Promise Land

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Good morning, friends. A few devotional thoughts this morning as I read. Soon shall be time for church, but thought since my heart was encouraged as I read this morning, thought I may as well share! Reading through Genesis currently and it’s one of those books that at times can be easy to skim through. All the well-worn stories, all the narratives you’ve been through countless times before. I’m attempting to slow down a bit and truly ponder what I’m reading. Today, Abram entered the picture. God tells him to go forth from the city where his family has settled and so he does indeed go forth. Abram and his family have some adventures and we are given almost immediate proof that he does not have perfect faith and is really not a perfect man. Yet, what do we see Abram doing in Genesis 12-13? We see a pattern of him building altars and calling upon the name of the Lord. Even though Abram is but a fallen man, imperfect in so many ways, he does consistently seek to honor his God and cry out to Him. Do we do such? Do I do such? Is it a pattern in my life that I take time and effort to show my reverence and awe for my God? Do I consistently call upon the name of the Lord, crying out to him all the day long? Oh that I long that I could say this is always so. I am also an imperfect man, so feeble and frail and negligent of the duties I ought be performing day and night. Yet I know that my salvation cannot be achieved by anything I can do. No, I can never be good enough to warrant divine favor. It is an impossibility that I can be called God’s friend, signed and sealed the moment man turned away from God in the garden.

Yet. But God. Before time and throughout time and in the fullness of time, God had and has smiled upon me and has had great compassion upon my soul, reaching out his hand to pull me up and show me the way that I might be called a friend of God. So just as Abram built altars and called upon the name of the Lord, so might I turn to my God in faith and hope and new-kindled love, knowing that there is a God with whom there is forgiveness of sins. I fear Him and love Him, believing in Him now though I have not seen Him. And in this hope I have of one day being with Him, I have blazing in my soul joy inexpressible and full of glory I call upon the name of the Lord in praise that He has called me first. Oh what joy it is to know that I am a forgiven son. I think on the name of Jesus, God descended to this earth to die for me and then rise in blazing glory as proof that death truly has been conquered and salvation has been won. Oh that we might now turn back to God as we in this garden kneel to hug his feet in newfound love! Let me go through this day now resolved to build an altar to my God in proclamation of what He has done for me. Let me never cease from praying to my Father in heaven. Let me never cease from walking upon this earth as one who has been called to follow Christ. Let me never cease from deliberately and sacrificially loving those around me who all too are made in the image of God Most High. I am weak and broken sure. Yet inside me a divine Spirit lives and unites me to power unimaginable. I am not alone.

Swamplands

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Hello friends!! Happy Saturday and blessings be upon you. I shan’t write long. Burritos are in the oven and dinner shall be enjoyed shortly. And I hope to read a couple chapters of Lewis before then. But just thought I’d write a few words as I finally sit down and rest this day. It’s been a good Saturday but a busy one! Up and out the door before 6 to go to discipleship group. Good times were had there, then some errands before back home to see Dani. Then soon enough…off to book club at 10 to discuss the previously reviewed Jurassic Park. Solid discussion even if the book itself was not my favourite! Grateful for those friends. Following that…back home again for lunch and some more time with Dani. Then at 2? Off down south to go to a birthday party for little Ella (Daniel and Eunice’s daughter who is somehow now 9…what). Enjoyed some quality discussion times with the dads there and my heart was much encouraged. Sometimes kid birthday parties are worth it after all eh? Eventually drove back north and home again for the final time. Football on the TV! Haven’t watched the Gators this season and so it was a treat to watch them take it to Ole Miss (ranked 5 currently). Florida looked…good? They actually have a competent offense now? The mind boggles. It was a good football day elsewhere as well, as Iowa took out Michigan. Go Hawkeyes! While the football was footballing, I was also cooking and prepping for the burritos now residing in the oven. Now? Kitchen clean, freshly showered and about to enjoy a bit of reading. It is good to be busy and accomplish things and talk to all the peoples but…well, it’s also good to rest. Thankful to my Father God for granting me such. Also grateful for dear friends and family…some of my favourite moments of the day were my car phone conversations with Dad and Laura. Ah how I miss them.

Well. I’ve rambled enough. Time to close this laptop and open a book.

Shindig

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Hello friends! Have a few minutes so…thought I’d write a couple words on my latest.

65. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. It was an interesting experience reading this one. Obviously I’ve seen the movie (many years ago!), a true classic. And I believe I did read this book way back in the day, likely when I was a teenager or shortly thereafter. So the story framework was there in my head. Yet in my memory, this book was a massive tome dense with science and suspense. In actuality? A fairly typical thriller and not that thick of a book after all. It had some fun original ideas and obviously the Ian Malcolm character performs an important function as both authorial insert and source of the thematic core for the book. Maybe I just have changed in my tastes since I read this last, but this book just seemed remarkably average. The writing was pedestrian and the characters pretty one-note. From what I remember with Crichton, the nerd bits are always the most fun, and so it proved here, from the discussions on cloning dinosaurs to explaining ancient computer systems! I enjoyed those parts and I do appreciate Crichton’s schtick of running to ground the way science and new technologies can go oh so terribly wrong. Now I feel like I need to see the movie again! Also one more note. As someone who is now no longer a teenager or in school, I can speak with a little bit of real-world knowledge as both engineer and someone with knowledge of hazardous operations. The engineering and science reps in this book are absolutely abysmal at their jobs and I found myself horrified time and time again at their attitudes and actions. They still didn’t deserve to be eaten though.

Visions

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I want to see the northern slopes one more time. I have seen them in my dreams of course, more times than I can count. But I want to see them with my own two eyes. I have been promised this is not too much to ask and I hold on to that promise dearly. I want to see the white-capped hills stark against the vastness of the sky. I will walk on that well-trod path and let my feet carry me swiftly onwards towards the stile. Then the wild grassy fields that shall let me walk to the very feet of those mountains for which my heart longs. I will run my hands through the tall grass along the path and fix my eyes on the prize. But then I remember the scars I bear and I bow my head in shame and weep. Then I remember the one who calls me friend, the one who has been scarred too. I weep all the more. It is too much that I should be loved as much as this. Even to the end.

It is time now. I delight in the vision that is set before me. I see the mountains grow larger now. Oddly enough, the sky seems no less vast. The weight of heaven presses upon me, but gently, as the hand of a father upon his son’s shoulder. I see now a little cottage at the base of the foothills. There is a little vegetable garden next to it. And a fence surrounding all. A figure rests upon the fence and looks in my direction. He waves his hand in greeting and then beckons me forward. I smell woodsmoke on the breeze and…is that beef stew? A feast it seems is in store. I walk forward towards the man who waits at the door of that little cottage at the base of these northern hills.

Hourglass

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Oh how quickly they all turn against me, these treacherous thoughts of mine. I once predicted such a rebellion yet I never thought it would go down like this. My defenses down and my heart broken, I lift a glass to my lips as I ponder the train of events that has led me to this perilous cliff. But looking backwards does not bring much profit, to be sure. All it does is stoke the raging emotions and fears that even now rise in my throat and threaten to overwhelm all else. What could I have done differently? So many things cry the voices in unison. But how was I to know? I did my best. Too bad so sad. Now you pay the ferryman and hope. I do hope that the toll is not more than I can bear. It may be. Yet I fear to linger here in these perilous waters. There are warmer, sweeter climes ahead. Onwards, dear one, onwards. I forget what lies behind and press on. I take a swallow from the glass. Bitter on my tongue yet a song in my heart. My heart has cracks in it but forged anew I feel now in the melancholy of this night. I cry to the one who knows my name. I whisper a prayer to my Father and ask for mercy now. I cry to my Lord Jesus and say you know, you know. I whisper a bare groan to the Spirit and say oh please pray for me. Renewed my thoughts rise to the heavens as I look out over those solitary shores.

Windswept

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Hello friends! A quick Saturday afternoon post, thought I’d write a few words on my latest.

64. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Well I come to this one about ten years after all the cool kids were reading it! But on a recent ramble, found this one in a mini-library and Dani insisted I picked it up as it was one of her favourites when she read it way back in the day. So I obviously couldn’t deny that request. Took me a few days to read this one and I have to say, I understand why this one hit Dani so hard when she read it as a teenager. This one packs a punch. And it’s easily Green’s best novel – I feel a bit bad that I neglected reading it until now. Really think Green does a great job with the characters here, especially the inimitable Augustus Waters and the wonderfully real Hazel Grace. This story has vivid imagination, pathos in abundance, a very distinct cast of characters and Green’s signature – great teenage dialogue. Yes, the main characters are overwrought and ridiculous and angsty and not a small bit pretentious at times. They’re also teenagers. And dying (most of them). I greatly enjoyed reading this one and appreciate Green’s honest look at some very serious subjects. Yeah, I don’t agree with Green’s philosophy by and large, but I do like seeing an author grapple with the realities of this life we live (and yes, the death we must all face). Well worth the read. Side-note – watched the movie with Dani after finishing this book. It was remarkably faithful to the book and well worth the watch!

Reverberations

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That is why I think this Grand Miracle is the missing chapter in this novel, the chapter on which the whole plot turns; that is why I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulder. The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise. St Peter for a few seconds walked on the water; and the day will come when there will be a re-made universe, infinitely obedient to the will of glorified and obedient men, when we can do all things, when we shall be those gods that we are described as being in Scripture. To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, “The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago” in the same spirit in which he says, “I saw a crocus yesterday.” Because we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference, that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not. We can. We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on into those “high mid-summer pomps” in which our Leader, the Son of man, already dwells, and to which He is calling us. It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.

-C.S. Lewis, The Grand Miracle (God in the Dock, page 85)

Grocery Store

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She offers a smile as he walks past her in the coffee aisle. He half stops and half keeps walking in that way you do when you’re not quite sure if you want to take a moment to interact with someone not yourself. He didn’t expect to see her here today. He didn’t expect to see her anywhere for a good while longer yet. But here she was, in his grocery store and holding a bag of coffee beans. Was this fate or was this torture? Or perhaps both? God did have a sense of humor after all it seemed. He does end up stopping after all and gives her a half smile in return. They exchange a few tentative words. She reaches out. He pulls back. She tries one more time. His walls stand tall. She bites her lip and half turns to go. His heart skips a beat. And then. “Do you want to maybe go grab a coffee later this afternoon?” Her face lights up and her eyes dance. And then. “Well, I already have the coffee.” She playfully waggles the coffee beans at him. And he laughs and she continues. “But I don’t have you.” He smiles. “So, then, skip the coffee. Dinner for two?” She nods bashfully. He decides that’s the note to end on and turns around and fairly strides down the aisle. She sighs. Now that’s sorted. What was the next item on her list?