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 90: Lifespan

 Part of an ongoing series on selected psalms.

I pondered a blip of punctuation, the hyphen, as I wandered among graves at a small cemetery where many of my husband’s relatives are buried. Perched between birth and death dates, that hyphen represents the brevity of life. As expressed in a couplet found on many plaques, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”  The quote’s author was C.T. Studd (1860-1931), who left stardom in England’s cricket-playing circles for sacrificial years of missionary work in China, India and Africa.

A similar message comes from Moses, whom most believe wrote Psalm 90. Scripture records two other songs by him. One was a victory song after the Red Sea swallowed up Pharaoh’s army (Exodus 15:1-18). The other was his “farewell sermon” before ascending Mount Nebo to die (Deuteronomy 32:1-43). Scholars suggest he wrote this reflective psalm about the time of incidents recorded in Numbers 20. His sister and brother died, and God barred Moses from entering the Promised Land for dishonoring God in a water-from-the-rock episode. Those circumstances left Moses keenly aware of mortality and of the short lifespan allotted to do God’s work.

Psalm 90 opens with the grand expanses of time known to God:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Eternity is “forever backward” and “forever forward.” Our lives are but tiny dots on this infinite timeline, but God is its entire, unfathomable existence. God had no beginning and has no ending. He is our “dwelling place” or security. As Moses also said in Deuteronomy 33:27, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

 TO DUST.... (vv. 3-6)

“You turn men back to dust,” says Psalm 90:3. One morning my vacuum cleaner gave up in a burst of toxic fumes. I suspected it was beyond repair, so I was an easy target for a call offering me a “free rug cleaning” for learning about “a comprehensive vacuum system.” The cleaning consisted of a misting of spray, then vacuuming by the demonstration machine—after more than two hours of sales pressure. That included shaming me as a housekeeper by vacuuming the top of my mattress, which yielded  a thick haze of dust mite debris on his pristine demonstration filter. The truth is that all mattresses get these tiny, dead-skin-munching visitors over time. (Note I said “mites,” not “bed bugs,” a different and vicious problem.) I didn’t buy his super-deluxe and overpriced vacuum, but I’ll never forget that “dead-bug dust.” On the bigger scale, these bodies that we pamper at such great expense, at the end, also return to “dust.” The mighty end up like mites. Our earthly existence is temporary. We’re like fresh morning grass in the thin Palestinian soil, burnt quickly the same day by the merciless sun.

THE BAD NEWS (vv. 7-12)

Sin offends a holy God. The first sin brought the ongoing penalty of death. God knows all our sins, public and private (“our secret sins,” v. 8). Though Moses lived to 120, the typical life span was 70 to 80 years, and still is. Because of sin, we suffer the death of dreams, relationships, plans and finally health.

In 1975, Natalie Babbitt published a children’s novel titled Tuck Everlasting. The main characters were a family who had discovered the “fountain of youth” and would never die. But because others around them did die, immortality wasn’t all that great. They realized they’d experience the world’s brokenness forever, unable to get away from it. Here’s where the New Testament answers the sorrow of the Old.  When Jesus came, He said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25-26). Believing in Him and His promise of eternal life will make immortality in Heaven a real and wonderful thing. In the meantime, we have work to do: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v. 12).

THE HOPEFUL NEWS (vv. 13-17)

In the mid-1980s, an older friend gave me calligraphy he had done of Psalm 90:12, 14 from the 1966 Jerusalem Bible translation. It hangs above my kitchen sink, reminding me daily of its truths:
Our lives are over in a breath.  Teach us to count how few days we have and so gain wisdom of heart.  Let us wake in the morning filled with your love and sing and be happy all our days.
Psalm 90’s closing section is an appeal for God’s mercy in the short time we do have on earth. Every day is a gift. Even though the days, months, and years may bring their share of sorrows, God intends that we grow through them and beyond them. Moses was bold enough to ask God to allow the bad times to be balanced by the good: “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble” (v. 15).

When I am around people whose conversation dwells on the past or on their difficulties, I feel dragged out. We can’t undo the past, but we can go forward with God into a fresh future. Our trust in God can encourage others to do likewise, and is a testimony to the generation behind us: “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children” (v. 16). Notice the phrase, “sing and be happy”? Indeed! Singing happy and worshipful songs lifts the spirits.  One suggestion: the classic 1719 hymn by Issac Watts that paraphrases Psalm 90, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”

JOB EVALUATION (v. 17)

Employment typically involves a regular “evaluation,” in which a superior tells the employee what’s been done well and what needs improvement. The “evaluation” of our whole lives is still ahead, and will take place in Heaven before God. The psalm ends with a reminder that life is so short that we dare not throw away our skills and opportunities, particularly those which draw others to the Lord Jesus. Moses concludes:
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.
The word “favor” in Hebrew is noam, which also translates “beauty” or “delight.” Derek Kidner, known for the Hebrew scholarship in his commentaries, preferred “delight.”

God, who crafted us--weak humans that we are--does delight in seeing us do what He originally intended, and that’s to bring Him glory through the skills He gave us. Doing so will lead, at the end of this short life, to the “well done” from the Master (Matthew 25:21, 23). As often said, we’re saved not just to “get to heaven,” but to serve well until we get there. Or, as Ray Waddle remarked in

A Turbulent Peace (Upper Room, 2003, p. 110): “Knowing the inevitability of death brings zest to life.” Time’s short: live it for God. One life: live it right.

Next; Psalm 91

Burned up!

It’s gone—all gone. Just ashes and charred ruins are left of a family home just a few blocks away. It burst into flames one night while the family was away. By the time neighbors woke and discovered the burning house, it was too late to save. A couple, two small children, and a brother were suddenly homeless.

Seeing the blackened shell a few days after the fire, I had two thoughts. One was, “How utterly sad.” Buying that home had probably stretched this young couple to their financial limits. In the newspaper article telling of their loss, the wife said they were grateful they still had one another. But the children were already missing their baby blankets.

 My other thought was of the “fire” that will test everything I’ve done in life. The apostle Paul wrote of how Christians build on the foundation of faith in Christ. They can build with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw--referring to choices that involve our work, relationships and service. In the end, when believers face God, “it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work” (1 Corinthians 3:13).

If we believe in Christ, and are counting on His atoning work on the cross for our salvation, we won’t lose that.  But if our lives were filled with selfish or frivolous pursuits, they’ll flame up like dry straw. On the other hand, if our love for Christ has led us into spiritually fruitful lives, there will be heavenly rewards (v. 14).

The Bible says the “fires” of suffering we experience on earth have a purpose in shaping us for eternity. “These have come,” Peter wrote, “so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6-7). Suffering can either make us bitter, or better-equipped for God’s purposes.

I’m sorry for the young couple who lost so much of their worldly possessions. It’s on my walking route, so I will see it often. For now, it’s a sobering reminder to consider what building materials I am laying on the foundation of faith in Christ. Excessive pleasure? Personal indulgence? Isolation from the world’s needs? Or service to my needy world grounded in love for Christ? To borrow that oft-quoted poem by missionary C.T. Studd:  “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”