"To Him be glory forever": God's faithfulness

Showing posts with label God's faithfulness. Show all posts

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Not From, But Through

I want to share something from a funeral sermon I had prepared for this morning. The scripture text was Isaiah 43:1-3a. Today, Thursday, I no longer quite recall why I picked the text last Sunday afternoon. Sunday morning I preached from Mark 6:45-56, and I used the passage from Isaiah in my conclusion. So I guess that it was swirling around a bit in my mind and I thought I could bring something out of it for the funeral.

In verse 2 the prophet Isaiah writes:

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you."

Speaking for God the prophet is direct in saying that trouble will come to God's people. But he is also clear, crystal clear, about the fact that God's people will come through the trouble. Things will come, really bad things, maybe even horrible things, but those things won’t change the facts revealed in verse 1, which is that the people Isaiah speaks to are redeemed by God, they are called by Him by their names, and most importantly, that they are His. And so the trials may test them, may prune them, or may refine them, but they will not destroy them. Just typing this now reminds me of Paul's confident testimony from Romans 8:35-39.

So often we want all things to work out in our lives in the ways that are the easiest for us, or ways that lead to happy endings, or ways that keep troubles of our lives to the level of nuisance and not beyond. But Isaiah teaches us that difficult and painful things really do come to God's people. It isn’t a matter of if hardship will come, but of when and how.

By faith in God, His people are not delivered from all troubles in this life, but they are carried through them.

For God's people hard times will come, but God is faithful. May you know the comfort of His presence in each and every storm of your life.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Refuge

One of the great blessings that comes with faith in Jesus is knowing that God doesn't change. Knowledge of God doesn't come to us automatically but it is something that we begin to learn as we spend time reading our Bibles, spend time in prayer with God, and hear God's word preached and taught.

This morning I was reading Psalm 36 and in the heart of the Psalm are these words:

How precious is your steadfast love, O God?

The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house

and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light do we see light.

In the past few weeks I have made a number of trips to hospitals in Farmington and Albuquerque. As a pastor I have spent time with people from our community who are going through some very hard times. Some of those people I know well and others I have only met for the first time when I visited them.

I sit with them and their families and hear their stories. Sometimes I read some scripture with them. Some of these people are members of our church and others are friends or relatives of members. I am a pastor, but not always their pastor, so I offer to read from my Bible and let them make the decision. And I have always prayed with them.

Like reading from the Bible, I always ask, but no one has declined. And in those moments of prayer I usually find myself beginning with words like those in the Psalm above. Being in the hospital is the kind of circumstance which brings to mind the fact that while our situation may be difficult, that there is much that seems wrong and out of place, we can turn towards God and trust that He is in full knowledge and control of what is going on.

We come to Him in prayer, knowing that His love is both steadfast and a place of refuge. God's love for His children is fixed. It is firm. It is unwavering. And it is a place where we can come to find shelter, protection and safety.

In these recent trips to the hospital I have seen the storms of life raging. And it has been my privilege to call on the precious and steadfast love of God to hold and carry His children through the storm.

May you know this precious and unfailing love, this place of refuge, in your life today.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Forgetfulness

The second to last day of October I was less than two miles from home and nearing the end of my run when I felt something distinctly unpleasant in my left hamstring. It caught me by surprise, as I hadn't done anything unusual. No sprinting. No stepping on a rock and getting thrown off balance. I just put my left foot on the ground and it hurt, when all had been well as recently as the previous step.

It wasn't a passing sensation, as it quickly developed into a small, but sharp pain. I glanced to the north, at Archuleta Mesa. I had been planning to run to the top of the mesa the next day and I knew that was completely out of the question now, not just for the day, but likely for the season, as winter weather was approaching.

So I cut back on my miles, stretched my leg, perhaps a bit more often and with more diligence than usual, and gradually my left leg improved from having sensations of pain, to more of a dull ache, to feeling normal. And just in time, because there was a short race in town last week that I had been hoping to run.

I ran the race, and was surprised to have one of my best efforts of the year. And the next day, being very undecided about my running plans as I left the house, I headed west, to the river. It is downhill heading out and uphill coming back, a round trip of just under nine miles. And, somewhere along the way, I developed an ache in my right hamstring.

Just an ache. No big deal. But in the last few days, with short runs and aggressive stretching, it seems to be worse, and not better. What was it I did that helped the identical injury in the other leg get better? I don't know. I recall a bit of massage, compression and ibuprofen. Were they the key? I have no idea.

When it comes to running and recurrent injuries, this is, unfortunately, a common occurrence for me. I rarely seem to be able to recall what it was that aided my recovery the last time I had a particular injury. And, also unfortunately, it is a malady that in known to affect my spiritual life, something that I was reminded of as Robin and I read from Judges 2 the other night. Verses 10 and 11 say this:

"And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals."

The generation that had followed the Lord during the conquest of the Promised Land has passed from the scene and their children, who appear to either have no knowledge of God, or an unwillingness to follow Him, or both, are quickly about the business of doing evil in the sight of God.

What catches my eye in the story is the abrupt nature of the change in behavior by those who were called as God's chosen people. They appear to be going along just fine one moment and then, like my sore hamstring, they are derailed in the next. And that happens in my own spiritual life as well.

Going along just fine, attending to those things I know are good for me, such as reading my Bible, prayer and worship, and then in the next moment making a choice that I know, as I'm making it, is against everything God would have any of His children choose. And with that knowledge then going on to make another bad choice, and another. A 21st century version of the same things done by God's people in their promised land. It is as if I have forgotten all that God has taught me.

Thankfully, my forgetfulness isn't the last word. God's faithfulness is. God, who reminds me through His Spirit, that I am His, claimed by the price of His Own Son, and held by Him forever. God, who never has, and never will, fail to show mercy to a dearly loved child who turns back towards Him. Amen.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

From Everlasting to Everlasting

"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." Psalm 90:2

This past weekend our congregation celebrated its 100th anniversary. I'll admit that the congregation's beginning might not have been on the first Sunday in October of 1914. We do know that the church building was finished and its first worship service was on Christmas, 1914, so it seemed reasonable to set an October date for the celebration. The first members had to be gathering by sometime in the fall, and Dulce, New Mexico, as beautiful as it is, is not the kind of place people seek to travel to in the winter. So the first weekend in October it was.

It was a busy weekend. We had a dinner and program on Friday evening. Saturday morning there was worship and the biannual meeting of the Rocky Mountain churches of our denomination. And Sunday we gathered for worship, followed by a potluck lunch. It was a lot of activity and a lot of fun.

Many people took part in the different activities of our celebration. There were current church members and their families. Several community leaders, along with members of other local churches were present. National leaders of our denomination made the trip to Dulce, along with a contingent of people from Denver who hold this congregation dear to their hearts.

With all of those people present many pictures were taken and have begun to circulate. My personal favorite is this one. It is one I took, with my phone, intending to capture something of our gathering as we shared the potluck on Sunday afternoon. I wound up capturing something unexpected.

This congregation goes back 100 years, and my family and I have been here for just one of them. As I look at the picture and recognize individuals I see people with deep roots in this church. I see the pastor who came here in 1994. And the wife of the pastor who came in 1989. And the pastor who came in 1973.

I see people in their 7th, 8th and 9th decade of life who have shared memories of this church from their 1st decade. Those are precious memories, and I feel privileged to have heard them. It never occurred to me when I was taking the picture that so many people would be recognizable in it. And when I look at it I see many people who have become dear to me over the past year.

The Jicarilla Apache Reformed Church has been present here in Dulce for 100 years. Our celebration was an opportunity to look back, and to look ahead.

The 100 years of ministry, the three days of celebration, the instant of a picture, are insignificant in comparison to the "everlasting to everlasting" of God. But each child of the God in this picture has a preciousness in His sight that we can barely grasp.

I am thankful to have been a part of the centennial celebration of this ministry, but, more than that, I am thankful for each person whose life has been changed, eternally, through this ministry, people who will one day be joined with their Savior, in His eternal glory.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Betwixt and between

It’s Monday, my last Monday at Mayo Clinic. At the end of the day on Wednesday I will leave Mayo as ‘retired.’ As I've noted before, I won’t really be retired, but just ending my employment at Mayo, with a few weeks before starting to serve as pastor at the Jicarilla Apache Reformed Church in Dulce, NM.

I have tried to savor these last days, the final week at Mayo, the final week of a 27 year career. Doing a particular task for perhaps the last time. Walking through a hallway for the last time. Having a conversation with a particular person for the last time.

And my awareness of this sense of finality has been aided by two things. One has been my co-workers frequently asking me “How many more days?” And the other has been in conversations with people I have worked with for many years, as we talk about what it is like to leave and to stay. I have both asked the question and had the conversation in the past, although it was I who was staying and someone else who was leaving.

As my career at Mayo winds down I feel both at home there and a bit detached. I am separating from Mayo, while my co-workers and the Clinic will be continuing on. I am stepping off of one path, but not quite stepping onto the other. I feel betwixt and between, in a middle and unresolved place. No longer fully part of either one place or the other.

As I was thinking about this I remembered reading a book, Resident Aliens, several years ago. The main point of the book was that Christians live in the world, but not as people who are fully of the world. Christians are people who, because they have placed their faith in Jesus and are united to Him as His disciples, are really citizens of another place. They are called to live and serve in the world, in the knowledge that their true homeland is somewhere else. As they live, grow and serve in Christ they do so as foreigners, in a foreign land.

In his letter to the Philippians the apostle Paul writes,

^“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Experiencing the end of my time at Mayo and anticipating the beginning of our time in Dulce has heightened my awareness that home isn't really at Mayo, it won’t be in Dulce, nor will I truly find it in the space I share with my family. As a Christian, home, in the truest sense of the word, is that place prepared for me by my Savior, where He will one day call me to.

And lastly, as I was pondering these thoughts on my way to work this morning this song was playing on the radio, another gentle reminder from God as to where home really is. May I continue to serve God here in this world as I await the time of His choosing to bring me home. And may you do so too, to His joy and glory.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Are you excited?

“Are you excited?” That is a question I have heard a lot this week, perhaps a bit more with each day.

I am excited, and that sense is growing, but is also tempered by what is, I hope, a realistic sense of what lies ahead.

Today is Wednesday and by the end of the work day next Wednesday I will be “retired” from my job at Mayo Clinic, the job I have had for 27 years. That is a significant period of time to work in the same place and I have met many good people, both employees and patients, over the course of those years. But like all things do, my time at Mayo is coming to an end. The day is rapidly approaching where the faces, the routines, which are so familiar, will change. In a sense they will change dramatically. Next week I will go to work on Wednesday morning, much as I have since 1986, and when I return home in the evening it will be with the knowledge that I won’t be returning to work there again. That moment on Wednesday afternoon will be the end of one thing and another step to the next significant thing.

I am not retiring in the traditional sense, the one where every day is Saturday. I am leaving Mayo as retired by virtue of being of an age and years of employment that meet the retirement criteria. My retirement from Mayo is because I have been called into another vocation, to serve as the pastor of the Jicarilla Apache Reformed Church.

Leaving a place and vocation that I know well for a place and vocation that are new to me will be a pretty big change. There is going to be a lot of adjustment. There will be a steep learning curve. And my family will be along for the ride.

I am excited about the moving into pastoral ministry for what I anticipate to be the last phase of my working career. I am excited to move into a new community, to meet new people and to live in what for me is a new part of the country. I am excited to be doing this with Robin and our youngest daughter. And I am glad that they are excited about these changes too.

But I also have a sense of realism of the task that lies ahead. Like many other vocations, including the vocation of being a parent, there are all manner of things that can happen in pastoral ministry that can’t really be prepared for but instead have to be experienced. I can learn and study and think about this and that, but I won’t really understand many situations fully until after they have happened and I have had a chance to think back on them and the way I handled them.

And I know that being a pastor is a big responsibility, not just in the sense of the things to be done among the congregation and community, but particularly in spiritual responsibility. Among the wisdom Paul gives to Timothy about his vocation are these words:

“By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”

We are off from Rochester to Dulce because we, and most particularly me, have been called there by God to serve among His people. It will be big changes in many ways. Some parts may come easily and others certainly won’t. But we serve a big God, a God who is always good, a God who is always faithful, and most importantly, a God who reveals Himself personally through His Son, Christ Jesus.

We go in faith to serve this God, to His glory, now and forever.

Yeah, I am excited!

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Trust

I had my hair cut today. No big deal. I went to the barber, the same guy who has cut my hair for four or five years, sat in the chair and put my glasses in my pocket. As he wrapped a cape around my shoulders he said something like: “Clean it up, off the ears and not too short on top?” To which I said: “Yes.” He went to work and we spent the next 30 minutes talking as he did what he does for a living. He does it well, having a steady business, with lots of regular customers.

But today something was different. When he was done he took the cape off and I got out of the chair to pay him. It was the first time that before taking off the cape he didn’t hand me a mirror and turn the chair so I could check out the haircut myself. I didn’t ask but he must have remembered what I told him last time he cut my hair, about two months ago.

That time, as he got the mirror out, I told him it wasn’t necessary. He was the barber and I trusted him to do his job well. I didn’t need to look at it for myself.

Later in the day while I was re-reading 1 Kings 19, in preparation to preach in a few weeks, I remembered this morning’s experience at the barber. In 1 Kings 19 Elijah has just seen God do some pretty remarkable things. And as a consequence of the power God has displayed Elijah is, somewhat surprisningly, running for his very life. He is so desperate that he asks God to take his life. It appears that for the moment Elijah has lost track of who God is and what God can do.

Sometimes we have the same thoughts that may be plaguing Elijah. We are in a bad spot, a time of deep trouble, and we forget who God is, or where He is, or what He has promised to do. Our trust in God wavers.

In times of distress we want God to show up…right now!

In Deuteronomy 31 Moses speaks to the Hebrew people. They have been wandering in the desert for 40 years and he is preparing them to be led by Joshua as they enter the Promised Land. In verse 6 Moses says:

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

Moses reminds the people of the same thing that we need to remember today, particularly in our times of suffering, our times of distress. And that is that there is never a time when God is absent from His people.

God is a God who is unfailing in every respect. He has always kept His word, He always keeps His word, and He will always keep His word.

And His word is something that we can always trust, no matter what the circumstances are that surround us. Amen.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

The Wind

I’m a marathoner and also, I guess, an ultra-marathoner. I ran my first marathon just over 30 years ago and my most recent one was last fall. A marathon is 26.2 miles long and as runner I have often thought that it was my best distance. I am glad that God gifted me with the athletic ability and temperament to enjoy a discipline that even other runners can find to be daunting. Perseverance honed on the roads can be a good thing to carry into other parts of life.

I hesitate to call myself an ultra-marathoner, which is someone who runs distances longer than the marathon. I ran one last spring, as a back-up plan for my intended spring marathon, which conflicted with my work schedule. It was 50 kilometers, or 31 miles, and I figured if I was trained for the marathon I could add another five miles without a problem. I also planned to run it at a slower pace than I would run for a marathon. Just keep it low-key and enjoy the run. Which I did.

Now I am on the verge of running a second ultra-marathon, which is probably the essence of the definition of ultra-marathoner, i.e. someone who has done it twice. For all practical purposes the training is essentially the same. I believe the most important part of the training is to get out and run for 20 miles several times before the race. A race of 26 or more miles is a long ways to go, and a runner needs to be used to being on their feet for a long time in order to make it to the finish line.

Today I got out for the last 20 mile run of this training cycle. It was beautiful day for a winter run, with a temperature in the 20’s and the roads being fairly clear of snow and ice. I checked the weather before going out and the wind speed was 12, with gusts into the upper 20’s, coming from the south. All-in-all it was a pretty good forecast for February.

The ultra I am training for is going to have lots of hills, so I planned to run three loops of a hilly route near our home. It was pleasant on the first leg, heading west, sheltered by a hill. Then I turned south. I could feel the wind now, not too bad but strong enough that I wished I had something warmer on my hands.

The south leg is about 2 miles long, winding through some trees as it climbs a long hill. And the farther south I went the more intense the wind became. When I got to the top of the hill I was out in the open and there was no 12 mph wind. It was blowing steadily at over 20, stiff enough to noticeably slow my pace. Then I turned east, running on a road with bare farm fields on both sides. The crosswind was intense and unabated.

Eventually I reached the place where I turned again and headed north, essentially downhill towards my starting point. It was mostly sheltered and with the wind at my back I was hardly aware of its presence. While the respite was nice I was mindful that I was on my first loop. I would go into that stiff headwind and crosswind two more times before finishing this morning’s run.

Running 20 miles takes a bit of time and as I ran I found my mind pondering the wind, both its physical presence this morning and also the ways wind is referred to in the Bible.

Climbing the hill the wind was my adversary, something I had to persevere with, or against. It brought to mind seasons in my life when I just had to keep on going. Things in life were hard but I had to endure and hope that a better time was coming.

The Bible teaches that Job heard God in the whirlwind. For Elijah, God was not in the raging wind but in a whisper. And the Holy Spirit was poured out to those following Christ in wind of Pentecost.

The Pentecost moment reminds me that unlike the wind, which comes and goes, God, poured out on us in His Spirit, is a presence that never leaves us. Like the wind at our back, we may easily recall the times when God has been with us.

But God is also just as present in the times of calm or when we are in storms that seem to rage without end.

Whatever your season, your moment in life, may you know His presence and His voice.

“For great is his steadfast love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.”

Psalm 117:2