It Is Not Always Health, Wealth and Prosperity

I don't know if you read the Book of Job very often let alone dwell on Job's speeches therein. 

I love his affirmation in 13:13 where he says to his supposed friends, "Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will."  I cannot count the times along life's pathway I have wanted to tell some companion, "Would you just shut up long enough to hear what I am saying" Like Job’s friends they are completely misreading what is going on. 

Job’s friends just keep insisting that all the calamities that have come upon him are the result of some sin in Job’s life. Their spiritual insight is limited to what their eyes of flesh see, and their flawed theology tells them. In their minds no one would suffer as Job has suffered unless they have done something terribly offensive to God.

But Job understands better than they that not all suffering is the result of sin and not all prosperity is the product of righteous living. Job knows his own heart and he has not forgotten his own behavior. Job would never say he has not sinned, but he would quickly tell you he has done nothing to offend God. He also knew that those same calamities were testing his faith in a big-time way.

His wife also knew he was a righteous man and had done nothing to warrant such sorrow. She just saw God as unfair and that Job should just curse God for the way He has allowed Job, and by extension her, suffer and just go ahead and die and be done with all this.

As an aside I want to point out that Job’s wife gets something of a bum rap for telling Job to curse God and die but we forget that she has suffered the same loses as has Job. Her world has crumbled . . . she too has lost everything and on top of all that she watched as her husband deteriorated. 

But back to Job. Job knew that there must be a reason for his condition besides his personal sin. Something else was going on and he was caught up in it. I know it is not a popular theme in our feel-good health and wealth religious culture but our suffering as God’s people is not always because of our sin. We miss understand our God when we say He wants His people to be “happy.”  What He wants I for His people to be faithful when they abound and also when they are abased. 

Sometimes we endure hardship, suffering and loss not because of sin but for the glory of God. Dear friends, it is true God wants us to live for him. But John Wesley hit on an eternal truth when he said of those early Methodist, “Our people die well.”  In prosperity or in poverty; in health or in sickness; through trial and tribulation what God wants is for His people to be faithful. He still really does expect us to die for Him.  

Job wanted God to explain what was going on. He was not judging God he was imploring Him. That’s why in verses fourteen and fifteen he announces to His friends that he will be responsible for his life and the way he has lived it and what is more he says he will not change anything about his life or his faith. He will not confess what he has not done, and he fully intends to keep on living as he has in the past. He knew better than they that God was not punishing him for some sinful way. He understood that whatever was going on it wasn’t happening because God was disappointed in him. Actually, he was where he was because he was faithful beyond reproach. He and his family were paying a high cost precisely because of Job’s faithfulness. 

“He also shall be my salvation: for a hypocrite shall not come before him.” Job never wavered in his faith or his faithfulness. He demonstrated to not only Satan but to everyone who knew of him that his faith was genuine. I suppose Job also learned a lot about himself in the process.

All of us go through difficult times that are not punishment for some sin. Mine was the rapid decline and loss of my wife of 54-1/2 years to pancreatic cancer. It seemed that one day we were laughing and enjoying our lives with so many plans for the future and the next we were plunged into pain, sorrow and suffering on a scale never before experienced by us. We struggled with the same issues with which Job grappled. 

I have friends whose whole life has been marked by suffering and pain both physically, emotionally and spiritually. They have faithfully served and sacrificially given to the Lord and yet life for them has been one step forwards and three steps backward. Their life has been marked by very few of the things we think of “the blessings of God.” There life has been as example of faithfulness to God; it has sparked genuine gratitude to God from those materially blessed; their life has had purpose . . . it has meaning beyond the physical.

Truth is that is all Susan and I wanted . . . . we wanted what we were enduring to have meaning to us and to others. That’s precisely what Job wanted . . . . God is not capricious . . . . everything He does is with purpose and has meaning. We must remember that we are not our own because we have been bought at a price, namely, the blood of Jesus. God has the right to use us in was of His own choosing. We must come to the place where we can say, “Nevertheless not my will but thine be done” and when we have come I come through the fire all I want hear is “well done thou good and faithful servant.

Like it or not sometimes people suffer for the glory of God. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.”

Lord, I just want to say, "Thank You!"

I am Thankful today for friends and family both here and in eternity. And I can honestly say I am looking forward to that great reunion day. 

I was reflecting just yesterday on all the people who have touched my life in both big and small ways and how their coming into my life has blessed my life. Each one of you, many who may not remember where or when we met or maybe whether or not we have met, have touched my life in some way and now you are forever a part of the tapestry of who I have become. Thank you!

I am thankful that God loved me and that He loved me enough to give His son for me. I am thankful that He called me to salvation and then placed in my heart not only the call to preach but the desire to preach the unsearchable riches of God's love and grace in Christ Jesus.  

I am thankful that God put a young woman in my life who was the perfect pastor’s wife. We were not the same in so many ways. But we both Loved the Lord. When our hands touched and our lips met as teenagers, I only thought I had won her heart and she only thought she had captured mine. As time passed, we came to see that the reason we had the lifetime love affair with each other is because God was our matchmaker. We didn’t choose each other . . . no indeed. God gave us to each other as a part of His purposes.. 

This year I want to add to my “Thank you.” I say, "Thank You, Lord" for allowing Susan and I to have a life together here in this world that spanned more than 60 years . . . . 54-1/2 of those as husband and wife.  I cannot remember a time in our life together that the Lord did not supply our needs - both great and small. By His grace we achieved what so few couples obtain . . . we literally became one flesh in the fullest sense of that terminology. Somewhere along the journey we ceased to be two travelers on the same road and became a single traveler that embodied the two of us. 

Thanksgiving 2021 was the hardest of my life. Susan and I as we became one flesh ceased to experience the same things separately. Somewhere along the way we began to share them singularly. Now I face life without a part of who I am. It is not a matter of discovering the new me . . . the one without Susan because that person does not exist. I still experience life as if she were present . . . . and, in some way she is and always will be. 

Our relationship never was superficial but over a lifetime our union became stronger and deeper spiritually. Somewhere along life's journey she got into my heart and into my soul and I did the same with her. This is why when someone asked me about her passing, I responded with, “It feels like someone has ripped out a large part of my soul.”  And that my friend is something only God can do. Our spiritual DNA is the same. 

As mentioned above, this is the first Thanksgiving in over 60 years when we did not celebrate the blessings of God together and I must tell you it seems so strange and wrongheaded to me right now. But I know God did not make a mistake when he brought us together as a couple back in the 1960's and He did not make a mistake when he led us into becoming one flesh and while I don’t understand all that He is doing right now He did not make a mistake when He called Susan home. 

Let me be clear . . . . Susan and my life together are a reflection of what God is doing in bring redemption to mankind. I now know something of how Jesus felt when at about the ninth hour He cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' The separation I felt at Susan’s home-going is reflective of the separation Jesus felt that day. To be sure, what I have experienced is not the same as to the reason for the separation or the degree and depth that it was felt but it gives me a deeper understanding and a greater appreciation for what He endured for me. 

Now for some speculative thanksgiving. I have every reason to believe that just as the separation of Jesus from the Father because Jesus became sin was but for a short time so the separation that death (the first cousin of sin) brought to Susan and myself will also be short lived. I fully expect to join her in Paradise either through passing through my own death experience or when I experience the transformation from the physical to the spiritual realm when Jesus returns for His own.

Now here is something glorious about that One Flesh thing I mentioned earlier . . . all that death is capable of doing is separating the body from the spirit and soul. We often speak of Christ in us as the hope of glory and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Hence, we are connected to God the Father through Jesus His son and the Holy Spirit (Spirit of God) who abides within us (in our soul and spirit). 

Well, something similar, though not the same, takes place in the becoming one flesh process. Without spelling out all the theology of “One Flesh” suffice it to say it involves all aspects of our person . . . . body soul and spirit. There is a song that has the lines . . . “I said I'm wrapped up, tied up, tangled up in Jesus, He's all I need.”  

Becoming one flesh is being wrapped up, tied up, tangled up body and spirit with each other. It is two people, a man and a woman, becoming something new, something that did not exist before, in both time and kind. It is something that God enables and something that cannot be undone. It is becoming one as Jesus and the Father are one. Small wonder that Paul would use this oneness of marriage to help us understand the nature of the church and the church's relationship to Jesus. 

I cannot reach out and touch her and I cannot sit and hold her hand because she has at God’s bidding laid down the body that constrained her. When she laid that body aside, she flew away to Jesus and Paradise where she now awaits the day I take my flight and join her in paradise. But in the meanwhile, our love goes on . . . love never fails . . . love never ends.

So, Lord, I just want to say, "Thank You!" Thank You for being so good to me . . . Thank you for letting Susan love me and I her. Because you did, I better understand your love for us . . . . for me.

I Love How You Love Me

It has been eleven months since the love of my life left for her eternal home and I still miss just about everything about her . . . . her voice . . . . her touch . . .  her look . . . . the way she smelled and the way she smiled. But, most of all I missed the way that she loved me.

Next to the love of God working in my life Susan is the best thing that ever happened to me. Truth is, Susan was and, in some ways still is, a part of the Lord's working in my life. I have written in the past about how God brought us together and the miracles he wrought to do that. We, in looking back over the years, could easily discern the hand of God working to bring us together and then to grow us into oneness. Our relationship was the Lord's doing and it marveled us as we lived it and then when we looked back on it. 

I have been unapologetic in stating that Susan taught me how to love. She did it without uttering a word or giving advice. Her whole life was about loving others, but it was more than that. The way that she loved reflected the love of God being shed abroad as she lived each day. Every day of my life I knew that she loved me unconditionally with her whole heart. It was reciprocal. 

I remember our first kiss and how my knees went weak but I also remember our last kiss. It was on the day that she left for heaven. That kiss touched my soul. We never kissed that I did not feel the powerful love she had for me. We often, especially in our later years, referred to our marriage as our life-long love affair because that is really what it was. No other human being touched my soul the way she did. She was truly God’s love gift to me.

When you love the way we do even something as simple as glace of them across the room causes strong feelings of affection and attachment. As lovers after God’s own heart we have this overwhelming urge to do whatever you can to bring happiness to each other. 

Love is indeed a feeling, but love is also and action and the best kind of love is both at the same time. Love is a feeling that produces a love action in response to that love feeling. Truly loving someone means caring for them in the ways that they need to be cared for, with no strings attached. It is what the Bible calls Oneness and making up what is lacking but needed in one another.

I tell you it may take two to Tango but someone has to ask for the dance. It was while learning to dance with each other that we earned how each other needed to do the dance. We danced and we danced and we danced until no one noticed us anymore, they just saw the dance. Some people get lost in the 50's but Susan and I got lost in each other. I believe that was God’s purpose for our life together.

Randy Travis said it in a country way when he wrote and sang . . . “My love is deeper than the holler, Stronger than the river, Higher than the pine trees growin' tall upon the hill. My love is purer than the snowflakes, That fall in late December, And honest as a Robin on a springtime window sill, And longer than the song of a whippoorwill”

Barry Mann and Larry Kolber wrote a song first recorded by the Paris Sisters that could in many ways be how we thought of each other. The song is “I love How You Love Me.” When two people love how they love each other it just doesn’t get any better this side of heaven . . . I say it is a little piece of heaven on Earth.

I love how your eyes close
Whenever you kiss me
And when I'm away from you
I love how you miss me
I love the way you always treat me tenderly
But, darling, most of all
I love how you love me

I love how your heart beats
Whenever I hold you
I love how you think of me
Without being told to
I love the way your touch is always heavenly
But, darling, most of all
I love how you love me

I love how your eyes close
Whenever you kiss
And when I'm away from you
I love how you miss me
I love the way your touch is always heavenly
But, darling, most of all
I love how you love me

There is no greater love than what Jesus has for you and me and apparently Susan took Jesus seriously. In John 15:12 Jesus said, “I want you to love one another, as I have loved you.”  That’s what Susan did and I am better for it. What makes this so wonderful is the fact that she had no idea the impact of her life of loving changed other people's lives . . . . not insignificantly, my life. She taught me how to love by just being who God made her to be. 

And me, I just praise His holy name because He chose me to be the one to be loved by her. Just convinces me the more how great is the love of God . . . .

My friends, let God love through you . . . it will make you a great lover.

Is a Happy Marriage Just Dumb Luck?

Every now and again someone will remark to me how lucky I was to have had a long happy marriage. I must confess, I am indeed happy to have had a long and happy marriage. However, I do not relegate that happiness in my marriage to luck.  Marriage was ordained of God with purpose before the fall of man. For a marriage to be successful it must fulfill God's purpose for it (note: I did not say a happy marriage. I said successful one). There is no such thing as luck when it comes to a happy fulfilling marriage.

I think people should understand the marriage is not the place where you develop your individuality. It is the context to which you bring your individuality and blend it with that of your marital partner so that over time the two become one. Marriage requires both giving and receiving . . . it is a sharing relationship. 

My number one goal in my marriage was to honor my wife, Susan. Her number one responsibility to our marriage was to honor me. It is also important to understand that and how it works in a growth experience where we help one another on the journey. It is the process of becoming one flesh.

Honestly folks if you would just take the principles enunciated in 1st Corinthians 13 and apply them to your marriage relationship, I believe you would discover a happier and more satisfying marriage. Keep in mind that the chapter closes by saying now abideth these three, faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love . . . Love never fails.”  I must point out that while love never fails people often do. Therefore, keep no record of wrongs.

Susan and I spent most of our lives building on the relationship that we had before we married. Each of us believed very strongly that ours was literally a marriage made in heaven. We believed our coming together as husband and wife was a part of God’s plan for each of us. We further believe that God moved in our lives in such a way as to bring us together as young teens. 

In addition to believing that God has brought us together as husband and wife, namely, that he has chosen us to be husband and wife before we actually knew one another, that he put us together for His purposes and not ours. What I’m trying to say is that from even before we decided to get married, we both had a sense of God’s calling on our lives. So, I can say without reservation or fear of contradiction when God put Susan in my life, he gave me the perfect companion for my calling and my temperament.  

Because we believe that we had been chosen by God for each other and that as a couple He had chosen for some purpose we took seriously the vows that we made on our wedding day. The goal of our marriage, whether stated or just assumed, was that one day we would cease to be two separate entities and become one in the Lord. 

The promises we made to each other on a cold Winter’s Night on December 23, 1966, were more than simply words repeated in the ceremony. Our promises to love one another, support one another and to care for one another were made in all earnest and seriousness. They were promises made to one another in the presence of God’s people and in the sight of the Almighty himself. Those words should not and for us as God's children could not be taken lightly. I also recall that they included a promise to one another to help each other find our fulfillment as a person. In short you might say that when we said, "I do we really meant I will until the end of time." 

It was clear to us that after our devotion to God and our commitment to one another were of the highest priority. Susan was to come before everyone else in my life and I was the priority of her life. We firmly believed that if we took care of our relationship, we could better maintain all others, including those with our children. It was equally clear that unless we kept our relationship with God in order, we couldn't keep our own relationship together. I once told a man in an interview that our marriage was a success because it was a threesome . . . me, Susan and the Lord.

From the moment that we said I do, and even before that, we focused our attention on one another. By that I mean that we were always seeking ways to please each other. Rare was the occasion where either of us sought to find what we could get out of the relationship for ourselves. The irony of our relationship was that at our core we were very much the same are public personas . . . but we were hardly similar.

With that said I also need to point out that’s simply because we believe God has brought us together and we had promised to be faithful and true and supportive of one another all the days of our life does not mean our journey of love did not have its difficult times. For us however those proved to be just difficulties along the way that served to strengthen our bond in the Lord.

Like I said in the beginning, I am happy that Susan and I had a good marriage relationship. I know that many do not, and I suppose there are as many reasons for that as there are people struggling in their relationships. But I am convinced, based upon my own experience, that when we are able to put self aside and think only of the well-being of our spouse, we have a good chance of having a good happy marriage.

Susan and I found that we could not build are relationship without being together a great deal of the time. It is a myth that you can have quality time without quantity of time. Make the most of the time you have together. Create ways to make more time together possible . . . share life.

I want to add that having a good marriage for many years does not mean the things were always easy or that you are happy all the time. There is an old saying among Baptist that goes like this, “Lord you keep the pastor humble at will keeping poor.” To say the least, trying to maintain a household with four children during early Ministry was a financial challenge. I mention financial challenges because it seems the finances are a major source of conflict in marriages

For example, very first church that I served as pastor I was paid a grand total of $9,800 a year. Of that at least $980 a year went back to the church in the form of a tithe. Remember, they kept the records. Then there were they myriad of special mission and love offerings. I only mention that to point out that not only did we have early marriage adjustment, but financial matters were always an issue in our household. Fortunately for us the Lord always provided what we needed, and we were content with what He provided even when we were not always happy to do without the things we may have wanted. We learned to live without them. The one thing that came from our financial struggles was not conflict but cooperation. Susan learned to cloth and feed our family creatively. She seemed to always find the bargains. Parenthetically, I learned allow her great leeway with the household budget.

Another area that often becomes an issue in marriage is marital intimacy. Husbands tend to be demanding wives tend to want to negotiate. I can honestly say this was never an area of difficulty for Susan and myself. When we got married, we were like two calves looking at a new gate. It was on the job training for us, but it was never a tool to be used it was always a gift to be given. Quite frankly we considered all of our married life the intimacy between a husband and wife a holy thing for which we ought to be able to give thanks to God. But we also learned to honor one another in this area as well.

So, when you see a couple, you have been married for decades don’t think it was just dumb luck. Like I said in the beginning, there is no such thing as luck when it comes to a good marriage. They have overlooked many of failing shortcoming and fault they spent their years together learning and understanding one another. Loving has never been a matter of luck it is mutual giving sharing, caring, mercy, patience and yes, from time-to-time submission to one another. But in our case, the real secret ingredient was God active and involved in our lives. 

Being married is summed up in the verse that says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his
mother and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” Becoming one flesh has everything to do with sharing your lives together as husband and wife. You don’t only share a home and a bed. You’ll share joy and sorrow. You’ll share your hopes and fears. You’ll share your successes and failures. You’ll share your money and possessions. You’ll share your bodies and souls. You share everything with each other. And in the process, God weaves you together as one. You’re two people truly united.

When I Said, "I Will" , , , , I Meant, "Forever."

I have been conditioned by God over more than 60 years of companionship with the same person (almost 55 as a married couple) into the person I am.  No two people ever loved as did Susan and me. Other's may have done as well but none better or deeper. We truly became one flesh in the full spiritual meaning of that term.

Since Susan has finished her course and has now entered her rest in God’s paradise, I get asked occasionally how I feel about getting married again. A number of my friends who have lost their spouses were married again in less than a year from their spouse’s passing. If I were to follow their pattern I’d be getting married within the next couple of months. 

(At this point I need to tell you that I am not passing judgement on anyone one else’s choices in this regard. I am simply sharing my journey.) 

When asked I usually deflect the question by saying something like, “Right now that is the farthest thing from my mind. I am just trying really hard to get through today.” Or, I might say, “I don’t know what God has for me going forward, this is all new to me, even the old stuff has changed, and I am adjusting to too many other things to give that any thought.”

I am also amazed at our capacity to “put on a happy face” when in reality we are broken and poured out. I suppose that is in part because we are trying to pull ourselves out of our personal slough of despondency and in part, we sense that in those around us are growing weary as we struggle for some sense of normalcy. Or perhaps it is the difference in the loves we share.

Truth is, I don’t like being alone so much of the time. But, at the same time, I’m not sure I want a wife either. I’d love someone to share things with . . . someone with whom to have an affectionate relationship and not so much romantic one. A friend who was widowed within the last year about this and I remember saying to him. “I am not closed to the idea of remarriage, but God would have to put her in my lap and then slap me on the back of my head if it is going to ever happen. 

I believe Susan and I did not choose each other. Oh, to be sure we were attracted to one another, and we made choices that brought us together. But as life was being lived, we discovered that our choices were nothing the fulfilling God’s will for our lives. We came to believe that God had chosen us from the foundation of the world to be husband and wife. I know, few will accept this, but I remind you that God does these sort of things and probably more frequently than we think.  

We believe that God created us for each other, and God brought us together. We were each other’s destiny. We were meant for each other. This accounts for the width and length and height and depth of our love. Susan loved the way God does and from her I spent a lifetime learning the real meaning of “Agape love.”  She loved me the way God loved me, and she trusted me the way we should trust God. She could do that because she loved God with her whole heart, mind and sou. It was the only way she knew how to do love and it made her beautiful person. 

That love pulled from me the kind of love that is totally committed to the one who loves me. Susan knew that I would lay down my life for her. I remember when I learned she had pancreatic cancer I went to my office and as I wept, I cried out “O my dear Susan! My precious Susan, I wish to God it was me and not you!” In those moments this David felt like his namesake, King David at the death of his son. It took months after she went to be with the Lord for me to say from my heart to God, “Lord, you gave her to me and you have taken her to yourself, blessed is your name.” 

This love affair that Susan and I shared did developed over a lifetime, but it was ordained from before we met. God had birthed us for each other. The astrologer would say our stars where rightly aligned and the biologist that our chromosomes were perfectly matched, but we believed God would say “my will, will be done. “

(Want to know the whole story of how we came together . . . buy the book when it is done.) 

I believe some couples who God joins have a unique spiritual identity. Just as a baby has an equal number of chromosomes from their father and mother that makes them unique in the world, so a couple brought together by God have an equal number of spiritual chromosomes that make them into the complete person God wants them to be. Jesus once said about such a couple “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.” (Matthew 19:6) Paul magnifies this in Ephesians he speaks of this as a profound mystery that it is illustrative of the relationship between the church and Christ. 

We find ourselves wondering why some seem to recover from their grief in short order and then there are those for whom it is a daily struggle without an end in sight. Believe me when I say, “I cast no aspersions on anyone. Whatever you must do to find a normal life take it as from the Lord and embrace it.”  

However, my analytical mind is always searching for the reasons behind things. I am interested in the fact . . . the “what is.” But I seem to have an insatiable need for the “how” and the “why” of things. So, when it comes to loss . . . especially the loss of a one spouse in a couple that has achieved a high degree of "oneness" . . . it is as though, and maybe because it has, half of your soul has been ripped from you. Precisely where I find myself.

I think the depth of grief is directly proportional to the degree that a husband and wife fulfilled God’s intention for them to become “One.” It appears to me that the intensity of the “oneness determines the intensity of the grief when God removes half of that union.

What do I mean by “oneness?” Oneness is the product of building a relationship that transcends the physical and embraces the spiritual. Oneness is the product of a man and a woman coming to the place where they love each other like God loves them. It is a couple whose love has grown from the eros of the flesh through the phileo of men until it has become agape of God.  

It is that rare couple who have successfully navigated life together. They have reached the place in their relationship where they love each other with their whole heart. Their relationship with one another becomes an expression of the way God loves us. They are in union at every level of our human existence and at the highest levels of intensity: body, soul and spirit. 

Some would say, “That sounds like idolatry to me.” I will concede that it could sound like idolatry but not that it is idolatry. Idolatry would mean that you love your spouse more than you love God and that you place them above God.  Idolatry is not possible because it is both the nature and intensity of our love for God that enables us to love one another at such levels. 

Rather than idolatry I suggest to you that it is more likely to become an example of (1) how God loves, (2) how we are to love God and (3) how other husbands and wives are to love each other. It is one aspect of Jesus word when he said, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34) and again, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” (Ephesians 5:25.) If anything, it is evidence of the height, depth and breadth of our love for God.

It is God’s love for us that enables us to say, “Jesus is Lord.” It is His loving lordship that enables us to love as does He. In First John 1 John tells us, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins . . . we love him, because he first loved us. Our love for God and our ability to love like God comes from God Himself. 

Indeed, we are to strive to love as God loves. It is not the kind of love that we have but the priority that we place on the object of our love. God is first among equals only when we speak of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Otherwise, there is none like unto Him in all the earth. Our love is to ultimately be like God’s love for us . . . Agape.”

Now, back to the husband-and-wife expression of love. The marriage relationship is the only context in which love in its most complete and fullest sense (body, soul and spirit) can take place that is morally acceptable to God. Marriage is th only place where love can be expressed at every level of our being and toward God at the same time. This process of learning to love as God loves within the marriage context is the heart and soul of husband/wife oneness. 

It is the relationship between a man and a woman in which every aspect of their live is supercharged by the love of God . . . it is where what is done in the body is in harmony with what abides in the soul and energized by the spirit. It is within this kind of marriage relationship that we will have some understanding of the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height . . . of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge . . . .” (Ephesians 5:18-19).

There is so much that could and probably should be said about the oneness between a husband and wife that obtains this level but suffice it to say that when the earthly journey of one of the spouses living in such a God joined union the effects are extraordinarily painful. My first response when Susan left to be with Jesus was, now I better understand how Jesus felt when he cried out to the Father, My God, My God why hast though forsaken me.” It seems the separation of God for Him was worse that the becoming sin.

The deeper the love in life the longer the pain after death. I have been conditioned by God over more than 60 years of companionship with the same person (almost 55 as a married couple) into the person I am and now for the first time I feel the forsakenness of which Jesus spoke that day on the Cross. With Job “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless, I will argue my ways before Him. This also will be my salvation . . . ." (Job 13:15-16).

I will Arise and Go . . . .

Sometimes It Feels Like I Am Drowning

My prayer and my goal for today is simply Psalm 103 . . . all

Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.   Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; . . . . Let all that hath breath bless His holy name. 

Dear brothers & Sisters in Christ take it from someone who knows . . . . when people tell you that you're stronger than you think and you know you are barely making it through long days and lonely nights . . . . when you're down and your life is running on a tank that the fuel gage says is setting on empty . . . . when it takes what energy you have left to rejoice with them that rejoice because the joys of others only remind you of your own sense of emptiness and aloneness. 

That’s when something just clicked in my mind. As I was reading that psalm the Spirit of God brought to my mind the Parable of the Lost Sons and how the principles Jesus lays down in that story might apply to those drowning in grief. I believe there is a message of hope wrapped in this parable for all those who have suffered loss.

In the gospel of Luke chapter 15, verses 11-32., Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal sons. In the original parable Jesus speaks of two sons. One, the older son, remains within the authority of his father (reminds us you don’t have to leave the father’s house to be wayward) while the younger son demands his share of the father’s estate . . . his inheritance which he in short order manages to recklessly squander in a life of indulgence. In the end he finds himself destitute, friendless and alone. It is when he is at the end of his rope and can’t take it anymore, he decides to return to the father’s house where he is warmly welcomed.

For my purposes it doesn’t matter how the younger son found himself in the slough of despondency. In his case it was his own self-centered life of indulgence that landed him the hog pen of his life. For other, they may find themselves in a pit because of events over which they have little or no control. Others may find themselves there because that’s where their ministry is. Still others, like myself, find themselves in the pit because of the loss of a spouse or child. 

As an aside, I want to say a word or two to those well-meaning folks who keep saying God want you to know happiness. I think that might have been what Paul was thinking when in II Corinthians 12:6–7 he mentions repeatedly asking God to remove a certain “thorn in his flesh” and every time God answered he said “no.”  God want you to be faithful and due your reasonable service and that should be happiness enough.

I know I have asked God every day for the past 6 months to lift this cloud from my heart and mind that came over me after my precious wife, who I can’t remember not being in my life, went to be with the Lord. I don’t know what Paul’s thorn was but I do know what mine is. I suspect you actually know what yours is. 

I mention the “thorn in the flesh” because I am not talking about some “besetting” sin. I’m talking about a life experience that colors all your life and alters the filters through which you view your life. We may reach the place where we understand that this is God’s will for our life as He works through us to accomplish His purposes. 

Keep in mind that while our burden seems unbearable God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, has not promised us happiness. What He has promised is that He will not load us down with a burden we cannot carry and that if it reaches that point, he will open a way of escape. For some it is the joy of the Lord, not their joy but that of the Lord, that becomes their strength and allows them to live and faithfully serve with their own personal “thorn in the flesh.” 

I don’t know that the younger prodigal leaving to be on his own was his sin but it certainly resulted from a sinful heart that produced a foolish lifestyle that led to his impoverishment and as the father would say of him upon his return . . . .  “Was dead” and was “lost” (ὅτι ο τος ὁ υἱός μου νεκρὸς  ν καὶ ἀνέζησεν,  ν ἀπολωλὼς καὶ εὑρέθη). I think this sentence could be applied in a variety of ways. In the parable the son is clear as to what he means. He says, “I have sinned” and that he feels his unworthiness to be any longer called “son” (οὐκέτι εἰμὶ ἄξιος κληθ ναι υἱός σου).  

Truth is, it doesn't really matter much how we got to where we are in life the answer is the same . . . . a return to the Father’s house. The words “sinned” and “unworthy” came out of the younger son’s mouth because he took the father’s blessing and wasted it in riotous living. But the answer to his problem was a return to the father’s house. 

Did you notice that the Father even while saying his son was “dead” and “lost” still called him son. Nothing has changed to negate I John 3:2 where we read these glorious words, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

There are two themes that I believe are important to the story of the prodigal sons. First, is the idea of helpless lostness that hides the real answer to getting out of the pit of despair. Second is the need to return to the Father’s house. 

For those of us who are grieving over our loss that very process often blinds us to the answers to our needs. The God bestowed “one flesh” gift that God gives to some few of his children can cause give birth to a depth of grief when one spouse is set free to actually return to the Father’s house.  I know, I live there. 

To be sure it is not where I want to be neither is it where I should be as a child of God. Everything that I know and everything that I believe points to this separation as an interlude in the symphony God in Christ is composing in the oneness Susan and I became. But, and oh what a but it is, when a man and a woman become one flesh, they are no longer two but one and I dare say to brother Paul, you haven’t had a thorn until you get this one. It didn’t arise from sin; it wasn’t the result of carelessness. It is there so that God's strength can be made known through our weakness.

By the way, about the only thing in which a man and a woman can’t actually become is "one flesh physically." The body is designed for this world and when God calls his children home they have to drop that old body. Interestingly enough in becoming one flesh it is a soul and spirit thing and not of the flesh. I used to tell Susan, I didn’t fall in love with your body though it makes a mighty fine package but I looked into your eyes and saw your soul and that’s what won my heart. Susan was the woman in whom my soul delighted and for 54-1/2 years of marriage and more than 60 years in some level of relationship that’s what we, unbeknown to ourselves most of the time, were doing - - - becoming one flesh. And here is the glorying part . . . . we actually became one. 

It is this becoming one spiritually that I am coming to believe that set the timing for Susan’s going to be with the Lord. I suspect that aspect of God’s will for our life had achieved all that He intended as long as we are together in the flesh. This doesn’t mean the becoming one has ended but it does mean that until whatever his purpose is for my remaining behind are there is still work to be done.  Ah, but I digress.

My point is that sometimes we can’t see the Father’s house because of our sin; sometime because of our pain; and, sometime because of our grief. We are, in a sense blind. Once we recognize our need to return to the Father’s house, we must actually start the journey that will bring us to the Father’s house . . . it is there we find our resources. In my mind this is the hard part. 

We, like the prodigal, seem to have this need to keep digging until we finally realize where our deliverance is not in knowing the answer to our need but to stop digging. But just because we have stopped digging does not mean we are out of the hole in which we are stuck. 

I know I changed the metaphor from feeding swine to digging a whole. Feeding the swine is also a useful metaphor here because we often keep feeding our sadness and sorrow. Don’t be guilty of feeding your own pain. In the story Jesus told the young man had to stop what he was doing, turn toward home and start walking.  

Don't forget there is a spiritual dimension to overcoming the debilitating effects of deep grief. It is not one of those things that you can do by the might or power of the flesh. Neither is it something your mind can conquer. It is only by the Spirit of God that this depth of sorrow. God is present the Lord is at work and the Spirit is moving in you during these days but all you feel is your sense of loss. Pray that soon you like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus suddenly realize, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road . . . ." Like Saul of Tarsus Jesus will meet you somewhere along the journey and point you to where your eyes will be opened and you shall see all this as God sees it . . . like you spouse in eternity now sees it. Oh, if only we could see as God doth see . . . . one day we will

The truth is the deeper and longer the love has been shared between a man and a woman the deeper and longer the pain of separation. When we find ourselves struggling, we need follow the example of the younger son in the parable of the lost sons and realize that it is time to return to the Father's house.  In the vernacular, it is time to go to Daddy's house . . . .to go home . . . to return to the God of our fathers. Somehow, we need to find our way back home. 

Don't forget, the prodigal didn't just decide to go to the father's house and somehow, he magically arrived at the house. There were plenty of steps to be taken on the way home. Each one of those steps filled with fear and inward pain. It wasn't until a point in time known only to his father that felt his father's hand on his shoulder and knew from the touch that all is now well.

BTW - don't fall into the trap of the older brother and resent the return to normalcy of your friends while you are still struggling. Misery may love company but it shouldn't . . . . instead rejoice with what energy you have that they have been so blessed. 

The good news is that when we get in sight of home the Father doesn't wait for us to get to Him He comes out to meet us as we are coming . . . . where we are not where we are going to be.

It is when we find ourselves at this place that we need to find a way to cast our care on the Lord and let the joy of the Lord be our strength. Reach up as best you can and take hold of God's hand . . . . He's reaching down to take it. Get up and lean on God. To those who are feeling lost right now like me, we'll get through it. One step at a time.

I have stopped praying for deliverance and started praying . . . 

 “Open my eyes that I may see

glimpses of truth thou hast for me.

Place in my hands the wonderful key

that shall unclasp and set me free.

Silently now I wait for thee,

ready, my God, thy will to see.

Open my eyes, illumine me,

Spirit divine!

Open my ears that I may hear

voices of truth thou sendest clear,

and while the wave notes fall on my ear,

ev’rything false will disappear.

Silently now I wait for thee,

ready, my God, thy will to see.

Open my ears, illumine me,

Spirit divine!

Open my mouth and let me bear

gladly the warm truth ev’rywhere.

Open my heart and let me prepare

love with thy children thus to share.

Silently now I wait for thee,

ready, my God, thy will to see.

Open my mouth, illumine me,

Spirit divine!

I suppose if you want a succinct statement, I'll just have to quote my dear friend Vicky Murphey's last two spoken words, "Trust God." Yep, that's it . . . . trust God. 

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."  I think it is time we sore up on the wings of eagles; and, I know I am ready to run and not become weary; and, at my age I'll be happy just to walk and talk with Jesus along the rest of my life's way." Even so, come Lord Jesus.

I Have a Longing in My Heart for The Uncool Churches of My Youth

 

I could have written the following paragraph and in fact, I wish that I had, but Joshua Gilmore beat me too it . . . .

 "I grew up in an “uncool church.” The sermons were not slick. The music was not modern. And the church’s position on societal issues certainly was not politically correct. But back then, churches like this were totally OK." --  Joshua Gilmore

I'll just add that it would not hurt my feelings to see the Pop Churches of our day just fade away and the uncool churches of yesteryear return. I cannot help it . . . . what I know and what my experience and feelings all tell me is that 10 churches with 500 members will develop more committed followers of Jesus Christ than a pop church with 5000 members. 

Even Nature tells us that real growth comes by dividing not multiplying. Freddy Gage was justified in saying, "Thank God for split Baptist churches."  Life starts as a single cell and it continually divides until it becomes an independent being. It may be nurtured first in the womb . . . then in the home but at some lont it is declared grown and sent out to replicate the process. So, it should be with church.

I remember what Darrell Robinson when he was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pasadena, Texas said to me on one occasion. It was in the early 1980's and the church was running somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 in Sunday school. He said that they were really about five churches who met under one roof on Sunday for group worship. As I reflected on that I realized that the phrase “five churches meeting under one roof for worship” followed what I believe is the optimum principle for church membership, I.E., About 500 members.

I grew up in one of those “uncool” churches of the 1950's-60's. Truth is, unless you are my age you probably have no idea what those now called “uncool” churches were like. I can only speak from my experience here. 

First, those churches were intimate. They were in some cases like the sitcom bar Cheers on television . . . a place where everybody knew your name.  You couldn’t get lost in an uncool church because someone would notice and come looking for you. 

Second, those uncool churches saw their members as family and not just fellow church members. The reason they felt this way is because they still spoke of the church in biblical and not marketing terms. The church is the body of Christ . . . she is the Bride of Christ . . . . together we are the children of God . . . . .  We are each one saved by the blood of Christ and that makes us blood kin and that makes us family. This is a significance that matters. As family we know one another, we support one another, we pray for one another and we help one another. “We are all family. “I've got all my brothers and my sisters with me. We may not always get along but in our weakness, we can be strong”

Third, uncool churches did not have moral or ethical ambivalence. Moral and ethical issues were resolved by asking the question, “What saith the Scriptures?”  If the Bible said don’t do it then you simply don’t do it. Uncool churches were not interested in a bunch of psychological or sociological theories. The guiding principle was, “God does not regulate what he prohibits nor does he prohibit that which He regulates.” In the uncool church the Bible was the standard for both faith and practice (conduct). If God’s word defined something as an abomination, then the uncool church agreed. There is no situationism or relativism in the uncool church.

The uncool church had its share of great preachers but admittedly most were mediocre at best. However, as my preacher friend, the late Lester Collins, would say, they were adequate. They got the job done. I suppose that was because in their weakness they were strong - “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (II Cor. 12:10). These men knew they were just adequate and felt totally insufficient. So, they leaned not on their education but rather on the Holy Spirit. They poured their hearts out to God literally begging God to use their feeble attempts to glorify Himself . . . and He did. 

I hate to take the wind out of anyone’s sails, Naw not really, but God is not impressed by your or my gifts, talents or cognitive acumen. Biblically we might express it thusly, “Paul planted, Apollos watered” . . . . but you know what?  It was God who gave the increase. The same is true today. 

In the uncool church there is far more dependence upon the working of the Holy Spirit than in the Pop Church. I will add that where we lean the hardest on the Spirit it is there that the Spirit works the most. We need to remember that it was God who said, “Not by might nor by power but my Spirit says the Lord” (Zechariah 4:6).

This reminds me that in the uncool church the minister/preacher is answerable to God. He is called of God and he answers to God. He does what He does because to do otherwise is to be outside of the calling of God on His life. The only reason to become a preacher, pastor, missionary or whatever is because God has called you to do so. One of the tests applied to this “calling” in the day of the uncool church was, “If you can do anything else in life and be happy then you are not called of God.” It is the Jeremiah principle, “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name. his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”

While I am venting, as far as I can tell the satellite model of church growth is nothing more and nothing less than empire building. The audacity of those who think their “satellite churches” cannot function without the guidance of the Right Reverend Dr. Captain Kirk. I guess the Holy Spirit is not capable of speaking to and leading the members of a satellite church so the mother ship has to maintain control. 

That's a far cry from Paul preaching in a strange city, baptizing a few converts, organizing a church and then leaving for next town and letting the Holy Spirit do His work. I always thought my job was to prepare and preach the sermon but that the heavy lifting was done by the Holy Spirit during the invitation time. It is God’s church not our kingdom.

Instead of 5-10 satellite congregations why not start 5-10 independent churches with their own pastors and their own staff and answerable to the Holy Spirit and not the "mother ship." God is the captain of the mother ship and the resources in all His churches belong to Him.  

The Bible teaches that churches, real churches, are built on the model of the family and not the corporate model of the business world.  

As indicated earlier ministers are servants, not employees and not CEO's. But we have descended from servants to servant minister to celebrity leaders.  Yes, I did mean descended as in "gone downhill."

Well, so much for what I think . . . .Oh, I know, your mega-church with its pop culture and little moons revolving around your little central sun is different . . . sure it is. BTW - I have a bridge in Arizona if you're interested.