One of the delights of grandparenting is hearing these
little people sing nursery rhymes with all their mispronunciations and off-key
enthusiasm. Recently, I got a recital of this one:
Twinkle, twinkle,
little star, how I wonder what you are.
Up above the sky so
high, like a diamond in the sky.
My memory has faded a bit on this, but it’s likely I sang
that song in jest to my children when they were lots older (grade school age)
as we enjoyed a crazy family summer sleepover in our back yard. The night sky was
clear enough for us to see the blinking lights of airplanes headed to, or
coming from, our local small airport. At times a pinpoint crawled across the
sky, likely a satellite. And then came the treat of the night: falling stars,
happening so fast that we could barely point them out in time. That night was
one of my favorite all-time family experiences. Well, family minus one, because
sometime during that open-air sleeping time, a slug crawled onto my husband’s
face, and he left in disgust for the bedroom.
So here comes the “star” sign that caught my eye:
The biblical counterparts to this, I believe, are the
parables about heavenly rewards. One is in Luke 19:12-27, called the “Parable
of the Ten Minas.” (The same lesson, with the term “talent,” is also told in
Matthew 25 and Mark 13). A “mina” was about three months’ wages, no small sum.
The nobleman who dispersed these riches had to go away for a while “to have
himself appointed king” (which, of course, refers to Jesus). When he returned
for his servants to account for their investment, one’s investment ten-folded
itself. Another had quintupled the
entrustment. Both were promoted to greater responsibility. But one did nothing
with his mina. He folded it a cloth and
hid it. He didn’t even put in the savings and loan at 1% interest. The story doesn’t have a happy ending for the
fellow who just chugged along doing nothing for his master. He had a chance to be a star or at least a
twinkle. Instead, he moped in the darkness of his own apathy.
I find this story scary yet hopeful. We’re apportioned
different gifts and abilities but we’re not to sit on our hands and do nothing.
If we can’t be an asteroid that lights up the whole sky before it crash-lands,
we’re to at least “twinkle” wherever God has placed us. That means to aspire
after the character modeled by Jesus, serving and loving on others. Our Father
has impeccable vision, and that faint twinkle of light (which probably
described each of us in the span of eternity) is seen for how much it’s fueled
by pure and fierce devotion to Him.
The summer and winter Olympics begin and end—so
appropriately—with a torch. From Greece, birthplace of the Olympics, a torch is
ignited via the sun-reflected heat in a parabolic mirror, then begins its
journey to the current games site. There’s a lot of pagan mythology in the
torch background, but it’s a good cousin to this décor saying:
Be the light.
The Olympic flame has an on-again, off-again world-wide
life. In contrast, Jesus is all-on.
[Jesus] said, “I am
the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but
will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
To this statement, the religious types of His day
complained, “You’re just saying that about yourself. Who would back that up?” (John 8:13).
He replied that He did
have a witness to His claim to be the light: His Father in heaven (John
8:14-19).
That was tough teaching for folks who figured “righteous
living” depended on keeping umpteen hundred little laws handed down (and
invented) through antiquity. Of such people, the apostle John wrote, “The light
shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:5). They
weren’t expecting God to visit this planet!
Later on, in the letter written in his old-age, the apostle
John urged right and “light” living, as opposed to religious “pretenders” whose
man-imposed rules for living and behavior just kept them in spiritual darkness:
God is light; in him
there is no darkness at all. If we claim
to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by
the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of
Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)
That quote is powerful.
Re-read it. It reviews two choices: to walk down life’s road in the
darkness of grudges, bitterness, fear and other negative attributes. Or to get
so close to Jesus that we bask in His glow.
The ritual for the Olympic torch begins with the heat of the sun. We
have so much better: the Sun of Righteousness, who has risen with healing in
His wings (Malachi 4:2).
Somewhere, long ago, I saw this sign. I should have bought
it, because it is so "me"!
I want patience, and I
want it right now!
With maturity comes the realization that patience is a
slow-brewed quality. It takes time to ripen that personality trait. Like sauerkraut. Well, maybe cabbage to sauerkraut isn’t the
best illustration. Maybe cheese? Instead of the petulant “right now” slogan,
I’ve mellowed to appreciate this one:
Often, when things aren’t going my way, or happening as fast
as I want, I am drawn back to an old friend, Psalm 37. It has hard words like “fret not,” “trust,” “delight,”
“dwell,” “commit,” “be still,” “refrain from anger,” and “a little while.”
I once heard “fretting” called a “spiritual heartburn.” It’s
the acid of impatience that wants its own way and timing, not God’s. Over and
over, God has to remind me:
“Be still before the
LORD and wait patiently for him.” (v. 7)
Sometimes He wants me to stop and change direction. Sometimes He just wants me to stop trying to
manipulate an improbable or impossible situation. My Plan A or Plan B are just
plain wrong. His Plan C, even though it
may take more time, is far better.
That’s where prayer enters into the situation. The
unchangeable God is the One who can break down stubborn wills or circumstances
thought to be unchangeable. That’s why I keep praying for people and
circumstances that left me wounded. I
can’t change them. But God can. My job is to aspire to greater godly character.
It’s what the psalmist describes as righteousness,
blameless, generous, faithful, uttering wisdom, speaking what is just.
I’ve been the victim of someone’s “rage”—an angry outburst
full of lies and misinformation. When that person left, I realized I was
trembling from this emotional wounding. But I also asked the Lord to help me look with His eyes on this
troubled person. I can’t fix the world. But I can leave those problems in God’s
lots-capable hands.
Do not fret, trust,
delight, commit your way to Him, be still.
Good things do take time,
when they’re left to God’s perfect time.
Several years after our parents died, my sister brought me my
dad’s old Bible, which she had stored away and thought I should now have. She had kept a lot of family
“heritage” things as I was still single at the time of their deaths, and moving a lot. Now that I was married and "settled," she felt I should have our father’s old
leather-bound Bible. As I leafed through it, noting portions he had marked, I was grateful again for a Christian dad. But now this old Bible had a strong, stale odor from storage. The best I knew to do was seal it in a plastic bag and put it in
a bin with other family “heritage” things that had interest but not regular usefulness
for me.
Some day my family will have to decide what to do with that
plus my Bibles in various versions.
My current one, a quarter-century worn and marked up, wouldn’t win any beauty
contests. But when I open it, it is my old friend who leads me to the throne
room where my Savior waits to chat with me.
I thought of such aging and antique Bibles when I saw this sign:
My most valued
antiques are my old friends.
One such human “antique” called the other night. Our friendship goes
back more than three decades, with part of that time her living on
the other side of the nation. She’s now back in my town, but often on the
go helping her adult children and grandchildren in another state.
It’s not the usual “girlfriend” relationship that’s
stereotyped by coffee dates or shopping trips. But it's been built by years of personal contract, and now safe enough that she
entrusted me with a key to her house in case she ever locked herself out. (That has happened with her on-the-go life). If there’s a big family concern, she
knows I will pray, and vice versa. We share articles of interest to each
other—the observation of Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man
sharpens another.” One time she remarked, “We’re friends who can just pick up
and keep going where we left off.” We’re low-maintenance in our friendship, but
stay in touch enough to know we’ll always be there for each other. I’m reminded
of Proverbs 17:24 (and I change the last word to “sister”): “There is a friend
who sticks closer than a brother.”
One person I pray for has few up-close-and-personal friends like this. Oh, this person is on social media, but that's not the same as face-to-face contact (and hard work) of truly nurturing a friend. You can't hug a screen. While contemporary media can
encourage “sharing,” it also enables the faceless "out" of “unfriending” someone. It
doesn’t nurture the honesty and loving admonition that comes from just being together--particularly the believer-to-believer friendships that can grow deep and sweet with time.
And isn't that also true of spending time with our Truest Friend, Jesus?
