From The Sheep Pen

Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. John 11:41

It is Thanksgiving. Today we’ll spend time with families and friends and be thankful for our numerous blessings. We’ll visit, watch football or play games. We’ll definitely eat too much at dinner and then squeeze in room for pies, dessert and even a turkey sandwich at night. Thanksgiving Day is nothing less than a day of excess. Today I will be thankful for all the blessings of living in this country. Despite all the negativity about our political and social state of affairs, we have more than 99% of the world. We dare not be ingrates. I am grateful for those blessings. Hopefully, we will also remember to “praise God from Whom all our blessings flow.” And overflow.

On the wall of my prayer room, aka my home office, there’s a collage of blue Post- its which I stuck there randomly the last six seven months. They are my written out personal morning prayers. After seeing the movie “War Room,” I decided to do as Miss Clara did. During my quiet time with God, when special prayers come, I write them out and put them on the walls.

Yesterday I had trouble praying. I didn’t know what to pray and could not concentrate. It felt like a chore rather than special time with the Lord. Surely I was wearying Him with the same old requests and praises. After just a few minutes, I was ready to leave. But God has His own way of doing things.  I looked over at the wall and reread prayers I had written:

Prayers for Dan’s and my health.  Prayers for God’s protection of our children and grandchildren. Prayers for relationships, for healing and for transitions. Prayers that unsaved family would encounter Jesus. Prayers for church and for our pastors. Prayers accompanied by praise, tears, whining , off- key songs and some times angry arguments. The list is extensive.

The blue papers stick to the wall like scattered puzzle pieces, seemingly random, but a pattern emerges. Each paper prayer is a mini story about what was going on in my life at the time and my need for God in those moments. Now, tearfully and joyfully, I realize that almost every prayer has been answered , some directly and visibly, others still in process. On the wall is undeniable proof that God does indeed hear us and see us. He inclines His ear to us like a Father to a child. His Hand is upon us all the time. He knows and loves us beyond comprehension. My Post-its are paragraphs of a story being written out.  Each scrap of blue paper offers my words to God and is an ongoing dialogue between the Lord and this supplicant. I pray/write. The Lord responds perfectly each time. A divine narrative is being told  right in front of me.  Prayers on the wall which haven’t been fully answered yet are part of the story. They will be answered in time. Jesus promised us the same.

But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” John 11:22

This very second our prayers are being heard. Nothing escapes God’s willingness to respond to those who seek Him. What can one say to that?

Today let’s  say thank you. Thank our God for His indescribable loving kindness. More than family, food and friends, I thank the Father who meets with me whenever and wherever I pray, not just in the morning. I thank Him for the still small Voice answering my heart’s longings. Most of all I thank Jesus for sacrificing Himself so that now, in my prayer room, I am free to write my heart out before Him.

Lord, teach us to pray. Luke 11:1

Today is Election Day. Thankfully, tomorrow this overly long, divisive and disturbing political campaign will be over.  Tomorrow we the people will have voted. Tomorrow there will be a new President to lead the United States into the future. But today is still undecided; there are hours to be lived out in our faith.

We Christians have much at stake in this election and today thousands will be on their knees praying, especially God’s Word in 2 Chronicles 7:14

¹⁴ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

The Holy Spirit is undeniably convicting us to repent individually, corporately and nationally.  Today our prayers should be less about voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton and more about affirming God’s authority, not man’s. Pray, therefore, surrendering to His Will and then trust Him for the outcome. His will is known through the Scriptures; the outcome is His mystery to reveal.

When unclear about my payers,  I can turn to the Lord. No one prayed like Jesus. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, as John had taught his disciples. They wanted to be identified with Jesus.  It is obvious that Jesus’s prayer life impacted the disciples greatly. Jesus responded:

“This, then, is how you should pray:

“ ‘Our Father in heaven,  hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen. Matthew  6:9-13

It is the model prayer. There is nor greater prayer composed for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven. Throughout, Jesus affirms the supremacy and holiness of God as our Father. It acknowledges complete trust in God for every spiritual and physical need. We call out to forgive and be forgiven. We seek guidance from straying into our temptations  and protection from the demonic powers. And finally we give back to God all the honor, power and the glory.

Today, November 8, 2016 prayers about the election cannot usurp God’s  will.  Above anything else, they must affirm God’s kingdom, authority, power and glory in our lives, placing the Father, not politicians on the throne of our hearts. Jesus instructed how and to whom to pray. The Word is pretty clear even for  this Election Day. Anything else, we wander dangerously into  arenas  of idol worship.

“Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”John 8:10

I just read today’s commentary written by Michael Brown of “The Stream” about the Anthony Weiner scandal. He does not excuse Weiner’s gross misconduct and nor should we. Instead, he reminds us that here is a stark situation where Christians are to live differently than the world. Instead of joining in the all too familiar media shark fest circling the most recent fallen person, Brown admonishes us to pray for the man, for his salvation. Reminding us that we should never cast the first stone at any one else, Brown   writes the following :

What if our worst failings and most embarrassing moments were broadcast on national TV or posted all over the internet? How much different would we look than Weiner?

I couldn’t agree with him more. The Holy Spirit’s inner conviction is desperately needed today to counter a culture feasting on others’ transgressions and failures. Pointing out the speck in another’s eye, as Jesus said to the Pharisees, we ignore the rotting beam in our own.

In John 8:11 when the Pharisees brought the woman caught in adultery before Jesus, they were trying to trap him into blasphemy so they could arrest him. Instead, the Lord revealed their hypocrisy and self righteousness. He did three things.

First Jesus knelt and wrote in the sand. No one knows what the Lord wrote, but one by one, the woman’s accusers dropped their stones and walked away, from the youngest to the oldest. It’s generally believed each man saw his own sin exposed. We don’t know if everyone in the crowd was able to see the accusers’ secret sins or if Jesus wrote more kindly for individuals. Whatever it was, they walked away. The Lord’s revelation convicted the Pharisees of what lay secret their hearts. But even in this, He did not condemn them outright, but turned to the woman.

Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”“No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”John 8:10-11

 The second thing Jesus did was to forgive her. His forgiveness was not based on legal traps but on His divine love. There’s something else intended because Jesus asks the woman a question: Where are those who accuse you? Isn’t there even one? She says, No Lord.” He replies, Neither do I.” There is no accusation; there are no accusers; there are only Jesus and the woman and Love.

Finally, Jesus told the woman to go on and sin no more. The mercy and grace of Jesus is so great that he forgave her before he commanded her to repent.   For me, there’s no “people” story in the Bible which demonstrates Jesus’s compassion for sinners and forgiveness more than this one. Such is God’s love for us that the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 5,

But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us

Anthony Weiner’s public disgrace is  today’s example of how unforgiving the world has become and how much we need to show Christ’s forgiveness to others. Last week it was someone else in the headlines; next week there will be new bait. In our morally shifting country Christians have to be different. We are called by His Name. We need to act like it. What if right now there were no accusers  in the public square to  destroy a person like Weiner  but  instead, everyone  lay down his   stone piles of ridicule, mockery and revenge? What might happen if the Christian’s response to Anthony Weiner’s  crimes   was a prayer, “Lord, be alone with him!”

I’d like to suggest that we read this encounter between Jesus and the woman again, but in current context.   Substitute the name of Anthony Weiner – or anyone else in the public arena. The challenge becomes harder. Dare we substitute pornographer for adulterer?  Ask the Holy Spirit to put us as Christians in the crowd also. Ask the Spirit to reveal the stones in our hearts which we raise to hurl at another. Look to the Lord, not at the accused. Jesus doesn’t even have to write in the sand. By the Holy Spirit, He knows us all too well. Like the woman, we are convicted not condemned by the Lord who commands us also to “Go and sin no more.”

How quickly we’d have to drop that heavy stone and walk away. We dare not to accuse anyone. Humbled and forgiven ourselves, do we not want to pray for the person finally left all alone with Jesus? If not us, then who? If not now, when?

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.­ Deuteronomy 8:2

If someone were to ask what my favorite book of the Bible is, I probably wouldn’t say, “Oh, that would be Deuteronomy! I LOVE THAT one best.” Admittedly, I never even read the Old Testament until I was born again  not that long ago.

However, I’m drawn to Deuteronomy this week.  The book’s discourses are Moses’ testimony reminding Israel about its covenant  relationship with God, what He did for them historically and outlines God’s principles by which they are to live. In contrast to the amoral, ungodly and defiantly anti- God world I find myself in, Deuteronomy is a refuge wherein to rest and find God’s truths.

We are living in a “sleight of hand” culture. Nothing is as it seems. Trickery, deceit and lies distort what’s presented as truth no matter how bizarre or ridiculous. God- given common sense is mocked while divinely ordained governing principles are reinvented  right under our noses. The corrupted campaign for the U.S. presidency is but the latest and worst and most prolonged attempt to convince people there’s a new reality, a new morality and a new mentality which politics, power and presidential hopefuls will inaugurate no matter what. We need to discern with our spiritual eyes what rabbits are being pulled out of the hat and by whom. There is nothing entertaining or wholesome about this magic show.

As Jesus stood before Pilate, the Roman governor asked a rhetorical question, that is a question which supposedly has no answer. “What is truth?” he asked Christ, cynically ignorant of the only truth right in front of him. The same delusions are everywhere – there is no truth except what is relevant or politically expedient at the moment. Deuteronomy says differently: Sorry but there are inviolable truths.

Jesus warned us of evil times but He also offered His peace, His love and His only truth. No earthly authority can change the Word revealed in Christ. Pagans and the devil rely on smoke and mirrors to trick people. Jesus is the Light which pierces their darkness and reveals the snares laid.

The God of Moses is God of the universe in 2016.    He hasn’t stopped being the Creator or relinquished His sovereignty. The King of Kings and Lord of Hosts who chose Israel as His own people – and us as heirs to every promise made – is still our Father in heaven. Jesus is Lord, the victorious King  to whom all authority has been given and every tongue will proclaim Him as such. Let the politicians posture like peacocks making shrill raucous noises. A fleeting presidency may be gained, but nothing lasting has been attained.

God’s unfailing love has not changed. Moses received in part what Jesus  fulfilled.

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Deuteronomy 7:9

In Christ there is the same unshakeable promise which no amount of  doublespeak can negate.   If we obey Jesus’ commandments, God is with us no matter what lurks in the wilderness. We are to go forth in truth into a lost world and disciple others,

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Matthew 28:20

The Book of Deuteronomy contains life giving answers  heals our anxieties and silence lying tongues. It identifies God with a capital G very clearly, detailing what His Chosen People’s relationship to Him is based on.

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.…Deuteronomy 6:2

Loving God and fearing Him as God is the inherent principle in Deuteronomy. When I read this book, the heart of our Father becomes very clear. Love is the basis of Israel’s and our relationship with Him, but His righteousness also requires honor and obedience. Even when we fail and fall away, God is always ready to forgive and to bless if we repent.  God’s never ending willingness to be our God is so great that He sent Jesus to atone for our fallen natures – even to this time and place, to people who now desecrate His Name and profane His redeeming love.

No one knows what will happen in this election nor what the next four years or even the next forty will be like but it already feels like a wilderness, like a jungle. As Christians are tested, perhaps it is by the Lord

…to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his(God’s) commands…

That is a very sobering thought.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1. Peter 1:3

I came home late last night after a day in Boise. I had a few appointments in the valley but spent most of the time driving my car up and down Highway 95. On the way back a partial rainbow appeared through the clouds over Indian Valley. A stream of color and light poured out of the clouds as if from an unseen pitcher. It’s probably not good driving practice to gawk at rainbows while maneuvering my SUV through curves but it was such a beautiful, unexpected phenomena. It felt like gift.

Afterwards I tried to read before bedtime but couldn’t concentrate much so I scrolled through the television listings. We’ve cut back on  the satellite programming so there wasn’t much: football and more football, shopping channels and Angela Lansbury solving predictable mysteries. Then something got my attention, a recent Hillsong Conference which was airing.   “Why not,” I thought. Nothing else was interesting.

Within a few minutes, I changed my mind. The performance, “Let There Be Light” is from Hillsong’s latest album and title song. Truthfully I know very little about current Christian music other than the songs at church and those I hear on the radio. Truthfully, I don’t even like some of it. However, this was different.

What I heard was talented singers and musicians pouring out their voices, playing instruments and worshiping God. What I heard was inspired by the Scriptures from Genesis to John. What I heard was songs of praise, honoring Jesus as the only Light of this world. What I heard was young people lyrically singing the Word of God with passion and suddenly I caught a glimpse of how it might have been when David’s Temple singers sang before the Lord.

What I saw was thousands and thousands of young people responding and worshiping along with leaders on the stage. What I saw was faces filled with joy, hands raised to God, hearts freely responding to the Holy Spirit’s Presence. If earlier I saw color and light pouring from the clouds, it was now like heavenly music emanating from the darkness of the screen. What I saw on my bedroom television, half a planet away from Australia fills me with great hope. If what I sensed in Hillsong is true, God is ordaining a new generation of young, vibrant believers that not only loves God but goes after Christ whole heartedly, a generation which proclaims the Gospel of salvation in all the world just as the disciples did. In song and in music, by prayer and by preaching, it is the same God proclaiming, Let There Be Light through them.

The devil is ceaselessly wicked and a cunning liar. Despite fears to the contrary the end is not yet here. Jesus said that only the Father knows the time of the end so why are Christians fussing, attempting to crack open what is God’s mystery?  Millennials are not where Christianity will die out as  the devil’s shills in the culture claim. Christ’s Resurrection is the living hope of the generations after us and   they are witnessing through music.   In fact it is young people’s faith in the Word of God that can prop up those of us pretty battered  by this world. They radiate   beautiful Light out  of dark clouds.

Lord,  along with  these young believers, we proclaim Your Light is our eternal living hope right now and tomorrow and tomorrow after , that forever more.   I’ll sing to that!

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:6

Jesus prayed. He prayed constantly. Jesus prayed to bless bread which He broke with His disciples. He prayed in the night hours and to escape the crushing multitudes. He prayed aloud to His Father before calling forth Lazarus. He agonized in prayer in Gethsemane. He prayed on the cross. His disciples watched Him pray and asked Him to teach them.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus challenged the hypocritical practices of the Pharisees who prayed for show. Prayer for them was a public stage of hypocritical piety for their hearts were open sepulchers. The Lord commands very specifically not to be like them. “You shall not be like the hypocrites who stand on street corner. You shall not babble repeatedly like the heathens.” In other words, Jesus says prayer is not to be a spectacle where we draw attention to ourselves. It then becomes idolatrous self worship which is an abomination to the Lord.

Instead Jesus instructs:

Go into your room.

Close the door.

Pray to your Father who is unseen.

Much is written about “prayer in the secret place,” a room or closet or nook where we can literally shut the door and pray. In this hectic, distracting, always connected age where something constantly grabs for attention, having a personal secret place to pray is important. In the mornings I take my coffee, go into my office and shut the door. I am blessed to have such a private place.

Jesus did not have an office- bedroom to pray in. He was constantly crushed and jostled and moved around by the multitude. The itinerant disciples didn’t have prayer closets with doors that could be shut. In the crowded noisy culture of Galilee and Jerusalem, privacy was impossible and unheard of. Even in Mary and Martha’s home, there would have been no space for Jesus to be by Himself. Yes, it is wonderful to have a definite place in our homes to pray but it is not about the space or place. It’s to go up on the mountain in His Spirit to seek the Father.

Jesus’ teaching on prayer in this chapter of Matthew challenged the Pharisees and then went a step further. Prayer does not belong to any of the Pharisees or today’s version of them. Jesus says that everyone already has a room to pray and a door to open and close. The secret place is the heart of men. Jesus’ prayer transpires in the heart where only the Father can see what is done in secret. Once you’ve entered there, shut the door. That is, close off the mind’s doorway of chatter and   distractions.   Spend time alone. Pray, seeking the Father, the Hidden One who has invited you in. Come to the Father with every heart condition which He already knows. Prayer draws you to Himself. The door closed to the world will swing open wide into the Father’s hidden, rewarding Presence.

Lord, teach us to pray like You.

Now both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding John 2:2

Our daughter Laura is getting married on Saturday.   As family and friends gather to celebrate her and Dean, God’s grace and goodness abound. Dan and I are overwhelmed with gratitude for the Lord’s hand in our lives.

I’ve been gleaning John’s Gospel account of the wedding feast of Cana for it is where Jesus begins His earthly ministry. Before that, however, right at the beginning of the Gospel John establishes the divine  authority of Jesus . He was in the beginning with God and is the Light come into the world, the Life of men. Jesus is the Word made flesh, both divine and human. He is the Christ.

Once he introduces who Jesus is, John proceeds quickly into Jesus’ ministry on earth. John the Baptist recognizes Jesus as the Lamb of God and baptizes Him in the Jordan. . Jesus then finds Simon Peter and chooses the disciples who immediately followed Him. The first chapter is electrified with divine energy and revelation.

Suddenly in the second chapter there is a change to quite ordinary human events. There is a wedding celebration:

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there:                           John 2: 1

So were Jesus and his friends. We know the Cana wedding story. The wine runs out and Mary turns to Jesus to help the groom save face.  At first Jesus is reluctant. However, He instructs the servants to fill up six large water pots. The water turns into wine. Only the servants who had obeyed Jesus knew where the good wine came from.   Speaking to the groom, the master of the feast is amazed: “You have kept the good wine until now!” It was one of those extraordinary moments in the Bible when I would have loved to be tucked behind a curtain, gawking. This wedding was far from ordinary.

The master of the feast had no idea who this guest was. When Jesus is invited into our lives  extraordinary things occur.  Miracles show up.   Water is turned into finest wine. Weddings are showered with blessings like summer blossoms.  Heaven visits earth. Jesus is the surprise wedding gift.

The Lord desires to be invited into all affairs of the heart, whether it be a wedding celebration or something more painful. He stands knocking at the door  from our waking up at dawn to sleepless night hours. What if the invitation to Jesus was engraved with each heartbeat? It is not unimaginable that miracle would follow upon miracle. John says as much near the end of Chapter 2. The miracle  at Cana was only the beginning of Jesus’ signs and wonders.  The wine of the Holy Spirit in Jesus poured out over a parched world.

What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. John 2:11

Jesus’s Spirit  still overflows.  My prayer for our daughter’s wedding this Saturday is an invitation. May the Lord be there in our midst. May He bless every empty water pot to gush over as the best wine is saved for the last.

And as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”Matthew 26:21

Last night as Dan was ensconced in his man cave watching pre season football, I wanted something else to watch or read and so I browsed through Netflix in search of a movie. A few new movies popped up in my search including “Apostle Peter and the Last Supper.”   I clicked “play” and sat back to watch.

The story supposedly is set around 67 A.D. when Peter is an old man incarcerated in Rome three days before his execution. It consists of conversations with one of his jailers, a Roman centurion curious about the great apostle – and the Christ whom he served. A second jailer lurks outside the cell eavesdropping on the forbidden conversations as a foil to the plot. The movie uses flashbacks to fill in Peter’s narratives about Jesus and the disciples. Cinematically, it’s very low budget and not very good, including annoying roof top shots of some cartoon city and grassy plains nowhere to be found in Galilee. While the premise is admirable, it is pretty unrealistic. The story takes great liberties with the Bible for the sake of the ending which is the sudden conversion of both jailers whom Peter leads to the Lord with the Sinners’ Prayer. The last shot is of Peter being taken from the cell to his crucifixion by the newly Christian jailers, their hands gentle on his back.

I’m not writing about film quality or Biblical veracity of the movie. There are numerous criticisms on- line for that. Rather, I took away two things.

The first was Robert Logia’s understated portrayal of an elderly Peter. There was no bravado or impetuousness in this Peter which is how we often think of him as disciple. Instead , what shone through was Peter’s faith in Christ and his unshakeable peace despite suffering. More than that Logia portrayed Peter’s deep and abiding love for his Lord, a love which changed him from a younger, impetuous and pretty ignorant disciple into the Apostle Peter who was wiser, introspective and fully aware of the power of Christ which had touched him. And forgiven him. Curiosity and excitement drew Peter to Jesus initially, but it was Jesus’ unconditional love which embraced him, no matter what his failures. It was the most touching, Gospel -inspired aspect of the film.

The second point came out of a highly imaginative and somewhat weird scene of the Last Supper , including Jesus washing the feet of Peter and instituting communion with flat bread and wine (complete with a crystal goblet!) Jesus reveals that he will be betrayed by one of the disciples. They react with fear, but in Peter’s memories it was the fear lurking within themselves. In Peter’s retelling, each disciple examines his own heart and his own failures, seeing the very real possibility that he could betray Jesus. Horrified, each one asks, “Is it me, Lord?” I love you. How could I betray you?

When Judas asks, “Is it I”, Jesus tells him to go and do what he must quickly. The Bible says that then Satan entered into him. In the movie a demon like creature hovers behind Judas as he leaves the room to do the devil’s work. Theologians and writers have tried to explain, minimize and even discount Judas’s betrayal as personal disappointment, anger and even self righteous justification. The truth is much simpler and more condemning: Judas did not love his Lord. Unlike the other eleven, Judas rejected the person of Jesus more than he rejected his messianic purpose.   He was driven to evil because he refused to love the Son of Man. How else could Satan have entered him except that Judas’ heart was turned against Christ. God’s love in the Personhood of Jesus can’t coexist with the devil.

The movie, flawed as it is, is allegorical. Peter and each of the other ten disciples knew and loved Jesus individually, but they were sinners and imperfect men. They argued about their rightful places in the kingdom and exhibited pride and jealousy, bad tempers and self righteousness. They were sometimes unbelievably thick headed. They ignored or forgot His teachings; they were boastful one minute and cowardly the next. Nevertheless despite their sins and weaknesses, how they loved Jesus! And how He loved them back in their weakness and in their sins. The   betrayal of Judas  was that he did not love Christ. He was damned because His heart of stone rejected God’s Word that through Messiah,

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekial 11:19

We are abhorred by Judas. We don’t ever want to question our loyalty or love of Christ. Yet, every moment comes the nagging question, “Is it I, Lord?”  How could I to betray you? But I love you. Our inner dialogues speaks contradictory messages all the time. I love you Lord. But I am such a wretch.   You alone know the darkness I am capable of. Is it I, Lord?

The answer might come from Peter himself. Yes. It is possible. The spirit is willing but the flesh is all too weak. Peter denied.  The others fled.  But they never stopped loving Jesus.  Our salvation hope is  intimately knowing Jesus  so that when we fall and fail over and over, it is our love for Him and His unfailing love for us which helps us get up until like Peter in old age “nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. “

What hath God wrought Numbers:23,23

I took a walk after dinner along the road cresting our subdivision. The air is refreshingly cooler than it has been. I walked a little farther than usual, looping away from the clubhouse toward an older area where the trees are denser and the houses snuggle into swales and small clearings. It is quiet and still. An invisible   robin calls from the thickets, announcing that evening time has come. A few voices drift from neighbors gathered on their deck and a dog barks as I walk past his domain.  Suddenly, a doe and her twins bound ahead of me on the roadway, turn   and bounce out of view. Otherwise I am the only one about.

Summer is waning. I’ve noticed signs of fall for several weeks as the snowberries have come on even in late July. Overnight the underbrush has turned orange and yellow. Thick clusters of blue-black elderberries overhang the roadway  while here and there a maple is starting to show off its colors. Grasses have dried out, their seed heads blown everywhere by the wind. But it is the air which smells different, light which falls more obliquely that is a sure sign of the changing season.

I stop at one of my favorite spots, a clearing which opens up like an exposed window onto the winding road below. From here I can see all the way across the valley toward the eastern slopes of the mountains still bathed pale rose in lingering sunlight. Over the years I’ve stopped here many times. The view never changes and at the same time is never the same. That is the wonder that gives me pause. There are always minute changes in what seems to be unchanging. No matter how often I stop in the same place something is different. A tree grows taller. A tree falls. Clouds drift by in marvelous unique formations. Deer appear out of nowhere. The wonder and grandeur of what God has wrought never ceases to amaze and humble.

O Lord how manifold are your works

In wisdom you have made them all. Psalm 104:24

It is easy to pray tonight as I walk, to remember that God is near. It is easy to thank God for blessing my life with safety and beauty. All I have to do is look around. All I have to do is walk and listen to the evening unfolding. Here in the darkening stillness I find the peace which has eluded me all day.

Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths and my age is nothing before You. Psalm 39:5

Life is so full of surprises, isn’t it?

A week ago today I drove to New Meadows to pick up the mail and get a few items. It was to be just a quick trip to town and back. Three hours later medics had me strapped into a gurney on a helicopter ride to St. Luke’s in Boise while a tangle of tubing dripped medicines into my arms.   I couldn’t control my left arm, hand and leg which did not want to connect to my brain.

I had had a stroke driving back to the house. My vision went white blind, my head felt like it was filled with concrete and I knew that I was going to pass out any moment.  “God, I prayed, “please don’t let me crash and hurt someone. “ God IS faithful. He protected me and all the other drivers   on the highway near my car. The Eye of God never left me. It was His hands, not mine, which helped drive me safely home.

Forty eight hours – and a revolving door of nurses poking, prodding, testing my reflexes, scrutinizing mental acuity and sticking very sharp objects into my veins later, Dan drove me home from the hospital. I was fully recovered and as good as new. No signs of damage. Left arm and leg awake again. Despite all the latest technological testing, no doctor could say with certainty what had happened or what the cause was. All test were inconclusive. It might have been this. Or perhaps it was something else. Science and medicine simply do not know the life and death things of God.

A day or so later, I went out to the gardens to tend to the peas yellowing on the trellis. The morning was blessedly cool. The sun slanted through the pine branches in pale golden rays of light. A hummingbird hummed. A deer browsed on the hillside and the tree tops danced. A few white pea blossoms curled up inside the  vines.   As I pulled them out of the garden bed, dirt clung to the roots. I smelled the earth, dark and rich as chocolate. As I tugged at the snap pea vines, humus and human touched while God gazed upon me in the garden.   Tears came. Like the earth in my hands, I was created from the dust. Because of the Fall, one day we shall once again return to the dust.

⁷ And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”…Genesis 3:19

But for me, not yet. It appears my days are not done for God  wills me to remain on the planet a while longer. Still, an encounter with mortality is sobering. As such may it teach us to fear God more deeply by knowing that  earthly time is like a vapor.

…”LORD, make me to know my end And what is the extent of my days; Let me know how transient I am. Psalm 39:4

And again,

Man is like a mere breath; His days are like a passing shadow. Psalm 144:4

It wasn’t thinking about dying when I had the stroke nor while recovering in the hospital.  But in those few moments in my garden as I held dirt clods and drying   pea vines in my hands , when tears came unbidden, it was because I understood life’s fragility. It is like a  flower fading all too soon. What then? The world offers no hope for life after this one ends.

The only hope for life which can’t be uprooted is what Jesus offers –  His life for ours.   Salvation promises that life in Christ now and eternal life with Him  after death  will never fade, will never dissipate like a vapor and will never wither like pea vines at summer’s end.