"To Him be glory forever": hope

Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Dry Seasons

Five years ago next month we arrived in Dulce. During those first weeks we would look into the field south of the parsonage and see a dog moving about in the grass. The dog was large and the grass was tall, and so often all that we could see of the dog would be glimpses of its back. To this day we still see the same dog, which we refer to as the "bear dog," because when we first saw it all that could be seen was bits of fur, and so we didn’t know if it was a large dog or a small bear. While bears are nice to watch from a safe distance we are glad that the bear dog is all dog.

This year the bear dog remains, but the grass is a different story. We had a dry winter, a dry spring and to this point it is a dry summer. There is hardly any grass. A few patches of brush and weeds that could give cover to a Chihuahua, but not much else. This is, by far, the driest it has been since we have been in Dulce. When I look at the south field, or the parsonage yard, or just about anywhere else in town that isn't being watered, I wonder if the grass can ever come back.

This past weekend Robin and I were talking about some of the people we know here who have been through, and in some case are in the midst right now, hard times of trial. One loss, one setback, one disappointment on top of another. How much suffering can a person, or a family bear? How much drought can come into their lives until there is no life left?

Those are hard questions. Ones that I don’t have any answers for, at least not any that don’t ring hollow or sound trite. What I do have is faith in a God who holds all things at all times, even when the evidence of that truth might be hard to see at the moment.

When the weather is dry the remedy is water. Large areas may only be helped by rain, and I can’t force the rain. But a small area may be helped by something as simple as turning on a hose. For the dry seasons in a person's life the faucet is turned on by opening the pages of the Bible and beginning to read.

We begin to find life as we read God's word, and in particular the passages that tell us of the nature of God. Yesterday someone asked me what to read for personal encouragement and I suggested Psalm 111. Read it for yourself and see how the psalmist lifts up the character of God over and over. Psalm 111 is full of the wisdom that nourishes the soul.

I also made some hospital calls yesterday, reading Psalm 23 with two different people. It is another place where the author tells of how clearly God is present with him in all things, ending with words of everlasting hope,

"…and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Those are just two examples of true hope to be found in God's word. There are, literally, hundreds of places where a person can find encouragement and true life.

One day, and maybe soon, rain will certainly come to Dulce, and our dry season will end. We just don't know when that day will arrive. But for the dry seasons in life, true Living Water is as near as the pages of your Bible.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Our Only Hope

The world is a beautiful place. Here on the reservation natural beauty is all around us, and a short drive in any direction will take us to another place of beauty, one that will be very different from here near town, but glorious in its own way.

And while natural beauty is so abundant we all also know that everyday life can, and often is, quite hard. We have responsibilities and obligations to fulfill. We may be living or working with people that we have a hard time getting along with. We may be struggling with illness, or someone close to our heart may be wrestling with addictions. The stress of life can be hard and there are times when our best day is one in which we somehow make it to bedtime, where we can get a few hours of respite as we sleep before beginning all over again the next day.

The apostle Paul knew quite a bit of hardship in his life. In writing to the church at Corinth he felt that he needed them to understand what he was going through, saying:

"For we do not want you to be ignorant brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death."

Paul and his companions felt that the weight of their hardship was so severe that they were on the verge of death. But he goes on to show us what he learned in that trial, adding these words:

"But that was to make us not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again."

Paul had learned to rely on God, and it was God in whom he placed his hope. And Paul can hope in God because it is God "who raises the dead." More specifically I believe that Paul is referring to the resurrection of Jesus when he writes to Corinth, for it is in Jesus, and Jesus alone, in whom we can truly have hope.

Paul speaks of earthly peril, but he also points towards the eternal pain of separation from God for all who refuse the saving work of Jesus. It is in the Easter moment, the death-and-resurrection of Jesus, where God clearly shows the lengths He will go to in order to give hope to all who come, in faith, to Him.

May you live in the hope of Easter, the hope of eternal life with Jesus, as your faithful Savior and Lord. This is true hope, and it is truly our only hope.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Perspective

Last Monday I ran out on Narrow Gauge road. It was cold out and the road was covered in ice and snow, which on one hand was not exactly unexpected, given the snow and deep cold of Christmas week. On the other hand it was a bit unusual. This has not been the kind of weather we have known to this point of our journey in Dulce.

Many times we have told our family and friends back in the Midwest how the temperature can regularly change 20-30 degrees in a day, so that when snow falls here it often melts away in a few days in any place where the sun shines on it. We get cold and snow but not the kind that endures, certainly not that endures in the way it does where we lived before. For all practical purposes we could expect winter in Minnesota to begin the first day of November and last until the end of March. When the first good storm of the season came you could be fairly certain that snow would be on the ground continually for 3-4 months.

The present conditions in Dulce are unusual for our experience here, but we have been through many winters that were much worse, and we know that winter, while occasionally unpleasant and inconvenient, doesn't last.

Thinking about winter as I ran reminded me that the rough seasons of our lives don't go on without end either. Going a step farther, when we travel through life as followers of Jesus we can have a completely different understanding of all times, good and bad.

First, He promises to always hold those who have come to Him in faith. So we can go through hard times knowing that He is present with us and will never let us go.

Second, because we know that He is with us, we can begin to seek to understand His purposes in our hard times. There may be something about a particular struggle that He is using to shape us in His image. At some point during our struggle we need to turn our attention off of ourselves and onto Him, so that we can begin to see and understand His purposes.

And lastly, we need to remember that He has promised His children a future that is better than anything they can imagine. The seasons of the calendar come and go. The unrelenting cold and snow will pass to the warmth and beauty of spring and summer, a cycle that repeats over and over. But the time-line for believers in Jesus extends beyond the horizons of this world and into eternity. We know that one day that Jesus, our Savior and Lord, will carry us to a place where well be with Him forever. Revelation 21:3-4 says,

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

If you are going through a period of struggle in your life, know that by faith in Jesus you have a sure and certain hope that will not fail. Ever.

Sunday, September 27, 2015

The Bible...and hope

The Bible. According to my dictionary it is "The sacred scriptures of Christians comprising the Old Testament and the New Testament." It is an old book, seemingly written by and about a small, obscure group of people living in a time and place very different than ours. We stumble over their names and struggle to follow the storylines of their lives. We read their stories and everything seems to be so obvious to us. What on earth is their problem? Why can't they seem to get things right?

And yet as Christians we hold the words of this book dearer to our hearts and minds than the words written anywhere else. Why is that? What is it that makes this one particular book so special? Over the next few weeks we are going to take a closer look at the Bible, asking questions and seeking answers about this book, this one book whose words are so essential to our faith.

The basic questions are What, Who, Where, When, How and Why? Each Sunday we will look at questions about the Bible that follow from the basic questions, such as:

· What is the Bible?

· Who wrote the Bible?

· Where does the Bible speak today

· When should we read the Bible?

· How should we apply the Bible to our lives?

· Why does the Bible matter?

It is my hope and my prayer that as we dig into these questions we will find answers that strengthen our faith. That we will find answers that deepen or understanding of God and His love for us. And that we will find answers that deepen our love of God.

On the one hand the Bible is a very old book, a book that for many people is out-of touch with the culture of our time. But on the other hand I am certain that the Bible, while indeed old, continues to be relevant, and the message in its pages is one that is urgently needed in the times in which we live.

I look forward to exploring some Bible basics as a congregation. I welcome any questions you might have that would add to our understanding. And I pray that God would lead us, through His Word in the Bible, to more fully love and serve Him in the world.

Addendum: I wrote the body of this post a few days ago. This morning in worship our basic question was "What?" The questions that came out of that basic question were these:

What is the Bible?

What does the Bible contain?

What is the purpose of the Bible?

What ties the Bible together?

What relevance does the Bible have today?

Here is a brief look at the continuing relevance of the Bible.

There are many ways in which the Bible is relevant today. This morning I focused on hope. In Romans 15:4 the apostle Paul writes,

"For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scripture we might have hope."

This last week was a fairly ordinary one for me in ministry here in Dulce, which means that there were a number of people and life situations that came to my attention as pastor. Some of these situations were expected in some way, and others were completely new. And as a pastor there is little direct help that I can provide to people in need. I can’t "fix the problem." But what I can do is listen, and pray. And in prayer I can turn the person I am with and their situation over to God.

As we pray we remember that all things are in God's hands, all the time. And we remember that it is God whom we hope in. All the time. We don't hope in some lesser thing, and there are any number of lesser things in which people hope.

We place our hope in the God of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, the One through whom all things were created, and for whom all things were created. And the only place we have to turn to in order to learn about this God in whom we hope is in His word, the Bible.

The Bible is relevant because it teaches us, fully and reliably, about God and thereby encourages us to seek Him, to find and know true hope in all things.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Where is your hope?

Over the past few months my wife, Robin, and I have been walking with some people going through very trying times. Some of this has been at a distance and some has been face-to-face. These include:

A granddaughter who died in February, following an accident at home.

A very dear friend who was diagnosed with advanced and essentially untreatable cancer, who passed away in late June.

A relative who was recently diagnosed with advanced and essentially untreatable cancer.

A relative recently diagnosed with a circulatory problem, who declined high-risk surgery, her only treatment option.

Two extended families within our church who each lost family members very unexpectedly last week.

In addition to the care, concern and prayers that we have offered I have preached two funerals, one for our granddaughter, in June, and one for a church family last week.

As I think about these people tonight I find myself coming back to this question: Where do we find hope?

Do we find hope in medical care? Sometimes, but not always. And even at its best, medical care can only delay what one day comes to all of us. Our death.

Do we find hope in our friends and family? Perhaps in them we receive encouragement and support. Very often they may provide very real and much appreciated care for our physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

Do we find hope in our own grit and determination? Again, perhaps, but only for a time. Stubbornness, the refusal to yield to a cancer that is inexorably advancing, can only last so long.

Do we find hope in something that lies beyond the reach of this world? Yet again, perhaps, depending on what it is you believe in while you are in this world.

The apostle Paul touched on the idea of hope when he wrote to the church at Thessaloniki. He understood that the hope that some people were holding on to was really no hope at all. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 he wrote,

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep."

In saying "those who are asleep" Paul is talking about believers in Jesus who have died. And Paul makes crystal clear that the only true hope for all Christians, is in Jesus. All who have faith in Him are His own, eternally. And as He rose from death to eternal life, so too will they. This is a sure and certain promise from God.

The opening section of the Heidelberg Catechism states the certainty of God's hold on His children this way:

Question & Answer 1

Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own, 1
but belong—

body and soul,
in life and in death— 2

to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. 3

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, 4
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. 5
He also watches over me in such a way 6
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven; 7
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. 8

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life 9
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him. 10

¹ 1 Cor. 6:19-20
² Rom. 14:7-9
³ 1 Cor. 3:23; Titus 2:14
⁴ 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:2
⁵ John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:1-11
⁶ John 6:39-40; 10:27-30; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:5
⁷ Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18
⁸ Rom. 8:28
⁹ Rom. 8:15-16; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14
¹⁰ Rom. 8:1-17

Where is your hope? It is my prayer that your hope is in Jesus, for it is my belief that He alone is our only hope.

He is our only hope in whatever may lie ahead for us each day in this world. And He is our only certain hope for eternal life.

May you know hope, true and everlasting hope, in Jesus.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Waiting

We have been waiting. We are waiting. A few words on the past wait and then a few on the present one.

My wife, Robin, and I have been waiting on a call to pastor a church. Actually, I have been the one waiting for the call. I’m the one with the seminary degree and who feels led by God to serve as a pastor. But we go as a couple, (and even better with our daughter, as a family), to wherever it is that God is leading. So in a sense we are both called. We both need to feel that the place where I am called is the place where God is leading both of us to serve among His people.

Last week the call came and I will be serving as the pastor of the Jicarilla Apache Reformed Church in Dulce, NM. We don’t know the particulars of when we will be moving but we are beginning to pack and dispose of some things we won’t be need when we get there.

The waiting has been longer than we anticipated it would be. I graduated from seminary two years ago and at that time we imagined things would be settled in less than a year. I sent information out to many churches and had an interview every few months, rising on the lists of several search committees but never reaching the top until last week.

That process was occasionally disappointing but we were okay with it. We never expected God’s call to be something that would dramatically come in all capital letters, i.e. “BRAD, I AM SENDING YOU TO…” We did think that however long it took that things would work out in a reasonable manner, following the steps of the process our denomination uses. And it has.

Our time of waiting has been good for us. It has allowed us to spend some time with family and friends that we hadn’t anticipated having. It has allowed us to practice patience in circumstances that could easily have pushed our patience to its limits. It has allowed us to think through some of the implications of our eventual move and make decision about things that hadn’t come to mind earlier. We have trusted that God knew what was in our future and that He would reveal it according to His plan.

We are glad to be done waiting for a call, and to know where and with whom we will be serving. What we have been waiting for is now in the past.

And we are waiting. Yesterday the verdict came down in the George Zimmerman case, where he was charged in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. I’ll state at the beginning that I only know the barest of the facts of the case from when the shooting first took place and I haven’t followed any of the coverage of the trial.

My wife has followed the case, and she has an understanding of the issues underlying it that I don’t have. She raised two biracial children in her first marriage. As we traveled in the car yesterday she shared with me a perspective on race that I wouldn’t have come to know any other way. She also wrote about some of her thoughts in her blog, which can be read here.

I don’t know much about the Zimmerman case but as I consider what little I do know of it, add the insight Robin has given me into racial issues, and remember the presence of injustice large and small throughout our world, I am reminded that we who call ourselves disciples of Christ Jesus are still waiting.

We are waiting for the promised return of our Lord and Savior, and with His return the setting right of all things, for all time.

I could wait for His return passively, sitting and reading my Bible, which teaches that things will get worse before He comes. I could wait knowing that injustice of every kind will escalate, taking forms that I can barely imagine.

Or I can wait actively, knowing that in the big picture He calls all of His disciples to discern and be obedient to His will. In what ways and in what places is God calling me to use the gifts He has given me to shine His light in an unjust world? That is the question before me, again, and again.

The last words in the Bible attributed to Jesus are Revelation 22:20,

“Surely, I am coming soon.”

And I as I remember this promise of Jesus I join the Apostle John in his response,

“Amen. Come Lord Jesus.”

We are waiting, in confidence, for the glorious return of the King.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Shelter in every storm

Last night we had dinner with Robin’s parents. After dinner, as we were saying our goodbyes, we learned that her Dad’s PSA level has increased significantly over the past six months. He has had prostate cancer for several years and this test result suggests that his cancer is progressing. He will be meeting with his medical team this week and seeing what treatment options are available.

Later today we learned that my father was admitted to a hospital this morning and will be staying there for at least one night. He was not feeling well, in a vague way, last night and into this morning. So he went to the hospital where they checked a few things out and decided to keep him overnight for some more tests tomorrow.

Last night, in-between learning of these things about our fathers, Robin and I happened to read Psalm 46. We are currently reading through the Psalms as we pray together each evening. Psalm 46 seems to be the perfect biblical word to remind us, and our fathers, of what really keeps us secure, the perfect Shelter in every storm. In verse 1 it opens:

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Verses 7 and 11 give identical affirmation of God’s power in the face of every threat, be it physical, emotional or spiritual, saying:

“The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

We love our fathers dearly but neither they, nor either of us, nor anyone else, will live forever in the sense that we know of life in this world right now. But our fathers know their Savior and He promises to carry them through every storm of life, even the one that will one day end their earthly life, and into the joy of eternal life.

Martin Luther used the words of Psalm 46 as inspiration for his hymn A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Here is a link to a version of the song, and a link to the lyrics if you would like to read as you listen. And lastly, here is a link to Robin’s blog post today, with her thoughts after this news of our fathers.

Our hope at all times is God, and only God, which Luther reminds us in closing his hymn with these words:

“Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; this body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.”

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Now what?

Christmas 2011 has come…and gone. For my family we had the waiting and anticipation of Advent, worship on Christmas Eve, dinner and exchanging gifts with family. Then on Christmas day we had travel, dinner and exchanging gifts with a different branch of the family. The 26^th brought travel back home and birthday cake and gifts for our youngest daughter. At home the Christmas gifts are being put away and the decorations are beginning to come down. At work some decorations are down. And this morning the streets in my neighborhood were lined with trash cans full, and over-filled, of the residue of Christmas gatherings. I don’t know for sure but it must be the busiest day of the year for those people who haul garbage for a living.

Now that the day of Christmas has come and gone what do we have left of that which we so anxiously waited for? That was the question in mind yesterday, which God answered as my wife and I began to read from 1 Timothy, which opens with:

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,”

One thing we have today is hope, the particular kind of hope that is only known in Jesus. Christmas, as a day on the calendar, has passed and in virtually every way our world, and our daily lives look the same. We live with the same people, we work and play in the same places, our lives know joy and they know sorrow, they know success and struggle, they know peace and despair.

But those who know call in faith on Jesus as their Lord and Savior also know a sure and certain hope. In describing the certainty of God’s promises, the author of Hebrews writes in verses 19-20:

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

Jesus has come and is with us, and he has also gone on before us as the priest who makes the perfect offering before God the Father on our behalf. He, alone, is the guarantee that we will receive the blessing that God promised for all who come to him through Jesus. This is the hope that Paul refers to as he writes to Timothy, and the hope that is ours as well.

On Christmas our young daughter opened a particular gift. As she took the contents from the box the primary emotion she showed us was unfettered joy. In the box were about six costumes, of the variety that fuel the active imaginations of young girls. Bright colors. Lace. Sparkles. Bouncy skirts. She put on one, then another, then another, until she had tried them all on. They were an easy gift to buy for her, on sale as Halloween close-outs. And they delighted her heart.

Our hope in Christ was not an easy “purchase” for him, coming as it did in death on a cross. But in his resurrection to eternal life we have gained a sure and certain gift. And one day we will find out what that gift fully means. It is something we can only imagine now and I think that on Christmas, as I watched my daughter, I saw a glimpse of the joy we will know in the presence of Jesus, as well as the joy he will display as we are gathered before him.

I’m going to close with a link to a song, by Sara Groves, from her CD Fireflies and Songs, called “Joy is in our Hearts.” (The lyrics are here.) Christmas has passed but our hope in Christ is ever present, and “for good reason joy is in our hearts.”

May you know the hope that brings for this deep and abounding joy, and share it in the world around you.