WISH LIST

I have a milestone birthday (of sorts) coming up—which means my loved ones will be scratching their heads over appropriate gifts. They can skip the joke cane. Besides the flimsy joke cane at left (a gift to my husband gift at a previous "milestone" birthday) I have a real and sturdy one. It's my buddy for stability, typically in the morning, when my weak ankle reminds me of a major crunch-fall followed by surgery and casts two decades ago. Prunes? Well, I eat them anyway, from time to time. They're high in iron! Tweezers for chin whiskers? Already supplied. Wrinkle cream? I'm beyond hope, although have some generic skin lotions for “all over.” Brain pills? Not in my pill caddy. I figure the jury is still out, probably on some beach looking for smart jellyfish to harvest and pack into capsules. Interestingly, they're often touted in ads during brain-exercise TV programs, like “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy.”

So what's on my “list” as I enter into “older” years I never thought about in my younger self? I vote for “PETER'S POSITIVE POTION.” That “product” has this description: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3). The things that really matter aren't on a store shelf.

I've rubbed elbows in recent years with people who never feel they have enough. I got so tired of hearing them say, “Well, so-and-so has this or that [usually a relational or material blessing] and I DON'T and so I am so miserable because God isn't giving me what I think I need for my happiness!”

Paul had a different outlook: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Philippians 4:12). That included poverty OR material “enough.” A full stomach OR a rumbling hungry one.

A friend with a steady spiritual walk introduced me to the works of Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth, whose writing and speaking focuses on the holy, God-focused life. In Lies Women Believe (Moody, 2021) she zeroes in on common but ungodly attitudes, like excusing bad behavior, claiming “rights,” and focusing on beauty over character. She also countered the common complaint that “I should not have to live with unfulfilled longings.” Her biblical perspective (p. 87):

“I will always have unfulfilled longings this side of heaven.”

“The deepest longings of my heart cannot be filled by any created person or thing.”

“If I will accept them, unfulfilled longings will increase my longing for God and for heaven.”

Maybe that's my best answer for “what do I want for my birthday.” What means the most to me can't be bought in a store. Well, maybe a simple card (funny or serious, Dollar $tore or homemade), extra “positive sparks” if the sender adds affirming words (which is one of my “love languages”). But a gift wish list? Not me. Despite its numerical significance, this birthday is but a service station pause (hopefully with clean restrooms) on the road to heaven. As Paul wrote: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

SHREDDED

One by one I fed the papers through the shredder—all from a file folder representing sadness and disappointment. I tend to have a “helper” personality, but this backfired when I tried to help someone who was deflecting their unhappiness and anger onto me. I'd saved the negative paper trail, trying to make sense of it, Finally, I realized the files had to go in order to help me “let go” of this problem that only God could solve.

Shredding deed done, I sensed the hug of God and the reminder that He would handle this a lot better than I had. Accusations and lies had pummeled my spirit and eroded my health. But I knew God's way was to say “no” to revenge and leave it to Him (Romans 12:17-19). “Forgiving does not mean not facing a problem,” Dr. Henry Cloud wrote in Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality (Harper, 2006, p. 195). “It means facing it and then letting it go.”

In his pastoral role to early churches, Peter also had to deal with suffering believers. He urged them to take the high road—not repaying evil with evil, or insult with insult (1 Peter 4:9). Retaliation wasn't in God's plan. Instead, they were told (and here Peter quoted Psalm 34):

Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their prayer. (1 Peter 4:10-12a)

Even though I destroyed that negative correspondence, I take comfort that God has kept a record of my wounds and neediness. In Psalm 56, David reflected on how beat-up he felt as he tried to escape King Saul and ended up in Gath, home to the giant he had killed. Talk about unfriendly escape routes! “All day long they twist my words,” he cried out (56:5). After listing some other afflictions, David affirmed his faith that God saw the bigger picture when these enemies would be turned back:

By this I will know that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? (56:10-11)

How ironic, that words which “cut” me emotionally got “cut” so thoroughly. As I threw the shreds in the garbage, this verse from my very favorite book of the Bible came to mind:

Forgetting what is behind [like that now-shredded correspondence] and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:14)

Toot-n-Scoot!

He’s Gonna Toot and I’m Gonna Scoot!  I couldn’t help but think of that book title by Christian humorist Barbara Johnson as I wandered an old cemetery in Roslyn, a sleepy town in central Washington state.  Just a few days earlier, we’d enjoyed a brief visit from the minister who married us 35 years earlier. Now 83, he told of visiting another cemetery where he buried his wife just last year. This weekend would have been their 56th wedding anniversary. A son and a grandson are buried there, too.  As his daughter helped him leave flowers, he said he thought how people better watch out when these loved ones experience resurrection and zoom out of their graves!  He was referring to the apostle Paul’s letter to the ancient Thessalonians, who were confused about death and heaven:
According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And so we will be with the LORD forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).

Two sisters, almost 3 and 2 years old.

Once a booming coal mining town that grew to more than 4,000 in the 1920s, today it has about 900 year-round residents.  Its name made news when three movies were filmed there, including “Northern Exposure.”  To work the early mines, immigrants came from throughout the world. But stories of poverty, disasters (45 perished in an 1892 mine explosion) and epidemics are told through the crumbling headstones over 19 acres of cemetery. Many are for infants and small children. I recalled how some of the most poignant scenes of Jesus’ earthly ministry involved common people bringing their children to Him for blessing. He said, “Do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 9:14). Like a shepherd who went to great pains to find his lost sheep, Jesus said God the Father “is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost” (Matthew 18:11).

The Roslyn cemetery’s most distinctive feature is ethnic segregation. Twenty-six sections, like jig-saw puzzle pieces, divide the 19 acres of woods and hills.  Many family plots are surrounded by ornate iron fences, probably to keep foraging cattle and wildlife out.  Ethnic customs were also behind having some plots being raised above the earth, rimmed or covered with concrete, supposedly to protect “consecrated” grounds.  Many cemetery sections were labeled as burial places for those of Eastern European background. One huge section was for African Americans.  Again, I thought of Paul’s reminder about the snare of prejudice, that:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28).  

A baby who died in 1903, not even a year old.
Artificial flowers abound on the graves.

Heavily littered with dead needles from the many ponderosa pines there,  the cemetery was a sobering, sad place. But I was taken back to the “Toot” and “Scoot” image that Barbara Johnson gave us in her humorous book about God’s final plan.  I recalled her story: of losing one son in the Vietnam War, another son to a drunk driver, and being estranged from a third son for many years. Her “Spatula Ministries” (alluding to being shocked to a splotch on the ceiling over family problems), borne of her own trials, helped many find God’s purpose and hope in life’s most difficult experiences. Those hard times aren’t forever. The best is yet ahead.  Paul also wrote, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).  Did you catch that—“called me heavenward”?  What an exciting moment it will be when “toot- and-scoot” happens—not only in Roslyn but everywhere around the world!

Going higher

This stairwell in my friend’s home makes one stop and think!

            At first, I was reminded of  Jacob’s dream of angels on a ladder or stairwell to heaven (Genesis 28). Then I recalled Paul’s testimony in Philippians 3:14: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

            And then, I thought of a hymn inspired by that particular verse, “Higher Ground.”  It begins: “I’m pressing on the upward way, New heights I’m gaining every day; Still praying as I onward bound, ‘Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.’”

The lyrics, published in 1898, were written by Johnson Oatman (1856-1922), who, although ordained through the Methodist Episcopal Church, worked in retail and later insurance all his life. In his spare time he wrote an estimated 3,000-5,000 hymn lyrics, meaning he completed them at a rate of about four a week. A few have survived to this century, including this one, “Count Your Blessings,” “No, Not One!” and “I’m Living on the Hallelujah Side.”

Most of Oatman’s lyrics focused on Christian growth and personal victory,  expressing how it isn’t enough to just “know” Christ (through accepting His death for one’s sins) but also to “know” Him better and deeper. Thus this hymn, whose chorus goes:  “Lord, lift me up and let me stand/By faith on heaven’s tableland./A higher plain than I have found:/Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

            That “higher ground” includes growing in the traits expressed on my friend’s stairwell.  I don’t perform 100% on any of them, but that’s the essence of growing as a Christian –or, as Oatman wrote, aspiring to higher ground. Many of those traits are found in three “Christian living lists” of the New Testament.

            One is the so-called “love chapter” of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. It comes after Paul’s rebuke of flashy (and shallow) spirituality in that ancient church, taking them back to the basics of Christian love:  patience, kindness, refusing to envy or boast, and eleven more.   Another list is the “fruit of the Spirit” beginning in Galatians 5:22.  Again, Paul had defined what “not to do” by describing X-rated acts of the sinful. In contrast, the spirit-empowered person grows in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

            The third list, which I think best illustrates a spiritual stairwell, is in 2 Peter 1:3-7.  This portion of scripture discusses making one’s calling and “election” sure—in other words, giving true evidence that you are a growing believer.

Peter precedes his list with a command: “Make every effort to add to your faith” (1:3). We can’t ascend a stairwell without lifting a foot, and we can’t grow spiritually by expecting some outside force to zap us with the right attitudes and actions.  It takes deliberate changing of habits with dependence on the Holy Spirit to add to each of these:  goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.

Peter adds: “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 8).

            There’s the word “know” again (in “knowledge”)--for to truly know Him is to aspire to the truly satisfying “Highest ground,” of eternity with Him.

 

A vine at a time

Last week, I “retired” our tomato plants. About the middle of October, I realize that few of those tight green marbles will ripen as we inch toward the first frost. We have only five tomato plants, but they may as well be fifteen. Clipping a branch at a time, I save out the tomatoes with a yellow blush of potential. These I wash and put in a covered box with a red apple, whose off-gassing helps them ripen. Finally, I yank out the main stems that seem to be super-glued into the soil. Goodbye, a couple hours. It’s the down side to having fresh tomatoes the last part of the summer. It’s not my favorite chore, but I get through it.

In the midst of this chore, I thought of tough things in life that loom much more tangled and messy than my autumn tomato patch. One story I’ve often shared with people needing encouragement comes from the life of Dr. A.B. Simpson (1843-1919), a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Think back a hundred-plus years, before cars, air travel, phones or the internet. Dr. Simpson was preaching in Ireland when he posed the question, “What is it to abide in Jesus?” Then he gave this answer: “It is to keep on saying, minute by minute, ‘For this I have Jesus.’”

That phrase of trust lodged in the heart of the event’s pianist, a young woman whose family lived across the Irish Sea. During the service she received a telegram asking her to come home immediately because her mother was dying. “I have never traveled alone,” she told him. “But for this I have Jesus. I must make a long journey to the south of England. For this and all else that goes with it, I have Jesus.” As it turned out, in those days of slow travel, she arrived home ten minutes after her mother died. Her family was so distraught that responsibility for the funeral service and legal details fell to her. She later told how she kept claiming, “For this I have Jesus,” as she had to do things she couldn’t have done in her own strength.

The message from Simpson’s sermon is echoed in Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (KJV). Or, as the Greek-to-English translation is clarified in the Amplified Bible: “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me—I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who enfuses inner strength into me, [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]." My copy of the Amplified version was once my late mother’s, given her in 1962 by a godly aunt. Fifty years later, as I read the same words that my mother had underlined in red, I sense how she embraced this truth for her own overwhelming life challenges. They ranged from being the firstborn of nine in a family that knew profound poverty, to her life-long battle with asthma, to her final, hard-fought battle with cancer.

“For this”—for the intimidating, scary, impossible things of life—“I have Jesus.” The best part is that besides coming alongside in our challenges, He sees the eventual spiritual outcome. Leaning on Him, stretching with Him, and depending on Him are all part of growing in the faith. “For this,” there is a purpose.

I just checked the tomatoes in my “ripening box,” and a few are turning red. There’s another parable here, about God at work in the dark places, but I think Simpson’s hopeful counsel suffices for today.

I don't live there anymore

My husband pulled to the curb, turned off the motor, and let me just look for a minute. The house where I grew up in a western Washington town was still standing and well-maintained. I noticed an older woman at the kitchen window. I can almost imagine her worried whisper, “Honey, we’ve got strangers parked across the street staring at us. Think we ought to call the police?”

No, I was just wondering if the kitchen still had that very dated gray and blue checkered tile. If the beast of an oil furnace was still there, with a short clothesline across its sunken room for quick-dry laundry. If the hydrangea outside my bedroom window still bloomed. If the fixtures in the main bathroom were still that ghastly green. I wondered how she’d managed to arrange furniture around an awkwardly-placed corner fireplace.

But I didn’t live there any more. My last time in the house was 1979, the year after my parents died, when I emptied it and repainted the blue/pink/mint walls a neutral ivory in preparation for selling it.

My trip back to Memory Lane (actually, 13th Street) came as a result of attending a family funeral “back home”—that of my sister’s 101-year-old mother-in-law. Besides the home where I grew up, I also found the tiny rental where my family lived a few months after moving from southern California. I recalled how our front-loading washing machine galloped all over its laundry room during the spin cycle. Eventually, Mom planned her washing around times my dad was home to sit on it. As my husband drove between that house and the school I attended in third grade, he asked, “Your parents let you walk home alone this far?” How safety concerns have changed!

It was good to see the “old places” again. But one thing the trip “back home” reminded me of was how careful I need to be to not dwell on the past. I’ve experienced “stuckness” at times in my Christian walk, and I know it’s because I fail to turn problems and disappointments over to God, then seek a fresh start in His strength.

Something I read in a book by counselor Jan Silvious, Please Don’t Say You Need Me (Zondervan, 1989), applies so well to anybody’s spiritual walk. Silvious says her counselees often want to go over and over why they felt they were wronged, and get stuck there. Instead, she says, they need to “move on to forgiveness, healing, and the creation of a lifestyle” in which damaging perceptions and behaviors are left behind. The apostle Paul put it more succinctly in a verse I’ve claimed in moving away from hurts of the past: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). Jesus died to cover the past and to call me into a fresh and growing relationship with Him.

In other words, I don’t live in my “past life” any more. God doesn’t want me to stay stuck in old habits of blame and fear. He has new plans and joys for me if I’m willing to stretch out of comfort zones to discover them.

By the way, about twenty years ago on a family trip to Disneyland, we took a side trip to the suburb where I lived from infancy until third grade. The little two-bedroom was tidy, its front porch still painted brick red. But graffiti filled the neighborhood and my husband was nervous as I dashed out of the car for a quick photo in front of the house (that's photo at the top of this column). I’m thankful I don’t live there any more!