposed to grant me...   Or taking the escalator as many times as the observing adult-me again-would deem respectable.  Joshua's world was so small, yet so adventurous, so exciting...

Michal and I often talk about snippets of his childhood with a nostalgia that seeks to keep alive the first decade of his life.  I was often convicted by how small my joy is at the pleasures of life:  the smell of a rose, the aroma of freshly-cut papaya, the first snowfall...  Every day,  something in God's book of nature is a call for a burning-bush encounter, a call to remove my shoes of indifference and experience the awe of a great God painting my world with great things... Who else but God could move my heart with the warm, flaming colors of  sunset, alive with wonder every evening?  And just like Joshua crying "push the button again, auntie", I whisper "show me another sunset, Lord"...  Who else but a great, good God could trigger my pleasure again and again with the rich taste of dark chocolate, or the roar of the waves pummeling the beach, or the velvety touch of spring blooms?

As Joshua advanced in age and maturity, he noticed less the life of the flowers or the waterfall elevator.  However, as his understanding expanded, so did his capacity to taste and see the goodness of God, his pleasure quotient directly proportional to the magnitude of discovery.  At the ripe age of almost preteen, he is mesmerized by beautifully-crafted words, the order of planets,  his mini Schnauzer Coco.

God is big enough to sustain our wonder at any age, any stage of life.  I  can never exhaust the pleasure of morning promenades on the beach, or the warm evenings under the breath of the moon.  He whispers His love through these and a thousand more gifts, inviting me to mingle my soul with the beauty revealed in the book of nature.  I may not be wowed by the moist soil shielding the virgin blade of grass, or the trail of a plane in the translucent skies, like Joshua used to be;  however, I am endlessly wowed by the gifts each new day brings - the kiss of Majesty upon a soul thirsty for the sacred beauty of life.

"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:22.23)

Greater than Solomon

Long before any of my contemporaries were born, there was a king who was known as the wisest man who ever lived.  His name was Solomon, and He lived in the hottest real-estate city in the universe, Jerusalem.  Unlike the pseudo-celebrities of today, who become overnight sensations by pushing the boundaries of decency through song, dress or conduct, Solomon had lasting star-power.  Even a cursory look at his resume reveals a man who changed the landscape of history by his accomplishments.  He built the temple of Jerusalem over a seven-year period, and over the next thirteen years he built the palace, the courthouse, and devised the building of pools that secured the city's water supply   His diplomatic craft enabled him to establish co-operations with the most well-known rulers of his time, thus establishing an era of unprecedented calm and affluence.  He amassed incredible wealth for him and for the people of Jerusalem. He established trade routes with other countries, imported horses from Egypt and made silver as plain as pebbles.  The Bible says that Solomon "surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom".  His wisdom, recorded in The Book of Proverbs among other writings, continues to nurture excellence in individuals, cultures and nations today.

One of the world-stage players who became obsessed with Solomon's fame was the queen of Sheba.  "Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she  came to test him with hard questions" (1 Kings 10:1).  Her pilgrimage was an incredibly challenging undertaking:  this was a journey of 1400 miles across the desserts of Arabia, on camels that could barely travel twenty miles a day.  The round trip would have taken her at least six months,  and could extend to several years.  Loaded with gifts and encumbered by great entourage, she arrived at Solomon's royal courts and unloaded the issues of her heart in the hearing of the great king.  The queen had an uninhibited audience with the king, where she could ask him the difficult matters of life, the questions of existence that erode at inner rest and nightly sleep.   "So Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain it to her" (1 Kings 10:5).   Yes, all she had heard was indeed true, and double the greatness that rumors told.  She saw all the splendor of Solomon's house, the excess of Solomon's feasts, the gold that dazzled his feasting tables, the glitter of the cloth the servants wore, and "there was no more spirit in her".

As great as Solomon was, there stands among us One who is greater.  He invites us to probe the riches of His wisdom, to ask the tough questions of life, to seek the meaning in the tales of our lives. We may need to travel long and difficult journeys from far countries where we have wasted our spiritual inheritance.  The road to the King may demand a sacrifice of time, a disturbing of our priorities, a surrender of preconceived notions.  The steps to the kingly courts will require a surrender of the intellectual garb that puts man as ultimate judge of good and evil, truth and falsehood.  The undisturbed audience with the King will require a sincere heart, a humble posture, a contrite spirit.  We come to Him knowing full well that He holds all wisdom, all knowledge, all truth-He is truth.  And as we behold Him in the mirror of His Word, we also testify that "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Cor.2:8).  

The King longs to speak to us in the cool of the day, as the dew falls on the grass and the sun crosses the threshold of day. He yearns to impart  to us the mysteries of His Word, to direct our steps, to give us the daily manna that sustains our joy.  He desires to pour in the cup of our hearts, strength to battle the day's Goliath,  hope to sustain our future.  He has hidden the answers in the pages of His Word, and "has revealed them to us through His Spirit".  Ablaze with the life of the Spirit, the Bible becomes alive, "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb.4:12).  As we gaze intently at Him in the Word and in prayer,we are changed and we become world changers:  "but we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor 3:18).  

Reason for words

I have laid down my digital pen in slumber for far too long, choosing instead to convey my thoughts by such antiquated means as physical pen and paper.  The great "I AM" is calling me out of digital silence, and bids me to follow Him in laid-down word.  This exodus into the noise of the internet comes with a necessary but reluctant grace, as I have grown quite fond of the intimacy conferred by parallel lines of paper, where my soul can roam freely, unhindered by the fear of transparency and possible criticism.  However, this blog is not about me.  In fact, my opinions in themselves are really not that important.  There are mountains of words towering on the landscape of the internet, erupting their flow from thousands of blogs, news channels and other sources.  This blog was never meant to point to any perceived cleverness of mine, nor were my internal rumblings designed to stop the world in its tracks by any dust of wisdom my words my sprinkle on already saturated hearers.  This corner of the internet is ultimately for Him and about Him.  And He is inviting me to share that which He has graciously given to me, in the hope that at least one person may taste and see that God is good.

What has happened in my life since I last wrote here?   Thankfully, no major tsunami has done any significant rearranging in the physical aspects of our lives, mine and Michal's.  However, there are storms within my inner landscape, shaking long-seated apathy, disturbing minor and major trespasses, demolishing excuses and confronting denials.  I have been looking long and hard into the mirror of God's Word,  knowing full well that all the keys which open the doors to lasting change are hidden there.  I have found abundant provision for the grace needed each day to live beyond the confines of self and yet die to its demands.  I have found rest that gives sweet sleep in the midst of incredible chaos and turbulence rocking our world.  More than ever, I am persuaded that the answer to the ills of our planet lies not in political solutions or social justice warriors, but in the love of God on full display at Calvary.  And more than ever, I earn for His return, for being face to face with Him without interruptions, without sorrow, without end.

So this is why I scribble, to make Him known as He has revealed Himself to me, through the pages of His Word.  All that ever needed to be said has already been said in The Book of ancient but current wisdom, alive and teeming with the revelation of God.  My prayer is that these words will be a reflection of The Word, although a dim and lean one.  I pray that the humble citations of my soul will cause an irrevocable hunger for The Way, The Truth and The Life, and that, through Him, one more soul will find its way home.

A world in fog

Today I got new prescription glasses.  Having barely left my thirties, I wasn't expecting the revenge of the forties to overtake me so soon.  I have known I was in trouble for some time.  Determining how much acrylic a garment has was no easy task from a label where the letters have grown so small lately.  I had given up on finishing "A night to remember" and left the Titanic's passengers stranded in a fog of clouded letters that were too hard to member together.  Having my eyes run from me is a frightening thing... focusing so hard, yet seeing nothing.  Yes, the magnifying glass was in the kitchen, within easy grasp, but now I needed one in my bedroom, in the shower (which one's the shampoo and which is the conditioner?), in my car...  Things were easier at work.  The lit, magnifying orbits at each workstation make reading the petri plates a pleasure, and identifying each minute colony no small a victory.  But at home... this is where the war begins and stays.  This is where I have to admit that I am no longer twenty, the twenty where my eyes are free to roam the small print and rescue the aged from their prescription-bottle-label struggles.

I miss my twenty-year old eyes, when eyeglasses were practically unnecessary, except an optometrist thought it might prevent eye fatigue.  I often wonder, would my eyes be better off now had I ignored his prescription and let my eyes see free?  And why does this question even matter now, as if the undoing of twenty years of eyeglasses can be reversed, now that my eyes struggle through the nebulous, shrinking letters?

I miss my twenty-year old soul, too.  I miss the innocence of the world that was mostly white, even though I had survived the blackness of communism in my first twelve years.  There wasn't so much to sort through to get to the truth,  there was no ministry of truth except in Orwell's world.  There wasn't as much machinery fuelled by billions as if billions were pennies, to subtract the good and the sublime out of this world and to replace it with the unholy and the mediocre.

I miss my twenty-year old soul free from the distraction of the internet.  I had no World Wide Web, no super-highway  to expand my information bank with whatever morsel of knowledge I crave at any given time.  At times, the internet invades me like a slow, numbing poison that dulls my reality into bites of ones and zeros and leaves me smaller, smaller. Without the internet life was beautiful, and connected, and quiet.  Books-real books, not internet articles-were oasis of pleasure and rest, and lofty thought.

I would gladly renounce all this "progress" and go back to the era of my twenties, where birds were still flying and bees were not endangered.  But the done cannot be undone, except in God's kingdom.  Only at the Cross the stories of our lives can be done-over, as if a single letter had never been written.  Only by The Blood of the One whose beginnings were not in man-plus-woman union can we know the way, the truth and the life.  The ocean of His grace will heal us of regret, and rebellion will be intercepted by love in an ever-upward dance.

And thus I put on my God-lens and look at my barely-out-of-the-thirties self, knowing that nothing is really lost.  Though my eyes seem to be running away from me and my food sensitivities are extra baggage from my twenties, I still swim in the same ocean of God's grace.  His love still carries me through the currents of seismic change that move this earth toward apocalypse.  I am still redeemed and my destination unchanged. Sure, the road has gotten a lot bumpier and the minefields more unpredictable since my starry-eyed twenties, but the same Holy Spirit holds my hand and lights my path.  Together, we will make it out of this maze called life,  and finally I will be able to see-no eyeglasses required.

Kingdom coming

As I look at the world around and feel the rumblings of a monster storm, the likes of which history has no comparison, I contemplate it with mixed emotions.  Just like the fabled king whole left eye was crying as the right one was laughing, so my heart holds both joy and sorrow.

If we had a giant time clock in the skies that counted down to the advent of Christ's second coming, its arms would probably be seconds away from midnight.  We can almost hear His steps descending on Heaven's stairway into the Now that rushed and ordered itself into waves of matter and light expelled by His breath.  We can sense Heaven getting ready to receive His bride, and a thousand times thousands wedding invitations are dispatched to fill the wedding halls with His image-bearers.  We hear the Angel set pen to paper and, in eternal books, another name is engraved with ink that cannot lie, the scarlet fountain of His blood.  Foundations are decorated in  jasper, emerald and sapphire, streets are paved with gold, clear and shimmering like crystal.  We see the party hats and the dazzling costumes and we hear the roar of hallelujahs as another prodigal has found the way home.  We see His bride shake the sleep from her soul and her eyes, dressed in garments of faith and works, scanning the horizon night and day for His arrival.  Looking upward, she girds herself for harvest, one last labor of love and suffering, even as the axe is set at the root of the tree for one last purging. 

As heaven is busy preparing for the marriage supper of the Lamb, hell is excessively diligent in  expanding its borders.  We see a flood of demons descending on portals of filth, bathing the earth in violence and bloodshed.  We hear the roar of hate masking itself as justice and good works, its cry hollow as "sounding brass or clinging cymbal".  We see confusion and its dominion in man and nature, and we see evil crowned as good and good desecrated as evil.  We hear man say, "let us make god in our image,  in our likeness; and let him bow to our lust, let him glorify in our laws; let him follow us in our corruption, let him bless our covetousness, and let him give us what is right in our own sight".  We see the young souls of the unborn sacrificed on the altar of self-gratification, and we see the lame and the maimed done away with  in the name of mercy.  We hear the growing darkness laboring the Antichrist into his kingdom, engaged in chasing Truth out of His universe.

My one eye is rejoicing because His coming is so, so close...  He is coming to take us home, a place so magnificent that Paul, a birther of words, was destitute of letters at its threshold.  I rejoice because our eyes will see The One our hearts have loved, and His eyes will brush the ashes from our souls.  The time is coming when faith will be sight, when face-to-face encounter will replace dim mirror reflections.

My other eye is weeping because of the coming kingdom of black embodied in a man of great persuasion, and eloquence, and unquestioning authority.   Under this man, "there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again."  (Matthew 24:21).  We are entering a time when " men’s hearts [will be] failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken". (Luke 21:26)  And the crowds are cheering, and ready, and waiting for this man to make his entrance. 

The time of history's greatest upheaval is at hand.  The Father is waiting for one more prodigal to come home, for one more guest to attend His wedding feast.  "Today when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts" but come and be born of water and of Spirit.  The stakes are too high for anything but that. 

Worlds beyond

A few weeks ago I spoke with someone who considered himself an atheist.  In passionate tones, he told me his reason for denying the existence of God.  The Bible has a specific message to people like him: "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" 

If you are part of the rising militant army of atheists or the "closet" unbeliever,  this is a gentle invitation to explore "the other side" of unbelief.  I mean, why do you clutch so tightly to a few intellectually dishonest arguments in the face of overwhelming evidence?  Have you saddled a chariot and traversed the breath of this limitless universe to find Him?  Have you galloped through our solar system, have you touched the edges of our Milky Way?  Have you hitched your wagon for the 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km journey it takes to explore your neighborhood galaxy?  Umm, no.  It takes about 100,000 light years to explore your cosmic backstreets, which, in our average eighty-year life span, pretty much spells immortality.  If you could achieve the speed of NASA's Voyager of 17.3 km/s, it would take you over 1,700,000,000 years to explore it from one end to the other [1]. Still feeling grand much? 

How about getting out of our comfortable little galaxy to explore other cosmic lands?  If you could spare a few billion light years (more like 212 billion)  in your pilgrimage, you could park for a while on the edge of NGC 6872, a galaxy five times the size of our Milky Way.  Have a hearty breakfast and saddle your light-year horse, because it will take you 522,000 light years to explore the backwoods of this spiral   And you haven't found Him yet!

Astronomers tell us that no one really knows how big the universe is,  or even if there are other universes like ours "out there".  We are talking about God-size measurements now, a God who grabs the universe between two fingers and scans it faster than your market's barcode reader.  Isaiah 40:12 describes the kind of measuring stick God uses:

Who has scooped up the ocean
in His two hands,
or measured the sky between His thumb and little finger,
Who has put all the earth’s dirt in one of his baskets,
weighed each mountain and hill?

We are talking about a big, big God!  He is so big that this universe cannot contain Him, yet so "small" that He can fit inside the heart of a child. 

There is much more evidence for the existence of an infinite, all-powerful God who exhaled this universe into our existence, yet stooped down to stamp His image into you and me.  I know that, for some, even the raising of the dead wouldn't be "proof" enough for the existence of God.  Because, you know, He actually did arise from the grave!  Thirty seconds before you die, you will know.  The veil between the visible and the spirit realm will become transparent, and you will see the eternal abyss which you fought so hard to deny.  Ask Voltaire, or Robert Ingersoll, or Thomas Hobbs.  Thirty seconds before you die, your heart will be so hard from the unbelief you caressed over a lifetime, that all desire for repentance will be extinguished out of you. 

If you are still alive, if there is a flicker of "what if" breathing inside of you, I invite you to bow your knee and acknowledge Him.  Give Him your all-your sins, your failures, your disappointments.  Turn from your rebellion and acknowledge Him as your Lord and Savior.  He is waiting for you, ready to forgive, ready to embrace, ready to give you the best life on the other side of time.  If you need help meeting Jesus, write me.  It will be my great honor to introduce you to my Friend and Savior, Jesus Christ.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."





[1] Numerical figures taken from NASA's website.

Threads

I have been absent from the world of words in the internet world for a long time.  I am becoming increasingly aware that my silence is no less than sin against my Father God.  No, there is no "thou shalt write" commandment hidden in the beautiful pages of my Bible.  What it is, instead,is an inner urging to use my voice, the voice He has given me, to lay down reflections of His heart lived out in me.  More than anything, I want this "pen" to bring glory to God, the One who has relentlessly loved me and kept me throughout my life.

Some of my reflections will seem incredibly "trifling", like my love for chocolate.  Yes, you read it right.  Yesterday I made a batch of raw chocolate fudge that looks deceptively healthy (no dairy, gluten-free, grain-free; I mean, it is practically a vegetable). "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good...", cried the psalmist, and every time I serve my favorites in the food department, my tastebuds throw a party.  The cocoa bean is His idea, and this small seed was designed for our pleasure!

At time, my reflections will read more like a journal. Today, Michal and I took a walk under the warm September sun, and my heart was filled with gratitude for autumn's day two that resembled summer's day one.  The air was warm, the sun was incredibly bright, and a gentle breeze was swaying the auburn leaves in a dance of light and shadows.  As evening drew near, He painted the skies with hues of orange, pink and gold-and He invited me to watch the dusk of today and the birth of tomorrow. 

What do chocolate, and sunsets, and warm autumn walks have to do with anything, you ask?  They are gifts that speak of a God who defines beauty, and joy, and pleasure.  He is everywhere... if we only stop long enough to see Him.  He fills our plates with the fat of the Earth, He colors our horizons with rainbow hues, He smiles in the glow of tepid September strolls. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands..."Sometimes we will explore the breath of rocks, and other times we will ponder the big questions of life.  Through it all, God will be our center, the Bible our teacher, and His goodness our anchor. 

Oh, that we would stop and explore the beauty of God in the small and great gifts of  life...  "Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good" - I pray that this truth will be etched on the tablets of our hearts in colors of crimson. 

Once upon a rabbit

I had the privilege these last few days to spend some time with my nephew, Joshua.  The little boy who used to laugh incessantly and wake up singing will be eight years old this summer.  The years gone by have not erased the joy that marked his toddler years, nor diminished his gentleness.  Joshua is a little gentleman: considerate of others' feelings, generous, politely-mannered.

One day he met me from school and enthusiastically showed me the prize he received.  A small rabbit decoration, a much-anticipated prize that marked his reading one hundred books this school year, clung tightly in his hand.  He was unbridled in his joy, his glance often resting on his prize.  A while later, unaware of the whereabouts of the rabbit, I flung the blanket from the couch and in the process decapitated Rabbit.  Joshua was devastated, and so was I.  Through tears he whispered "it's okay, auntie", but I knew his disappointment would take a little longer to dissipate.

Driving home that day with a heavy heart, I cried. "That is silly", someone might say, "it's such a small thing."  Sure, it may be a dollar store acquisition, but to Joshua it represented - even if he didn't quite verbalize that - the hard work he put in, the diligence of agonizing over new words and hard-to-grasp phrases.  It was the fulfilment of a long-awaited reward which he barely had time to own, to savour the victory it represented.

That night, on my drive home, I cried for all the disappointments he would later experience.  For the friends who would one day be indifferent.  For the words which would cause him to loose sleep.  For the sadness he would experience because of unmet expectations, and hurtful interactions, and for unanswerable question marks.

That night, I cried for the kids whose mothers didn't return from the hospital.  For the husbands whose wives never held their newborn babies.  And for the babies who never heard the soothing tones of their mothers' voice.  I thought about the kids who lay graveless at the hands of soulless men.  'What does God think of all of this?', I wondered.

And then I saw Him standing before Lazarus' tomb, weeping.  Jesus wept... John never tells us why.  Maybe He cried the pain which sin deposits on the world in layers of heartbreak, and anguish, and despair.  Jesus saw His friends drowned in grief -  grief so deep that only wordless tears could comfort.  He felt what they felt, and He didn't shy away from drinking the cup of sorrow.  A short while later, He would drink all of it - the ocean of suffering drowning humanity - and in His death atone for its sin.

That night, I tasted anew the joy that only He can bring amidst the tears.  As I pondered the suffering of the world - the small measure I knew of - I was feeling His heart.  He ached for it long before I ever did - and He wept.  He is not distant or disconnected from the hurting, but He walks among them.  How else could we visit Him when He is sick, or feed Him when hungry, or go to Him when in prison?

I don't have all my questions answered on this side of heaven, and that's okay. What I know for sure is that, "even though I walk through the darkest valley, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."    He loves me, He quiets my heart, He carries me when I cannot walk on my own. 

On this side of the resurrection, that is very good news.

^" Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)



  

Reason for the hope

I feel compelled to define, if only for myself, why I am a Christian and what difference it makes to my life.  Maybe because there are so many notions and voices presented with a Christian label, I want to bring clarity to what it means to be a Christian.

First, I want to declare that, by being a Christian, I am not better than other people, no matter their religious or philosophical persuasion.  In fact, ever since I had a supernatural encounter with Christ, I see my own failures, my deficiencies, my hypocrisy clearly, and I am grieved by my heart condition.  Before Him, I thought I was "good", my reputation untarnished by murder, or sexual misconduct, or some audacious conflict.  Before Him, I was blind- blind to the pride that "steps" over other people, blind to the grief my words brought, blind to the wounds my lies were effecting on myself and others.  A that moment, when I looked in His eyes and His love flooded every atom of my being, I could see, for the first time, how utterly depraved I was and how much I needed His righteousness.  He is God, and I am not - and I needed Him to save me and give me a new beginning.

Being a Christian does not mean that I am perfect.  In fact, for as long as I live, I will struggle to choose between what I want -often what is easy, self-pleasing and void of sacrifice -and God's higher calling.  He calls me to die daily -not physically, of course -but die to the pleasures that seek to ravage my soul and to ultimately separate me from the One I now love.  I have discovered no greater joy than the nearness of His presence, no greater delight than the truth of His  law.  He is the pearl of great price, the treasure worth living and dying for - and the peace He gives transcends earthly afflictions.

Being a Christian means living a supernatural life.  It means that, in my strength, I cannot live a life that honours God, because the enemy that I am fighting is much stronger than I.   It is only as I remain connected to Him, drawing upon His strength and the fellowship of His presence, that I can rise above the call of my self-seeking, self-gratifying nature, and the invisible foe that seeks "to steal and kill and destroy" (John10:10).

Being a Christian means I have a new roadmap for my life, the Bible.  The day I invited Him into my heart, I willingly surrendered the throne to the One in Whom all the treasures of love, beauty, and wisdom hide.  I have relinquished my perceptions for His truth, my world view for His absolute, my shack for His kingdom.  I gave Him the broken pieces of my life and He gave me life eternal, laughter for my tears, joy in my suffering.  Knowing Him has been the greatest gift of my life.

Being a Christian means loving the kind and the unkind and blessing the ones who seek to hurt and malign me.  It is because I am called to imitate Him - a loving God who died for the ones that tore and shred His flesh, and marred His face beyond recognition.  "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good", He says -and today, as millions of Christians are forsaking retribution and vengeance, their children are beheaded, their homes are burnt, their lives turned into often irreversible upheaval.  

Being a Christian means I have a permanent home beyond the confounds of the grave.   Death after a life of seventy, eighty years is not the end, but the beginning.  This life is not the destination, but the journey to my permanent residence.  For this reason Christians have been able to endure inexplicable tortures in their refusal to forsake Christ, because "they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one", a country worth pursuing to the point of death (Hebrews 11:16).  In God's economy, they are the winners, the ones whose names will never be forgotten and whose sacrifices bring true riches:  "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (2 Cor 4:17).

Being a Christian means being rescued from my sin and from an eternal destiny of hell.  Sinning against God is no small thing, and the punishment is no small slap on the wrist.  A holy God must punish sin, otherwise He would be unjust.  A loving God took my punishment-and the whole world's-upon Himself, and His forgiveness makes me a citizen of heaven. 

 ^"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life " (John 3:16)

It's all about Him

Recently, one of the leaders of a mega-church in North America made the following statement:

"I just want to encourage every one of us to realize: When we obey God, we're not doing it for God.  I mean, that's one way to look at it.  We're doing it for ourselves.  Because God takes pleasure when we're happy.  That's the thing that gives him the greatest joy this morning.  So I want you to know this morning, just do good for your own self.  Do good 'cause God wants you to be happy.  When you come to church, when you worship him, you're not doing it for God, really.  You're doing it for yourself, because that's what makes God happy.  Amen?"

It has been a couple of weeks ago since this statement has been heard in that church and subsequently around the world.  I haven't been able to shake it off because, sadly, this statement seems to pervade through much of our theology and the way we perceive God's role in the lives of His creatures.  God is here for us, orbiting around our little worlds, moving the machinery of heaven with one purpose alone: to bless us. To prosper us.  To weed out every discomfort, to purge our minds and our souls of every ounce of suffering, to cancel the dust of poverty off the soles of our shoes.  God exists for one reason alone: to inhale our troubles and our deficiencies and to exhale the goods filling our ever-expanding barns as testaments to His blessing.   He is always near, thinking up new ways to pamper our bodies and stuff our barns, in hopes that our abundance will draw the world with chords of envy into our crystal citadel.  This god requires no sacrifice, makes no demands on our flesh, and affirms our tireless pursuit of self-gratification.

I listen to the happiness gospel disturbed.  Calvary looms over my life too large to synthesize it into a formula for worldly success.   The suffering of Christ is too encompassing to reduce it to a feel-good patch or a get-more scheme.  Jesus died -and  His call to me and to us is a call to death (Galatians 2:20).  A call to crucify our lust. Our desire for worldly acclaim.  Calvary urges me to place the whole of my desires, the heart of my pursuits and the bent of my will on the altar of perpetual sacrifice (Romans12:1).   Paul's admonishing to "glory in our sufferings", to "put to death the deeds of your sinful nature", to "fight the good fight of faith" are worlds away from the gospel of happiness.  God does not exist to make our earthly sojourn a spa retreat where every star whispers our name and every atom collides to create our happiness.  We were made for Him, to bring Him glory and to exalt the excellency of His name.  Everything-and everyone-is for Him, through Him, and by Him.  One day, when He will write the final sentence of His story and seal our final chapter into eternity,  the only name our lips will exalt will be His. 

After all, it's all about Him.
 

^"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:15-17).

“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
    to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
    and by your will they were created
and have their being"  (Rev. 4:11)