BRIEF BLOOMERS

Our extended family has a decades-old tradition of hunting for spring's first buttercup. It requires a keen sense of “when” and usually several trips to higher elevations where the dainty wildflowers start poking through. This year, “Buttercup Day” came later than usual in late March. But oh—the smile on my husband's face when he caught the fleeting hue of yellow along the roadside.

Sometimes my mind makes strange (but reasonable) connections—and this time it was an old quote attributed to C.T. Studd (1860-1931), a cricket-player from England who gave up wealth and comfort and went to the mission field, serving in India, Sudan, and Congo. The quote: “Only one life, twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last.”

Maybe the pandemic has me thinking more about what will be accomplished at my life's end. Maybe it's also my prayers for people I care about who struggle spiritually. In going through paper piles lately (aren't most people doing that these days?) I came across an article I'd saved from the alumni magazine of Wheaton College, where I earned my master's degree. Its alumni legacy includes “wholehearted” folks like missionary martyr Jim Elliot and evangelist Billy Graham. Plus—lots of other “regular people” (like me) who studied their hearts out in pursuing what they believed to be part of God's path for their lives.

This article featured a young woman named Anna O'Connor, who died at 26 in 2012 after struggling nine years with a rare form of cancer called neuroblastoma. Doctors at first gave her a year to live, but she and her family fought on. Besides finishing her master's in psychology in 2011 at Wheaton, the article said, “in spite of her illness, and because of it, Anna established a nonprofit organization , hosted a music festival....raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research, and counseled and comforted many.”

Speaking in chapel three years before she died, Anna encouraged students not to worry so much about grades or their life's accomplishments, but rather, “My hope is that you will learn what it means to be fully alive to the presence of God.” Some 1,700 people attended her 2012 memorial service in the college chapel.*

Legacy. Like those elusive buttercups, bright but brief reminders of God's calling and mandate regarding our lives that will “soon be past." It comes down to daily choices. Questions like, “Will this activity enrich my life and bring honor to Jesus? Am I serving like Jesus? Am I seeking the best in others and building them up?”

It's said that buttercups were once known in Europe as “King's Cups” because of how they resembled a crown. I certainly see the analogy there, remembering Studd's challenge: “Only what's done for Christ [the King] will last.”

*Read the original article about her starting at page 23 at this web page: autumn2012.pdf (wheaton.edu)

Making ‘Psense’ of Psalms—Psalm 73: Perspective

Part of a continuing series on selected Psalms.

Side by side: article about oppressive poverty,
and ads for homes costing millions

The contrast between the “have’s” and the “have-nots” was sharply drawn in the real estate ad adjacent to a recent Seattle Times newspaper article about impoverished garment workers in Bangladesh.  The article told about a destitute woman who lived in a shed the size of a parking space, and who once earned less than $100 a month for sewing up to 12 hours a day. She could no longer work, injured in a 2012 fire that killed more than a hundred co-workers. A year and a half later, another fire took more than 1,100 lives when a garment factory collapsed. Next to that article: eleven descriptions of luxury residences in western Washington, listed for sale from $3.1 million to $18.6 million. One ran like this: “Treasured western panorama. Glass walls to view, great gallery heights. 9,790 square feet. Contemporary! Superb dock. $10,885,000.” For half that price you could get: “Villa shining: European coastal autograph, endless breathtaking ‘scapes. Aperitifs on the loggia; whispers of Sausalito on the shores; recreating the spontaneity of romance. Deep water dock; seaplane adaptable.” 

Similar disparities bothered Asaph, a significant worship leader in King David’s time, giving us Psalm 73. He wrestled with the age-old question of why the ungodly can be healthy and wealthy, while good people suffer. Could he honestly lead praise to God when he was questioning God’s ways? His spiritual search still speaks to us.

UPWARD LOOK (v. 1)
Verse 1 is like a microphone check as Asaph looks upward to Heaven: “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” By “pure in heart” he meant people who are committed to God, as opposed to the “unfaithful” of verse 27. Asaph really wanted to believe that God honors those who follow Him. He grew up taught the covenant God gave Moses, that He would prosper those who honored Him. But as Asaph looked at real life, he had some problems and questions, reminiscent of the Bible’s Job.

THE OUTWARD LOOK (vv. 2-12)
As Asaph looked around, he saw the wealthy getting along quite well without God.  They seemed immune to disease and disaster. They were arrogant, big talkers, even conceited. Their popularity meant people turned to them as examples of how to live (v. 10). For me, that sounds like today’s pop magazines’ polls for “athlete of the year,” “most beautiful,” or “sexiest man alive.” It’s like our awards shows of the entertainment industry, focusing on glitz and glamour, not goodness and morality. Asaph saw people who felt they didn’t need God (v. 11), “free of care” as they went on “amassing wealth” (v. 12).

AN INWARD LOOK (vv. 13-16)
Asaph looked inward and wondered if his efforts to live in purity were really worth it. He knew he needed to be a spiritual leader in his family (v. 15), yet the whole scenario was getting more oppressive for him. Then he had an “aha’ moment: “I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.”

Remember that Asaph’s job made the sanctuary his second home. Like people who’ve grown up in the church, faith can get “old hat” when the world presents us with what seems like a better alternative. But something happened as Asaph wrestled with his questions. Was it the awareness that all this worship system was ordained by the God who had miraculously rescued a whole nation from oppressive slavery? Was it the stark reality of a blood sacrifice for sins? Was it stories of the “glory” over the ark of the covenant, hidden behind a thick curtain? Was it truly engaging in worship, even as he led it? Was it a heightened God-consciousness and rediscovery that God cannot be put in a box? Whatever it was, he found the answer to his question.

A GOD-WARD LOOK (vv. 18-20)
Instead of seeing the ungodly as folks who get all the breaks in life, he saw them as God sees them: living on slippery ground. What they experienced now wouldn’t matter in eternity, when all their riches and influence would be as trash without faith in the God who created them. Note that God does allow some godly people to have wealth and influence, usually because He sees they are good stewards for kingdom work. But we’re not to set our hearts on riches or influence.

THE REPENTANT LOOK (vv. 21-22)
Asaph realizes his spiritual doubts were wrong.  They caused his heart and spirit to go awry, and he was like a “brute beast” before God when he went down the path of thinking God was unjust.  The book of Job tells how Job came to a similar conclusion as he wrestled with pain and loss. He finally confessed that God’s ways were beyond his understanding, but God was still righteous and good.

Magnificent skies, like this in eastern Washington,
remind me to look UP, to God's higher purposes.

THE UPWARD LOOK (vv. 23-26)
The heart of Psalm 73 rests in this section. The respected Bible teacher James Montgomery Boice called this “the very apogee of his [Asaph’s] testimony… filled with some of the finest expressions of true spirituality in all the Bible.  They deserve to be memorized by every true Christian.” (1) The vibrancy of this passage struck me one spring morning nearly forty years ago, when I was studying at a Bible college. I’d gone to see a friend who lived in a house with several other women, including one whose fiance had just retracted his marriage proposal. How I ached for this lovely, broken young woman. Coming in their house, I noticed her in a rocker at the top of the stairs, reading her Bible. After I expressed my sadness for her heartbreak, she held up her Bible and said, “God has comforted me with this.”  She then quoted Psalm 73:25: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

CONCLUSION—THE CORRECTED OUTLOOK (vv. 27-28)
Asaph comes back to the truth that a judgment day will come. Those who don’t follow God--no matter how wealthy, accomplished or popular they were—“will perish.” Some of the greatest Christian leaders have struggled like Asaph, including Billy Graham. As a young, rising preacher, he went through some doubts about the faith. Shortly before a crusade in Los Angeles, he went to Forest Home, a camp in the mountains above Los Angeles. There he met with Henrietta Mears, the director of Christian education at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. She encouraged him to go out in the woods alone to listen to God.  There in the forests, Graham resolved his doubts about the faith. He went down into Los Angeles for widely-attended evangelistic meetings that led to his future role as evangelist to the world. His spiritual turning point resonates with the conclusion of Psalm 73:
But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”

Psalm 73 reminds us that God is completely adequate for anything we face in life. Whether we are lonely, despaired, frustrated, disappointed, or sorrowful, He is able to supply all our needs. The rich and the famous are that only for a season. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus said, “but my words will never pass away” (Matt. 24:35).

Another who lived in material poverty but spiritual riches was David Brainerd, a missionary to native Americans in Delaware in the early 1700s. He died young, at 29, from the intensity and deprivations of his mission work. But words in his diary still speak, like that written in April 1742, when he was only 24: “Retired early for secret devotions, and in prayer God poured such ineffable comforts into my soul, that I could do nothing for some time but say over and over, ‘O my Saviour! O my Saviour! Whom have I but Three? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.”
 
(1) James Montgomery Boice, Psalms, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), p. 614.
(2) Oswald J. Smith Litt.D., compiler/editor, David Brainerd: His Message for Today (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott Ltd., 1949), p. 32.

Next: Psalm 84

           

           

           

           

 

 

Upon this rock

They’re called “cairns” from a Scottish word for heaps of stones used for landmarks or memorials. I live tens of thousands of miles away from Scotland, but last spring some wag in our area started heaping cairns from roadside rocks. When you’re used to seeing the typical debris of cans, papers, plastic bottles and the occasional remains of a deceased tire—well, they added entertainment to highway travel. Rocks are not normally conducive to stacking, so I wondered if some super-glue was sandwiched between the stones to help them endure the air whapped off passing cars. I never stopped to find out.

I thought of the cairns again upon hearing that evangelist Billy Graham, now 93, was hospitalized with pneumonia. Even through frail from aging and Parkinson’s disease, the man who has preached in 185 nations had just finished his 30th book, Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well. His message and presence have unmistakably marked our world for Christ. Presidents and other world leaders have confided in him. Yet he would consider himself just another old rock in the stack. Those he influenced would be stacked on top of him.

And below him? We could go down a lot of rocks, but I’ve always been moved by the part dating to the mid-1800s. A young man from Boston named Edward Kimball decided to teach a Sunday school class to influence teenagers for Christ. One of them, who worked in his uncle’s shoe store, was quite a handful, prone to profanity and anger. Through Kimball’s influence, that teenager eventually chose to become a Christian. His name was Dwight Moody, and his name became better known as he began holding evangelistic meetings. Moody’s meetings, and personal counseling with Moody, helped a student named J. Wilbur Chapman be certain of his salvation. Chapman became a friend and co-worker with Moody.

A baseball player named Billy Sunday came into the picture, converted at street corner meetings and for a brief time an assistant for Chapman’s meetings. Sunday began holding his own evangelistic meetings and started a men’s prayer and fellowship group in Charlotte, N.C.. In 1934, the group invited an evangelist named Mordecai Ham to preach at meetings. A gangly young man named Billy Graham went forward one night to receive Christ. So did another young man, to make a deeper commitment to Christ. His name was Grady Wilson. Their names would eventually be linked as evangelists known throughout the world.

The bottom rock of Graham's story wasn’t even Ed Kimball. Someone had led Kimball to faith in Christ. That person had someone else lead him or her, and...and.... The Bible tells us about the true bottom rock. While others were having heated discussions about who Jesus Christ really was—human or divine, Peter pounded his faith-stake in the ground by declaring, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Of this rock-solid declaration, Jesus replied, “On this rock I will build my church” (v. 18).

Not a flimsy cairn pile, vulnerable to the weather. A solid rock. Unmovable.