"To Him be glory forever": February 2019

Thursday, February 28, 2019

A Pacer, From Start To Finish

This summer I'm going to try something adventurous. I'm going to run 100 miles in a single day.

At least I hope I'm going to run 100 miles. Not everyone who starts such things finishes them, which I personally know to be true from much shorter events. One hundred miles makes for a long day and a variety of things can happen along the way, from injury to physical and mental exhaustion. I sent my registration in a week ago and come mid-August I'm going to go to South Dakota and give it my best effort.

The race I'm going to do this at has a number of things that I hope work in my favor. The course is an old railroad grade that has been resurfaced in limestone. Many ultra marathon events are on more rugged trails, and I have a history of falling roughly once per previous ultra marathon, and so this surface will be about the best thing for me to run on.

I have a friend who lives in the area where the run will be who has offered to crew for me. She will be able to meet me at different places along the course, providing food and a change of clothing as I find I need them. Best of all, this friend has done a full triathalon, and she can give me words of encouragement that come from her own experience in completing a grueling event.

And the last major thing that I think will help is that over the last 50 miles runners can have a pacer. A pacer is someone who runs along as a companion, providing encouragment with both their presence and their words. In the picture is the friend who will pace me the last 25 miles. My event fits in well with his own preparation for a fall marathon, and so he will run with me as his own training run, and so in that way we both benefit. The race rules allow a person of my age to have a pacer the entire 100 miles, but I'm a little old-school and think the last 25 will be just fine. I plan to run the first 75 miles solo, or with whomever I seem to fall in with, rather than take the opportunity to find pacers from start to finish.

As I was out running this morning and thinking about this summer I was struck by the thought that the Christian life is one where we live with a pacer from start to finish. But the pacer is no ordinary friend joining us only when we look for encouragement. This pacer is God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit.

In John 14:26 Jesus is preparing his disciples for his coming departure from them, and he says:

"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you."

From the first moment of faith until the drawing of the last breath, everyone who has faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord has the presence of the Holy Spirit with them. The Spirit of Christ, to teach, guide, encourage, comfort, strengthen.

He's not along for just a part of the trip. He doesn’t take a break because he happened to get tired himself. He's not a pacer who finds his own part in the journey hard, or who struggles to deal with his own injury that unexpectedly crops up along the way. He is fit for the task, from beginning to end. If at some point I'm not sure where he is, finding him is no harder that opening my Bible or lifting my hands in prayer.

I'm looking forward to the day this summer when I get to run the last 25 miles of a hard day with a good friend. But as a Christian, I'm glad to know that in the presence of the Holy Spirit I have a faithful companion from start to finish, for every step of every day.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Who Needs God?

Who needs God in this day and age? The average person can look around at the world and clearly see things that have come together as they are by chance. They can look at their lives and see the results of their own hard work. We need snow in Dulce and this winter we are getting plenty of it. But if God is bringing the snow, can't he put most of it in the wild places, and only a little bit in town or along the roads, so we can travel safely and not waste so much time shoveling? And what does God have to do with my car payment? It is my hard work that provides for the things that make up my life, isn’t it?

The idea that God is irrelevant to many people is not one that is unique to our day. In the Bible Job comments about the prosperity of the wicked. Job, someone who loves God deeply, has suffered greatly. Meanwhile he notes that very many things seem to go well for people who have no time for God. They live long lives. Their children are numerous and successful. They sing and enjoy prosperity all their days. Their lives end in peace. If God is mentioned to them, their basic response is: "Depart! We've got no time for you!"

Looking at their lives from a purely practical point of view, in Job 21:15 they say:

"What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

And what profit do we get if we pray to him?"

The problem, in the time of Job and today as well, is looking at God as a being whose sole reason for existence is to meet our needs. God exists so that I can get the things I want. If God isn't giving me what I need right now, then what's the point? It is a "me-centered" view of God, and it is fatally flawed.

"What is the Almighty" is the question that we can only really answer by looking into the Bible. Nature can give us hints about God, and so can the thinking of our own minds, when we sincerely set them to it. But it is the Bible, alone, that shows us God as he truly is.

The Bible shows us God's majesty. His power. His knowledge. His wisdom. His presence in all parts of the universe. His grace. His mercy. His love. His kindness. His providence. His love. His justice. His righteousness. His holiness. The Bible shows all of these things of God, and more, and it shows that everything about God is both perfect and unchanging.

"What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?" After giving that question consideration from the Bible's point-of-view, the only possible answer is: "God is everything. There is no reason we shouldn't serve him." And instead of looking at prayer as a way to profit from God we should then see it as a great privilege that God, in all that he is, invites us to spend time with him.

Who needs God in this day and age? We do. And we are blessed that in the Bible God both shows us who he truly is, and invites us to draw near to him. Amen.

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Certainty

"We live in uncertain times." Or at least I've seen that claim online on a number of occasions in the past few years. I'm not so sure that the times we live in are any more uncertain than they were on September 11, 2001, or August 1, 1957, the day I was born, or July 4, 1776, or October 31, 1517, for that matter. I imagine that throughout history, in virtually every place and among every people, there have been things going on that caused people to feel unsettled and perhaps insecure about the future.

Things change. People change. Circumstances change. But a number of things remain unchanged, with certainty. One of these is God's word.

Isaiah 40:7-8 says:

"The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."

That passage is then used in 1 Peter 1:24-25.

"“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And this word is the good news that was preached to you."

Isaiah says that the word of God stands forever, and to this Peter adds that the word that was preached is good news. This is getting interesting.

The Bible reading plan I follow has brought me to the Gospel of Luke, where in chapter 1, verse 4, Luke tells his friend, Theophilus, the reason for writing to him, which is:

"…that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught."

The word "gospel" means "good news" and somewhere along the way Theophilus has learned a number of things about Jesus. Luke wants his friend to know that he has investigated all that he can learn about this Jesus, and that therefore Theophilus can be certain that what he has learned on his own is true. You can read the Gospel of Luke for yourself to see the specific parts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that Luke passes on to his friend.

Times may change and appear to be uncertain. But what doesn't change is that in every time every person living is a sinner in need of a Savior. Jesus, alone, by faith, is the one who can save. Read the Gospel of Luke for yourself to see how that works itself out. And know, with certainty, that if you call on Jesus, he will save you.

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Imprint

Did you ever know anyone that you could recognize from a long ways off? Too far away to see their face, but you could tell who it was from the way that they walked?

You might not know this, but that kind of recognition is as true for runners as it is for walkers, maybe even more so. I can think of two separate occasions when I saw someone running at a distance from myself and thought, "That looks like so-and-so." In each case it had been a number of years since I had seen that person, and in each case when they got closer I had correctly recognized them. There was something distinct about the way they moved when they ran that was imprinted on my memory.

And so it was when I went out to run the other day, except this time with a twist. As I left the house and ran the first three miles I felt as I was running not with my usual form, but in the manner of another person. I seemed to be holding my hips a bit differently, just like someone I had run with in the past. But who?

I thought about it as I ran for 25 or 30 minutes. This person? That one? That other one? Then suddenly it became clear. I was running like Rick. The picture is from August, 1989. Jim, myself, and Rick were running together in the second mile of a tough seven mile race. If memory serves me correctly Jim won and Rick was second. I know that on that day I was third.

Rick lived about 80 miles from where I did, and I got to know him through a mutual friend. For 5 or 6 years Rick would come and run in Rochester once a year, and I'd see him at 1-2 races in Minneapolis during that same time period. I don’t know how many miles we ran together in those years, but it was enough to imprint his particular form so strongly in my mind that today, more than 20 years since I've run with him, I can still recall it.

There is a different identity that I long to have imprinted, not in my memory, but onto my character. I want it to be there in such a way that anyone who knows me even a little would be able to recognize it. That is the character of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's not the kind of thing that is as clearly recognizable as the way a person moves as they walk, or run, or talk, or use their hands in conversation. But it is the kind of thing that in some way sets a person apart as someone who has been changed because of the growing impact of Christ on their life.

Following Jesus changes the way a person sees, thinks about, and lives in the world. Bit by bit the impact of the values of the world decrease, and the effects of living under the lordship of Jesus increase. The imprint of the character of Jesus, on my inside, shows through with more and more clarity on the outside. The imprint of his character in me shines his light into the world, to his glory. Amen.