Psalm 118:14

Tonight during a random reading of the Word, I came across a Word which sent me back sixty years to the moment I said "Yes" to Jesus.  It was a few weeks before my high school graduation that I knelt beside my bed to pray.  Before I knelt to pray, the Holy Spirit had already put a Word in my heart through a visiting Methodist preacher.  I remember his words, "If you see a need and do nothing, you may be neglecting the call of God on your life."  It was one of those moments experienced by many us when we know it is God speaking and not just the one speaking in His behalf.  

As I knelt alone in my room, I confessed what I knew to be my sins, asked for God's forgiveness, and gave my life to Jesus.  Although I had gone to many altars and gone through the motions of repentance, this time it stuck.  When I raised myself from my knees that night, I was not the same young man who knelt to pray.  As I sat there on my bed, I opened my King James Version of the Bible and found myself reading Psalm 118:14.  "The Lord is my strength and my song, and is become my salvation."  It was the verse the Spirit gave me that night and I have carried it with me for these sixty years.  

As that verse given so long ago comes into view again, I testify that it has been true all these years and I am convinced that it will continue to be true for the rest of the journey.  God's grace has brought me thus far.  It is His strength which has always been under me.  He is the song which has always been in my heart.  He has indeed become the One who has saved me from a wasted life.  What I started learning to believe back then has become what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true.  Thanks be to God for a Word given long ago and for loving me with a love that will always be more than I could ever thought possible.

Blessings

In the years since I left the pulpit, I have been blessed with space.  I have been blessed with silence.  And while life has not been like the life of a hermit, I have been blessed with solitude.  It has been said that the. house which I call home sits in the middle of a hay field.  Strangers seldom wander up the road which is little more than a two rut lane.  Most visitors who come announce themselves with the honk of a horn from the yard and do not stay so long that the tail lights of their car is a welcomed sight.  For some reason my first thoughts this morning centered on the way this place has had such shaping power in my life these past sixteen years.   

Having spent most of the forty years of my ministry career in more urban settings, I was surprised by the experience of living immersed in the Creation.  It has made me more aware of the presence of God in my daily life which seems strange to admit when most of my life has been lived within the shadow of the steeple.  Living midst the Creation encourages embracing a different rhythm.  It calls for a slower pace.  It reminds me to enter into the stillness.  It enables me to pay attention to the present moment.

As I sat on the porch the other morning, I realized that I did not need to plan quiet times; instead, I simply need to step into them and become a part of what is already present.  Is that not how it is with God?  We talk about seeking His presence through devotional moments and through worship when He is always present and a part of what is going on around us.  His presence does not need to be manufactured or even sought, but stepped into as one might step across the threshold of one room into a room which has always been a part of where life is lived. 

Praying For Rain

The western boundary of the farm is a branch that is as crooked as a slithering snake.  In my neck of the woods a branch is a term which means about the same thing as a creek, or a stream.  I call the branch on the edge of the farm "The Runoff Branch" because it depends not on a natural source of water, but upon the rain which runs off higher ground.  When it rains, it is full and flowing.  When there is no rain such as is the case in these drought stricken days, there is only dry caked dirt where water is supposed to be.  

The other day when I drove over the branch and saw it dried up, I thought of the prophet Elijah.  The story of his great battle with King Ahab and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel began three years earlier "by the Wadi Cherith."  (I Kings 17:3).  Elijah lived by it, drank water from it, and ate the meat and bread brought to him by ravens.  Before he went there, he said to Ahab the King, "As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my Word."  (I Kings 17:1).  Each day Elijah drank from that stream, but there came that time when "the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land."  (I Kings 17:7).   

The epic battle between Elijah and the prophets of Baal ended with the defeat of those prophets and Elijah bowed down with his face between his knees.  Eight times he told his servants to look toward the sea and finally they reported "a little cloud no bigger than a person's hand rising out of the sea." (I Kings 18:44).  In a short time, heavy rain fell upon that land parched from a three year drought.  In the New Testament the Apostle James wrote, "Elijah...prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain...Then he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest." (James 5:17-18).  Farmers around the farm are facing a terrible drought.  Churches and communities are gathering to pray for rain.  May heavy life giving rains fall once again on dry thirsty land.

Casting Long Shadows

As I walked by the book shelf a few days ago, a biography of George Muller called attention to itself in such a way I pulled it out for another read.  It was said of Muller who lived in 19th century England that he believed and prayed.  Without asking anyone but God for funds, he opened orphanages and cared for children and the poor of Bristol.  Seeing his biography caused me to think of others such as John Wesley, Francis Asbury, Hudson Taylor, E. Stanley Jones, Oswald Chambers, Charles Spurgeon, Charles Finney, and Dwight L. Moody.   

 

It was a moment for remembering these saints who have cast long shadows over several centuries.  It was also a moment of wondering if there were any out there today who will be remembered in the centuries still to come as saints who cast long shadows.  When I tried to stretch my mind to find some of today's saints who might be remembered past their time, I had trouble coming up with a list.  Maybe it is the nature of such spiritual giants that they labor invisible to their peers and are only seen in retrospect. I would like to think such is the case.  

 

I can think of some spiritual leaders who because of media have attained celebrity status and others who often stand in the spotlight of religious speaking circuits, but I wonder how long their shadows will stretch.  It could be that my vision is limited.  Maybe I am looking in the wrong places.  Maybe I am wearing regional or denominational blinders.  If you see some spiritual giants out there among us who will surely be remembered in the distant centuries, take a moment and share their names for those of us who are having trouble seeing them.       

The Privey Hedge Won

The privey hedge won.  Before any botanical geek goes bananas, it is correct and proper to call it privet hedge and it does belong to the Ligustrum family.  Around here and as long as I have lived, folks have called it privey hedge.  Maybe it was at one time a barrier between the house and the outdoor privey.  Anything is possible.  While some folks have it as fence like manicured hedge which is a part of the landscape around their homes, it also grows wild in places like the edge of the hay field here at the farm.  

While sitting on the porch this morning, I suddenly saw the privey hedge down across the field next to the branch.  Six feet tall it was and as prolific as a preacher's words.  Over the years I have fought it with chain saw and bush hog.  I have sweated enough to fill several large buckets and used huge amount of elbow grease in my ongoing struggle to get rid of the privey hedge.  I justified all that labor by saying it was cleaning up around the branch.   I have been here sixteen years now and that hedge is as strong as it has ever been and I am past having any energy to fight it anymore.  

When I saw it this morning, I burst out laughing and spoke it aloud, "The privey hedge won!"  I am through fighting.  It is the winner.  It is still here and will be here long after I no longer walk this land.  Creation has a way of putting us in our place and life in a proper perspective.  I used to think of myself as the owner of the farm.  Now I know I am just one in a long line of caretakers.  In a very real way I have learned that the farm has taken care of me.  It has blessed me.  It has given to me.  The farm, the land, and the Creation truly speaks to me of God's care, God's blessing, and the way He has given to me all the days of my life.    

Angels at the Crossroads

It is in the letter to the Hebrews that we find that verse, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."  (Hebrews 13:2). I remember my mother feeding and showing kindness to a homeless guy who showed up at the back door of our duplex home back around the time I was in the second grade.  Obviously, it left a lasting impression on me.  There were others who received kindness and care from her, but this one is the one always remembered.  

There was a time when I did not see angels showing up in my path.  There were other names I gave to them that kept me from seeing them as people God put in my path for a purpose.  It is not something about which to brag, but is instead something to confess and repent.  In that period of my life, deciding on the merits of their need was something I took upon myself.  It is strange how we can take upon ourselves a judgement which belongs not to us, but to God.  Somewhere along the way, the Spirit got my attention, opened my eyes to what He was doing, and began the work of prying open a heart that was determined to help only those who proved they had need.   

What this slow learner is learning is that God brings strangers into our midst not so so that we can judge them, or even to help them with some temporary solution to a problem, but because there is something about lives intersecting for the purposes of God.  When the idea that life is about chance and coincidence is thrown away, the only thing left that makes any sense is divine providence.  This slow learning disciple of Jesus is learning it is better to err on the side of generosity than the side of holding too tightly what is really not mine, but His.  These unknown folks who just show up on the road Jesus has put us are a part of God's plan just as we are as we walk with them.  They give us the opportunity to fulfill a part of God's plan in their lives even as they are used to fulfill a part of God's plan for us.

Morning Prayers

"Lord, I know there are wars taking the lives of innocent people.  Old people declare war and young people fight and die in them.  I know as the son of a soldier what it is like for a father not to come home.  Listening to the news makes my heart so heavy I cannot stay.  Lord Jesus, I know, too, about places where people have no clean water and never enough food.  People are suffering even in the places where guns are not roaring.  And, I know what You know.  I have never seen this country in which I live so divided, so contentious, and so full of angry people.  Lord, it is more than this mind can comprehend.   

There is all this big stuff touching the lives of thousands, and then there is the little stuff which my heart counts one by one.  I have been asked to pray for several friends in their battles with cancer.  They live in limbo between hope and fear.  My heart is heavy with sadness as I remember a life long friend whose wife has recently died.  My heart is heavy for him, but his heart is broken and now he must go on alone.  There are so many whose suffering has come inside the circle of my life.  There are some with addiction problems, some are actually carrying rifles in places filled with war, and others suffer chronic health issues from which there seems to be no relief.  

And, Lord, some for whom I pray do not pray, their hearts are hard, and they are pushing against the grace and love You are offering to them.  How do You pray, Lord, when the needs are as big as the world; yet, as near as next door?  Lord, so many hearts are broken.  My heart is broken.  Lord Jesus, strengthen my weak knees.  Keep me from growing weary.  Enable me to believe in what I cannot see.   May Your Kingdom come here among us as it is there in the place we call heaven.  Bless now Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Do those things which seem impossible.  Amen."