Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Another person in our church is dying.  Another family will be without a mother, a husband will lose his soul mate.  The sadness is overwhelming at times.  I prayed for healing and it did not come.  The family prayed for healing and yet there she lies, dying.

In thinking this over, I realized a couple of things.  My sadness is true and real, but the core issue is the loss here of this person; the loss to her family to her friends and to her church.  My sadness is appropriate, but not the center.  When in this sorrow, the focus must be, as in all things, heavenward.  If my sorrow becomes the focus, then any hope of ministry to the family and friends becomes self serving. Sorrow that finds comfort from Heaven can then give the same comfort. For each of us then weeping and sorrow are good when death is the issue, for they express the feelings and give place to the insult that death is to us all.  They must move heavenward though, in order to find peace.  

Which leads to my second realization; we are all acting as though death is a new thing, as though we are the first to experience it and we really should not have to die. 

Listen to any local news program and notice how death is generally one of the lead stories.  Death always makes the news.  Why is that?  Death has been a part of earthly existence since nearly the beginning of time.  Death is not a surprise.  Everyone we know that is no longer on this earth has died.  None of us have any relatives from, say 1700, who are living.  No, all of them have died.   But still, death always takes us by surprise.

Maybe we resist death and fight it because it truly is foreign to us. Maybe we are surprised by it because we were never meant to die, but to live.  We are surprised when death finds us. 

“Because I could not stop for death-

  he kindly stopped for me-“         Emily Dickinson

How then to live as those who must die, but are ultimately meant to live?  A question worth pondering…..

Of Clouds and Cops

When God was leading His people in the desert, teaching them about Himself and proving His love and care in that leading, He made sure His presence was visible to them.

The pillar of cloud, hovering above the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle, was the evidence of that presence.  As the sign of His presence, the pillar of cloud would direct the travels of the people, His people.  If the cloud lifted it was time to move on.  If the cloud stopped, it was time to stop and if the cloud remained, it was time to remain.

The pillar of cloud also had the appearance of a pillar of fire in the night time, so was at all times visible.  At all times God was with them.  The people had evidence.  They could see the pillar, day or night.  There could be no doubt that God was there with them. 

I try to imagine what it must have been like; to know that the God Who had done great and amazing miracles in order to free me was within my sight.  His promised presence was right there, in the center of the camp.  I would have had to fight to miss the evidence of His presence.  How would I act with Him right there?  Well how do any of us act when we see a police car following behind us on a road?  We make sure our speed is within the limits, we use our turn signals and we don’t pick up our phones!  We tow the line, not wanting to get a ticket!  The threat of being found out, of receiving a ticket, convinces us to act within the law. 

Having also been in trouble in traffic, it was comforting to me to know that the police were arriving to help.  The police not only “encourage” all to drive within the law, but are available to help when trouble arises. 

So with the people of God, seeing His visible presence, I would think they would be wise in their actions and quick to seek Him out for help.  He was right there.

But no!  In true form, so familiar to me, instead of being quick to ask for His help, they are quick to complain.  Instead of praying to this visible God, they complain among themselves.   After all, the food was a bit monotonous, even if it was miraculous.  How shallow we are, truly.  The people have a visible presence of the God Who is leading them, Who has rescued them, Who has preformed miracles in their sight and they complain because they remember the good, tasty food of their Egyptian Captivity.  How tasty sin is! How utterly foolish we are.  Only we can see miracles as bland stuff.  Only we can call deliverance boring and tedious. 

This is a wake up call to us to see with clear vision the work of God and the love of God right in front of our eyes.  To see it and to rely on that presence; to understand what His presence means all to us.  Pray to see the miracles and not be bored, to see redemption and instead of yawning, to rejoice.

Two Gardens

Have you ever noticed the way some things in scripture are like bookends?  Those types of things really stand out to me and I like to investigate them to see if they really do have a purpose beyond the telling of a story. 

Today I was thinking about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and when I think like this I am usually out walking and asking God to direct my thoughts, to teach me from the scriptures I am pondering.   The passage in question, from the Gospel of Mark, tells of Jesus being agonized and in prayer, to the Father over His impending torture and crucifixion.  Luke’s gospel adds insight in letting us know that the prospect of the coming events were so hard for Jesus to take in that his sweat was with drops of blood.   In no uncertain terms, the bible lets us know that what lay before Jesus was horrific.  He was soul sick. 
His friends were there to watch with Him, but they were sleepy, worn out with sorrow as Luke says.  Emotionally spent, they slept.  But Jesus prayed dropping to the ground; He begged His Father to change the course, to change the future, to rescue Him.  That is not all He prayed though.  He also prayed “Not my will, but Yours.”    Three times we are told He prayed and asked God to remove what was ahead.  Three times He begged the Father to rescue Him and three times He also prayed for the Father to have His way.

The answer that He got from His Father was that there was to be no rescue; the course and the future would stay the same.  The answer was no. The plan was to go forward and an angel was sent to strengthen Him in order that He could continue on and so He did.

There was another garden scene, eons before, where others of God’s children lived.  A lovely place with all anyone could want and need, to include friendship with God.  These two, living in the garden,  were challenged about following God; it was so easy something must be missing. They were challenged about God’s integrity, about His love for them.  Did He really give them all they could want?  Perhaps there was more, and perhaps it was easily acquired.  Without the least bit of struggle or thought, without prayer or discussion with the God Who put them there in the garden,  the two responded to the call of God on their lives by saying “Not your will, but mine.”   You were not for us, You don’t love us, You have kept something back. “Not your will, but ours.”   And so the long trek to decay began, the fracture of love, of intimacy; the destruction of purpose and being all began in a garden.   My will, not yours. 

But see how the undoing of Jesus, is the undoing of the curse. Observe how the soul deep sorrow of Jesus is the unraveling of the soul condemning guilt of all.   His choice to do the will of God, not His own will, began the rollback of decay, the fracture began to heal, and intimacy could now be mended.  In the garden where destruction came all seemed lost, so lost the two were kicked out forever, until in another garden recovery took  the shape of the Savior’s bowed head and the words, “Not My will, but Thine.”

Trust 101

I have a friend whose oldest daughter is quite close to her father.  He has been a coach for her in sporting activities and helped with her school work.  He has taught his girl much about the business he owns and she helps in the work in small ways.  So recently, when I was asked to pray for this child because her father had to be out of town, it got me to thinking.

This father will be traveling out of town during a big tournament in which his daughter is set to compete, and she will be without his presence and the support that gives. 

This  girl is understandably upset at her father missing the tournament, but she is also worried for his safety and this has affected her appetite.  This sweet child only wants her father with her.  She feels his absence strongly and it affects her physically and emotionally. 

She has to trust that he is still rooting for her and her team to win.  She has to trust that he will do all he can to return to her.  She has to trust that he thinks of her even when they are not together.  She has to learn to trust; to believe in her father’s care even when he is not there. 

 And that is the hard lesson each child of the Heavenly Father must also learn.  That though we cannot see Him, we know He is present.  That though we cannot feel Him we know He loves us.  Though He unseen, we know He is working for us to the praise of His glory.  Oh, trust…How difficult to rely on that which our senses cannot detect. We are so tied to the sensual, the visual, and the auditory.

 Yet we are called to trust in God, and this can only happen as we believe what He says and rely on it.  We hear Him and we listen and do what He says; we read His word and act upon it, fully or not so fully expecting Him to act as He has said.  Trust moves in as doubts are answered and faith is built.  As with love, trust is built up slowly, over time and through circumstances.  The process of becoming a person who trusts is not easy, it feels like a gamble to us.  It is not certain; the outcome could go either way as we see it from our vantage point. But consider the perspective of the father or the girl; he fully intends to come home after his trip.  He will follow the championship game, if even by getting text updates during the game, he will be thinking of his daughter even though he is miles away.  For him, the trust is not a gamble; trust is not even the word to use.  The

word to use is love.

Of course he cares about what she is feeling and what her activities are and the importance of the tournament to her, because he loves her.  She cannot read his mind, so relies on his presence; she relies on his spoken words.

 But this time she will learn to remember.  Remember his words of encouragement from before; remember all the games he has coached in the past and all the encouragement he has given her previously and she will learn to trust him even when he is not there in person.

And so with each of us, we remember each time God has answered our prayers. We recall what He has said in His word, what His Spirit has placed on our hearts and how He has always been there, even as He promised.