RENEWED

 Look carefully: this is a forest coming back from a devastating fire several years earlier. Some trees survived, their trunks blackened. Toothpick-like ghosts of dead trees and emerging new trees and shrubs fill in the landscape. This area is prone to fire and it is also a major east-west highway through Washington's Cascade Mountains. I remember traveling it one year as a fire burned itself out. A state vehicle with a blinking red light on its roof led a limited numbers of cars at a time through the still-smoking pass. But there was no smoke on our most recent trip, just the marvel of how the land regenerates while still leaving reminders of the old fire.

Life also has times when we pass through a “fire zone.” Speaking of his wayward homeland, Isaiah prophesied: “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze, for I am the Lord, your God” (Isaiah 43:2b-3a). For the Israelites, the “flames” would be the searing sorrow of being yanked away from their homeland as captives of Babylon. But the whole section of this prophecy emphasizes God's enduring love through their difficulty. Renewal, new life, would come.

I've lived long enough to watch many people I cared about (and prayed for) make bad decisions. Big chunks of their lives were burned up as they walked away from God. One day I answered the phone to the sobs of a young woman who'd attended a Bible study in our home. She'd yielded to her boyfriend's demands for sexual intimacy before marriage. Now, she regretted it and felt God would never forgive her. As I rushed over to her apartment and hugged her, trying to comfort her with God's counsel, I recalled this verse for those who truly repent of their sin: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). She cut off the relationship and sought a fresh start with Christ. Later, God did bring into her life a committed Christian man, and they married.

Trials will come in life. That's a given. But so is God's renewing presence:

...for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come 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)

In central Washington, where I live, we've had our share of runaway, destructive fires. But every spring, forest management teams plan “controlled burns” to reduce the fuel for future fires. In many ways, that's a picture of what happens when people get “burned” by their bad decisions, then confess and turn away from them. Such times of sorrow are God's reminder: Don't go there. Don't make those choices. The pain isn't worth it. Renewal, though it may take time, will come. Stay the course—God's course.

GRANDMA'S PADDLE

Years ago, for a speaker’s prop about God’s discipline, I turned a ping pong paddle into a humorous “Grandma’s Paddle.”  It’s pretty, lacy, and amply padded—unlike the “red wooden stick” (about 15” long) that I remember from childhood, stored in the drawer of the dining area’s built-in hutch.  My dad would have to just move his hand in the direction of that drawer, and the tears of repentance would flow.  Recently, as strong pre-school wills have returned to our home in the form of grandsons, we have guidelines for “discipline” when they stay with us.  Their parents’ preferred method is three “steps” of warning, with consequences at step 3.

But a few weeks ago, as I unearthed this paddle from my box of “speaker props,” I had thoughts of how God disciplines us—and sometimes it really hurts! God’s discipline is not for His temporary peace of mind (as so often it is for us as human parents) but for our ultimate good: "My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke; because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in." (Proverbs 3:11-12)

I reconsidered that principle recently while re-reading Jerry Bridges’ The Practice of Godliness (NavPress, 1983). That book and his The Pursuit of Holiness are two I try to re-read regularly to be reminded of God’s standards for behavior.  This time, because of encounters with angry people, I was particularly struck by his treatment of patience versus anger. The person prone to losing his or her temper, he wrote, must especially work at “patience under provocation.”  Instead of excusing that behavior as “just the way I am,” Bridges wrote, “he must acknowledge his quick temper as a sinful habit before God.” He suggested meditating extensively on verses like these:

Exodus 34:6: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”

First Corinthians 13:5: [Love] “is not rude, it is not self-seeing, it is not easily angered...” James 1:19: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.”

Bridges added: “He must also pray earnestly that God the Holy Spirit will change him inwardly.  He should apologize to the person who is the object of his outburst each time he loses his temper.  (This helps him develop humility and a sense of his own sinfulness before God.)”  (pp. 208-209)

Recognizing our weaknesses, Bridge added that persons prone to anger shouldn’t give up on conquering that habit. “He needs to realize that his problem is as much a sinful habit as it is a result of temperament. Habits are not easily broken, and there will be failure.”  The difference is that when he falls, God is there to help him—if he reaches out.

 As for Grandma’s paddle, I hope just the sight of it (like the red stick of my childhood days) will be enough to encourage “course correction” with our young ones. As we love on them (as grandparents do), I’m reminded of how much more God loves me, and desires my character to grow in Christ-likeness. His discipline is part of the process.

Encroachments

An overgrown hedge sprawls over the sidewalk of a nearby house. When my mother-in-law, Doris, was still alive, on warm days I’d help her into her wheelchair and push her around the block to see the flowers. But I couldn’t push her down that narrow hedge-covered stretch. I’d have to dip down into the street one driveway before, then push her back up one driveway later. Alas, that rental house and yard simply didn’t get the care they should.

The word “encroachment” best describes the situation. And what a lesson its meaning packs! To encroach means “to enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another; to advance beyond desirable or normal limits.”

Recently we remembered what would have been Doris’s 93^rd birthday. She died at 89 of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not what she would have chosen for her exit to Heaven. If anything, she avoided inconveniencing people, and to become mentally and physically helpless was alien to how she'd lived the rest of her life.

I thought of that the other night when we had dinner guests. After we ate and I was removing dishes from the table, the mom jumped up to help with washing and drying them. I thought how Doris did the same in her better years.It was just the way she was: always serving. I was reminded of other ways she served when someone recently shared an old photograph of Doris in the children’s Sunday school class she taught. Doris really "owned" that responsibility. She painted the little classroom pale pink (her favorite color) and took care to set up a "worship corner" with a little vase of flowers. In such little ways she put others first.

Those memories started me thinking of how a person learns to be a “server” rather than a “taker” (or, in the hedge analogy, “an encroachment”). I  think the answer resides in the classic passage about God’s discipline in Hebrews 12. It talks about how parents discipline their children as part of character development. (Yes, there was a reason I insisted our kids make their beds, help with dishes, take out the garbage, and respect authority!) But, the writer continues, “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

God’s “pruning” may involve hardship or intimidating challenges. He may use a sermon, article, or personal Bible study to reveal behaviors or attitudes that have “encroached” on our lives. He may also use people whose godly examples inspire us and cause us to reflect, “Am I living to please God or myself?”

That's why I think of Doris and her humble service when I walk by that hedge and get my legs scratched. Left unpruned so long, it probably just needs pulled out--a huge, messy task. Similarly, God's "pruning" (which often includes "serving" assignments) keeps my spirit from growing wild. The last thing I want is for someone to reject the Lord Jesus on the basis of negatives they see in me.