A Broken Bond

Before my father-in-law's death back in 2004, he did it so when the opportunity came available to serve as the volunteer caretaker for the local cemetery, I figured it to be something I could do as a way of remembering him and serving the community as well.  The cemetery is not one of these manicured memorial gardens, but a few acres of land on the edge of town managed by the Methodist and the Baptist Churches.  One of my responsibilities is taking care of the upkeep expenses during the year.    

Another responsibility is to sell cemetery lots.  There is no advertising campaign, but a system based on need.  Two kinds of people call to buy grave plots.  There are those who are planning ahead and trying to spare their families the pain of the chore.  The other ones who buy plots are those who have recently lost a spouse, or child, or grandchild and need a resting place.  Unlike the first group, this group comes heavy with grief.   As dark was coming I went today to help a grieving family find that place for a loved one who had died.  

I have had associations with cemeteries all my life.  My father was buried when I was seven years old.  As a pastor I made many trips there with families for funerals and now I continue to go to offer a place and hopefully some comfort to those whose hearts are overwhelmed.  When called to preach over 50 years ago, I could not have imagined choosing to be with people who are grieving, and while I do not seek the task, it still comes and I am grateful in each moment that I stand not alone, but with the Risen Christ who broke the bond of the graveyard long ago.  

The Smoke

One of the most recognizable symbols of the Advent Season is the Advent Wreath.  The Advent Wreath is basically five candles standing on a green wreath that is laying on a table.  Four of the candles make a circle above the round wreath while the fifth candle which is more dominant stands in the middle.  Each Sunday one of the four candles is lit and then on Christmas Eve the final fifth candle stands burning with the others marking the end of the season and the coming of Christmas.    

It is a simple creation which brings both fire and smoke into the room and into the season.  The fire is very evident, but the smoke is never really seen by those who tend to the wreath or who worship in the sanctuary.  We forget sometimes that God appears in the smoke and fire.  He did on Mt. Sinai and on Pentecost. Experiencing the fire is easy enough, but the smoke requires stillness and waiting.  One moment the smoke is here and there and then it is nowhere to be seen, but the smoke still lingers in the room even though it is no longer seen or smelled.  

It is like this with symbols.  They are pointers.  They cause us to see for a moment what is always present with us even though no longer visible.  Even as we regard the sanctuary space as holy space, once we leave it is no longer visible to our eyes, but the memory of its presence points us toward the reality that everything around is holy.  God is not limited to the smoke and fire of the candle, but is always present in the invisible realm through which we constantly walk.  Always God is with us even in the moments of not being seen.  

The Quiet Season

Advent did today what it always does.  It slipped in among us quietly, no trumpets sounding, no bells ringing.  It is the first season on the Christian Calendar, but unlike the arrival of the chronological New Year each January, most folks hardly take notice.  Even in the church there is only the spiraling smoke of a single candle, music that is wistful, longing, and empty of blaring praise.  It is no reason it wins no popularity among the Christian community.  It is finally the season of waiting and none of us ever get excited about waiting.   

What the church starts demanding come the first of December is Christmas.  And while Christmas is a powerful and joyous celebration, Advent instead calls the faithful to pause considering the reality that the One who has come is coming again.  What does it mean to be in such an in between world?  What does it mean to live within the Kingdom that is still to come?  What does it mean to live with hope and anticipation that God does act in our lives to bring us deliverance from the darkness?    

The questions of Advent are many and they make us uncomfortable.  We would rather start welcoming the baby Jesus than recognizing that He is the Lord Who gives everything for us and calls us to respond with that same kind of unconditional obedience.  Advent does not invite us to go to a party, but to live as one who is ready to journey with Christ from here to there to wherever here to there takes us.     

Remembering Churches

In these later years of my life, I remember with such gratitude the church that nurtured me as I was on my way to faith in Christ.  Almost before I have memories, my mother was taking me to Sunday School at the base chapel where my father was stationed.  After his death and our return home, there were other churches such as Pierce Chapel out in the country where my father was buried, First Methodist in Waycross, Ga. which was not too far from the place we first lived, and later the Hebardville Church out on the edge of town where I was baptized.      

And while there were others, the one remembered like home was the Alamo Methodist Church in a small town by the same name.  It cared for me in my teenage years, gave me numerous opportunities to kneel at its altar, affirmed my call to preach, and sent me on my way into the future with a fledgling faith in Christ.  No matter how much education came my way over the years that followed, these churches provided a nurturing which not only set me on my way, but has sustained me for a life time.   

Lately, as I passed through some towns which are remembered mostly because I had friends who were cared for by the church on some corner in that town, I find myself remembering them and being thankful for a church that shaped them and enabled me to be influenced by their faithful living at a time when I could have gone another way.  What I have come to know in these recent days is that the church of all our childhoods helped put us on the road of faith and as we walked that road we were blessed by the presence of those we came to know as friends and the faith that was planted in each of us by some church from our past.  

The Ego Driven Church

The bigger is better model has caused many a preacher to sell his soul.  Well, perhaps, it is too much of an exaggeration to declare that such happens, but then many a preacher has been captivated by the idea that a bigger congregation, a bigger budget, and a bigger building is surely the intentions of God for those entrusted with building His Kingdom.  To look back over the years of ministry is to realize what a tantalizing and powerful temptation it is to get caught up in the building bigger model.   

This is not to say that every large church should be smaller, or that every pastor should do everything possible to keep things as they are, but to say that sometimes we decide that our personal agenda and what seems like the practical thing to do is certainly God's will as well.  Ego can be a demanding god and those who give leadership to the church must always be aware that it can be a useful tool for the evil one who seeks to undermine what God is seeking to do in the world.  Ego driven churches are not the same as Spirit driven churches.  I

It is hard for many to see the difference.  Ego driven churches are built around leadership, indebtedness, and the end justifies the means mentality.  In the short term they may seem to be doing many things right, but in the long term they are destructive forces within the Kingdom's work.  Anything or anyone who stands in the way of the Spirit taking hold of the church stands in a perilous place and may be doing the church of Christ more harm than good.     

The Best Model

When it seems that the church has gone off the rails and we find ourselves with more frustration and confusion than peace and a sense of holy presence, we often go back and re-visit that powerful rendering of the Day of Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts.  Somehow it has the power to help us see things, not as we have made them, but as God intended them to be.  What is revealed in those words filled with fire and wind is a reminder that the church is a spiritual community designed to be Holy Spirit driven.    

What seems apparent is that such no longer describes the ecclesiastical landscape.  The church of our day is driven more by culture and consensus than the Holy Spirit and the Holy Word He inspired "...so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work."  (II Timothy 3;17)  So much of the spiritual and theological confusion of our day only speaks to this fundamental change.    Of course, what we quickly realize as we read the story in Acts is that it does not take long for the church to lose its way.  Hardly a few minutes had passed before there was confusion about the care of the poor.  And, the Hebrew attitude toward the Gentiles almost turned the new church into a Jerusalem based sect rather than a world wide spiritual community.  

Perhaps, the best model for the church to embrace is the one to which Paul points us as he writes, "He (Jesus) is the head of the body, the church..." (Colossians 1:18)  We often seem to have forgotten that the church is the embodiment of the body of Christ in the world which means that the church ends up being empty of things like love, grace, mercy, and self-sacrifice. A church not willing to go to the cross is no longer the church of Christ.   

An Endless List

Back in 2013 I started keeping what I have come to call a "Gratitude Journal."  The inspiration came from an author named Ann Voskamp who wrote a book about her year long journey with the 1000 entries she made in the first year.  I must confess to not being as good a journal keeper as she has proven herself to be, but I still plod on with my pen hoping one day to reach that point when I write the entry marked 1000.  While I hope it not an excuse for simply tolerating an undisciplined spirit, I do still maintain that the journey is more important than the arrival so I persist in plodding forward ever so slowly.    

What I have discovered through the process is a raised consciousness.  Things that would have simply come and gone unnoticed are more likely to become opportunities for whispering a word of gratitude even though the moment may not make it to the journal.  It has been as if I have been walking with eyes open when once they were closed.  Or, to use a Biblical image, not having eyes to see.    

There is so much for which to be thankful.  It is that way with all of us.  None of the dark clouds which weigh down so heavily upon us can take away the awareness that we are not alone and that we are not without the blessings which come to us through the grace of God.  As our hearts grow toward being more grateful, we find ourselves coveting with gratitude a brief conversation with a stranger, or the smell of food cooking in the house, or the gentle touch of someone we love.  It is an endless list, is it not, which makes me wonder in the moment why I have had so much trouble writing down a list of 1000 in all these years!

The Real Problem

There was a time back before retirement when I intentionally looked for old religious books.  One of the finds from those years was a copy of a pre-1900 "Book of Discipline."  Anyone familiar with the Methodist Church will know that "The Book of Discipline"  is a guideline and final word for all things Methodist.  This particular copy was small enough that it fit nicely into a shirt pocket.  When retirement came a little over ten years ago the "The Book of Discipline"  had an accompanying volume noted as "The Book of Resolutions."  The two would require not a shirt pocket, but an over the shoulder book bag!     

For this worn out Methodist preacher, the difference speaks volumes about how the church has become so complicated and confused.  In some ways it seems we have become worse than those Pharisees of Jesus' day with all their laws and regulations which got added to the Law of Moses.  Bigger is not always better.  Of course, this is a possibility largely ignored by the policy makers who want to dot "i's and t'" that are not even present.    

Call me an advocate of simple is better.  While I know going back to simple is not an option, the difference in the two books in about a hundred years does seem to point to one of the problems with the denomination of which I am an ordained minister.  In some Methodist circles "The Book of Discipline"  is more of a guide for the church than the Scripture which points to the real problem.

The Uncluttered Church

The church suffers from clutter.  Most of us know about clutter.  Clutter fills our homes and our lives.  In our homes cars disappear from garages and in our lives the real is overwhelmed by our personal trivial pursuits.  Our churches have gotten so filled with clutter that Jesus has become hard to see, or absent.  What really adds to the clutter of the church are those things which have no real spiritual value, but are required if the institutional part of the church is to continue to survive.    

The institutional church has an insatiable appetite for clutter.  While we often think of the church birthed on Pentecost as the church in its purest form, it took a little longer than a few verses for it to be transformed from a spiritual community into a demanding institutional monster.  If we are looking for the church in its purest form, we must look to Jesus.  In Ephesians 1:22-23 the Word of God speaks of Jesus' relationship to the church by saying, " (God) has made Him the head over all things for the church, which is His body,..."  

As we see the incarnate Jesus walking among us, we see the embodiment of the church.  We see the church in its purest form.  Unlike the unfolding picture of the church being sucked in by the demands of its institutional life, the church seen alive through the body of Christ seeks nothing for itself.  It is the purest form of a sacrificial and loving community that has ever existed on the earth.  He embodies the church of the Kingdom of God and calls us to give it life through our faithful living.

A Good Shaking

Every now and again the church needs a good shaking.  When it happens again, it will not be the first time, nor will it be the last.  It could be said that Jesus brought along with His announcement of the Kingdom coming, a shaking of the spiritual community that started being shaped on Mt. Sinai.  The Ten Commandments soon were viewed as not enough and soon all kinds of rules and regulations became attached to them to give them practical interpretation.  Jesus shook up the status quo.    

And, it has happened again and again.  The Reformation which gave the Protestant community its life speaks of an established spiritual community being shook to its core.  The Methodist movement into which I was ordained some fifty plus years ago came from a shaking of the Anglican Church in England.  It seems that from time to time the Church needs a good shaking to get rid of some of the superfluous clutter which becomes all too important to the status quo.    

Sometimes I wonder if these are not days when the Spirit is shaking the Church once again.  The ecclesiastical atmosphere is filled with verbal squabbles, the closed churches of last year, and the slow return all point to such a possibility.  Probably one of the worst things which could come to pass out of all the confusion is a return to what used to be.  When the Church truly gets a Spirit shaking, a new normal is sure to come to pass even though we may fight it tooth and nail.  

The Waiting Room

As we get older and older and, then a little older, most of us find ourselves spending more time than we ever imagined in a doctor's office.  And, maybe the truth is we spend more time in the waiting room than the treatment room!  Flannery O'Connor has a great story about a woman whose judgmental spew incited a small riot in the waiting room.  ("Revelation")  The stories we might be able to tell about our own observations may not be as entertaining as her story, but there are, nonetheless, still sights to see and people to remember.     

If we are unfortunate enough to come and go enough to and from that place, we find ourselves seeing a view of the world we did not know existed.  It is the gathering place of a community of people who are struggling to know wholeness again.  It is also a place where people begin to realize they are connected to others who share some measure of suffering.  Unexpected conversations break the monotonous tone of the music floating around in the room.  Acts of kindness and caring are seen and words of concern and hope are heard.    

The more we frequent those waiting rooms filled with hurting folks, the more we begin to realize it is a sacred place.  The Spirit of Christ is surely in that place as people begin to open their own lives up to strangers who are recognized as fellow travelers on the road. The brokenness so apparent in that place does not have the power to destroy hope, erase smiles, and separate us from the presence of the Holy Christ who promised to be with us in all the places of this earth which, of course, includes those filled waiting rooms.    

All Things

A few days ago Oswald Chambers, the writer of words written over one hundred years ago did it again.  He opened a window through which I had been looking for a lifetime.  Each time I had looked through the panes of that window, I saw the same thing.  But, a few days ago while reading the words, "The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained by God.  In the life of a saint, there is no such thing as chance,"  something different was seen. The Scriptural basis for the words of this devotional from "My Utmost for His Highest"  was Romans 8:28 which says, "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God..."    Of course, there is more, but those words were all it took to open my eyes to something new.      

Perhaps, you are like me when it comes to Romans 8:28.  It is a great verse to read in times of trouble.  In fact, I cannot remember a time when I read those words and did not appropriate its meaning to some kind of difficulty through which I was experiencing.  It is, after all, a great word of comfort in the face of overwhelming difficulty.   But, this last reading and I have been reading Chambers for over fifty years caused me to stop and consider those words, "all things."   

All things can be a reference to the unthinkable, but it can also speak of the moments of great blessings in our lives.  It can speak of the way that God places us in ordinary situations and common place relationships for some purpose which is greater than we could ever conceive.  Even in the good times, He can be seen working toward some greater good in our life.  What we may think of as filled with goodness may only be a prelude of how God is using the circumstances of our life to bring us into a place of even greater blessings, or it may be a way that He works to lead someone we hardly know into a place of such abundant grace that their life is turned upside down.   

A Dead Earthworm

It was too late for the earthworm.  While I am the guy who has stuck many of them on a fishing hook, I felt a moment of sorrow for this one as it laid there.  Somehow it had gotten away from the dirt.  Maybe it crawled out of the dirt and onto the concrete sidewalk early in the morning when the dew was heavy and the hard man made substitute for dirt was cool, but it was almost noon.  The sun was hot.  The concrete was hot.  And the earthworm was stretched out there long past dead.     

Perhaps, I should have paused, picked it up, and gave it a proper burial in the place where it started, but I thought about such a kindness only later when I had gone to another place.  An earthworm is such a small creature, some might even say it is an insignificant thing, but it is also a creation of the Creator and, thus, somehow is connected to each one of us who bears the imprint of the Holy One.  Does this mean that we are the lesser for the loss of the single earthworm?   And are we even the lesser for not thinking it to be so?

Most of us would not be given to such an extravagant conclusion.  Certainly, in the moment of seeing, I had no idea I would carry the image of this drying up dead earthworm stretched out on a sidewalk with me for days.  Maybe it is all just a matter of it wandering too far from the source of its life and a moment of not knowing how to return.  Whether or not it is true, it is certainly a thought worth pondering.

Hurrying to Wait

Whenever a trip begins, it is a common practice to offer a prayer before leaving home.  While it would be a good practice for any driving excursion, it is a discipline reserved for extended trips to the regions beyond the local area.   The prayers usually goes something like, "Lord, we ask your blessing on this journey which is before us.  We ask for the blessings of safe passage there and back.  Keep us inside a place of safety where danger and harm cannot touch us.  Go before us, be around us, be behind us, create a bubble of passage where we can move safely.  And, Lord, keep us patient. Speed us up, or slow us down to keep us in a safe place."    

Today brought the day when a return to home was ahead.   Though I wanted to get home before darkness settled over the road, it seemed like every step was spent waiting on someone who created a problem and hindered the journey.  Wherever I hurried, it was only to wait.  Toward the end of this day of hurrying up to wait, I went into a sandwich shop, placed an order, and left with what turned out to be the wrong order.  

Back in I went.  Again I waited and paced while the error which was delaying the trip home was being corrected.  Fifteen minute later I walked out with the right sandwich fussing under my breath about the messed up order only to hear this word coming up from deep within me saying, "Enjoy the moment.  Pay attention.  The clerk might have been a part of the plan of God."  As I walked toward the car with the right sandwich in my hand, I laughed aloud and prayed, "Thank you, Lord."

Unchangeable

When the day is filled with uncertainty and difficult decisions, it is good to pause for a moment and cast our eyes into the past.   The future we cannot know, but the past is locked firmly by the boundaries of our memories.  And, when we pause in the midst of dark filled days to look at the past, the first thing we see is the faithfulness of God.  What we are tempted to forget midst the chaos of a tough day is that fact that the God who has been with us, cared for us, loved us, and got us through other tough things, is still ever present with us.    

It may be that our circumstances are changing, but the God of yesterday is the same God who is showing up today.  Even as we have memories of not being forsaken, we can know in the deep places of our being that such remains true.  Even in the midst of trouble we are not forsaken.  God remains with us.  Circumstances may change, but God is utterly dependable.  As He has been with us in the days filled with sunshine, so is He with us in the days so stormy we cannot see our way forward.    

He is the same for us in the difficult times as He is in the good times.  In that part of our life, nothing has changed.  Our memories are precious.  They bring into view the good moments of our life.  Things stay ever present in our memory.  And, even as such is true with our memories of things shared with those we love, so is it true of the way God has been with us.  In the times of trouble, it is good to remember that His presence with us yesterday is nothing more than a promise He has made to be with us today and tomorrow and even beyond. 

Looking and Seeing

We do not see by looking.  Looking implies effort.  Looking speaks of what we set out to do and something for which we expect to see.  Seeing is not about effort, but about being.  To think about the difference between seeing and looking is to remember Jesus saying, "The kingdom of God  is not coming with things that can be observed....For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you, within you."   (Luke 17:20-21)   Those who go looking with great effort for spiritual manifestations in the world are likely to look beyond them and not actually see what is breaking in all around them.     

The words of Jesus remind us that we see evidence of the Kingdom by being instead of doing.  There is nothing we can do to make how God is making Himself known in the world more visible.  It is all around us.  It is inside the fabric of every part of the creation.  We come to understand this not by human effort, but by simply being in the midst of it.  Mercy and grace is what opens the lids of our spiritual eyes so that we can see what we are unable to see by intentional looking.     

Ears to hear and eyes to see are wonderful gifts of grace.  Otherwise, we suffer from a kind of blindness that prevents us from being attentive to the present moment of our life.  We will always experience the Kingdom, the blessings of God, and the manifestations of His presence by being out there with no pre-determined plan and no set of expectations.  If we are looking for signs of God in the world, we are far more likely to see them by simply being in the world and waiting for God to do what God is always ready to do which is to be present with us.    

Glory

It has been a day when the sun refused to shine.  Gray has been the constant color of the sky that sent drizzling cold rain to the ground all day long.  Grateful is what I was when I looked at the pasture and saw the hay bales put out yesterday.  In a moment totally unexpected the late afternoon turned into the early evening with a sunset beyond description.  Instead of a great ball of fire in the sky which sent colors across Creation's canopy, there was instead a red and orange glow which lit up the sky making it something to behold.    

Seeing through the window what was going on outside caused me to walk out the front door onto the porch.  Even knowing what was out there did not prepare me for what was there.  The color seen through the window did not seem to be limited to the western horizon, but instead was like something mysterious which wrapped me up within it as I stepped outside.  For a moment it seemed that I had indeed stepped into glory.  It was a glory above me, around me, beside me, and a glory that wrapped  its arms around me. 

Imagine for a moment that the glory we see and experience on this earth is but a glimpse of the glory that is just beyond the gray darkness that separates this life from the life that is out there waiting for us.  It is not just the glory of the sun, but the glory of the Risen Christ which is out there waiting for us to step inside of it, ready for us to be surrounded by it, and ready to wrap its arms around us.  Indeed, the glory of the eternal is beyond description.  It is not only the glory that awaits us, but the glory in which those who have gone before us bask in the present moment with joy.  

The Hard Way

The hard part about affirming faith in Christ is not what other people think about us.  Certainly, there have been times when believing in Christ could be as costly as losing your life, but that day is not this day, at least not in the places where we serve Christ.  When I was young, peer pressure was a real deterrent to a young man who wanted to practice faith, but felt surrounded by those who would only ridicule.  As we get older and move more into our life, what others think becomes less a factor.    

What seems true is the that the real hard part about affirming faith in Christ has to do with what Christ thinks about us.  We want His approval; yet, we do not always want to offer a life style which is within the scope of His expectations of those who say they believe in Him.  It is not that His eyes look upon us with judgmental sternness.  Instead, we look upon ourselves and know that we live more according to our will and our agenda and not His will and agenda. It is at this point that the Christian faith becomes an unbearably hard thing.   

It becomes a hard thing because it is always hard to live two lives.  We are created to live one.  When we start saying one thing and living in a way that is inconsistent with what we declare to be our core values, we become like Adam and Eve.  We start hunting a fig leaf to cover our soul.  We start hiding when when we sense God is near.  We become dishonest with ourselves, one another, and the One who has made us.  If such is not a formula for a hard and difficult existence, there is not one.  Yet, here in the land of compromise we strive to live.  It is no wonder the Christian way becomes such a hard way that we seek another.

A Strange Mercy

There is divine mercy in not knowing what is ahead.  If we were given the gift of clarity and certainty about what tomorrow or next week would bring, we would no doubt spend the moments between now and then with such anxiety that living would be impossible.  Or, we would end up trying to manipulate the future so that tomorrow's story would have a different ending.  Of course, all the worry or work has little bearing on what is ahead in the unknown future which stretches ahead of us.    

When Abraham said yes to God's call to go, he had no idea where the act of going in obedience would take him. When Moses headed back to Egypt from the wilderness, he could not have imagined the circumstances which God would unfold in his life.  And when those disciples of long ago decided to leave everything and follow Jesus, they only thought they knew what such a response would mean for them.  Surely, when they looked back they must have realized they had no clue what it meant to follow Jesus into an unknown future.   To follow Jesus is to always follow into an unknown future.  The one thing Jesus never promised was an easy way.  He made it clear from the beginning that discipleship granted no exemptions from adversity, hard times, and difficulties.  

Anyone who reads the story of the gospel and comes to a different conclusion needs to read it one more time.  The truth is we never know what is ahead.  We only know Who is ahead.  Knowing Who is ahead means knowing that the One who is in charge of what is ahead is out there ahead of us making the way that might seem impossible, possible.  How thankful we are that we have learned that the One who holds tomorrow also holds us and everything which will touch us for harm and for good.

A Wise Heart

Not everyone enjoys birthdays.  Oh, for sure most of us enjoy a party and, perhaps, enjoy it even more if we are at the head of the table, but some folks would just as soon not take much note of the day.  It is understandable.  Each one we have does have a way of reminding us of the relentless march of time, the diminishing of what we used to be able to do, and at some point we start sensing that more are behind than ahead.   And even though I broke my arm at one of my boyhood birthday parties, I remain grateful for it and all the rest.    

Before anyone wants to send me a birthday greeting, please know mine for the year is long past.  What brings reflective thoughts to mind are the birthdays of some others in recent days.  Getting old is not always a lot of fun, but it speaks of years God has given and is giving.  It speaks of blessings of being with those who are important to us, who love us, and who we love.  It speaks of time to remember memories, sorting them out, laughing at some, and learning from others.  Birthdays are not bad things, but gifts from our Creator God who knows the number of our years and though sometimes hard to see, He has a purpose for them.      

Psalm 90:12 says, "So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart."   Maybe there is more to this counting of our days than we see in candles and cakes, birthday presents, and having a a party.  Maybe the counting of our days is not a thing to be dreaded, but instead simply part of God's way of creating new things in us which we have never given any room to flourish.  Being wiser is not the same as being smarter.  Smarter is about knowing more information.  Wiser is about knowing how to live.  These recent years have made me wise enough to know I have still a long way to go in learning how to live with a wise heart, but it is good to be still on the way.   

The New Season

A recent conversation with a preacher friend who is finishing out his last year before retirement set me to thinking about this season of life.  When I first walked into it, I must confess to thinking I regarded it as the last and final season of life.  After all, when forty years have been logged in the pulpit, it is hard to imagine that stopping means entering into what some would describe as "the best is yet to be."  Those words sound good, but it seemed unlikely to me when the robe was put in the closet.    

After eleven years now I have come to know the truth of the words of the poem.  The best is not yet to be, but all around me.  And, the truth is, it always has been all around me.  My problem has been more in the seeing than anything else.  Too much of life is lived thinking about what is ahead, hoping its grass will be greener, and worshiping at the altar of productivity.  This season which seems framed chronologically is really a season to be experienced throughout life, but, unfortunately, ignored by most.    

God does not throw us away when we reach a certain age.  Instead, it seems more likely that He leads us into a different era of usefulness.  And, surprisingly enough, the manner in which He leads us into this new era of usefulness is often nothing like we figured it would be.  What must never be forgotten is that He never gets through with us.  When He moves us from one part of our life to another, it is not because we can no longer serve, but because there is something new He can do with us if we simply pay attention to the leading.