Comfort
When I was 7 or 8, my Father would take me deer hunting. He usually put me in a stand in the woods, as the shots would not be far ones. To a small boy, even several hundred yards into the woods seemed like miles.
My Father would walk me to my stand, and tell me to follow the "flags" back out the same way when it got dark. He would then walk out, and take the other hunters to their stands.
Since I was the first to be let off, I was the last to be picked up. I never failed to walk out into the open field before it got dark.
In the particular field outside the woods by my stand, there was a fence line. As I waited for my Father to pick me up, I would walk that fence line. As the minutes ticked off, and no Father, I would walk faster and faster, and become panicked. I prayed and prayed to God.
I promised God many things in those worrisome and panicky minutes. I would confess all of my 7 year old sins, and feel guilty for any and everything. By the time I saw the lights of my Father's Jeep, tears would be streaming down my cheeks, and I would be trembling.
Oh, how good it felt to be back in my Father's presence. Just to sit in the back of that Jeep again felt like heaven.
Today, I still wonder when I feel my Heavenly Father has left the scene. I cannot say I ever get used to God's silence. When my life is over, I will have to ask God where He was during the times He seems to have left the room.
An Advent Wait
The Christmas season begins with Advent, and waiting. Waiting is something I've done for most of my life.
Since I was a very young altar boy in my Episcopal Church, I dreamed of being a priest, with a collar and a beautiful church. And, a wife and family to back me up. I dreamed of Baptisms, Confirmations, weddings, and funerals. The most important times in people's lives.
So, I began waiting. I went to college and earned a Finance degree, just like my Dad. I hated finance, but I knew I would need an undergraduate degree for seminary, so no problem. In the meantime, I got involved with campus ministries.
I married my high school sweetheart my junior year in college. We attended church on a regular basis. However, she did not share my excitement with the whole seminary idea. Later, I realized she just wanted to know I was devoted to her first and foremost. But, I was going to be a priest. "God would provide."
My Father died my senior year in college, and upon graduating I felt obligated to move back to our hometown and go into the family finance business. My wife began making a home. I was often distant and distracted with my dream of going to seminary. She and I both volunteered with Young Life, but her time was interrupted by the birth of our first child. No problem. That was even better. Starting seminary with a family.
After the birth of our second child, we left our Episcopal Church, and helped form a church in our hometown. I wanted God, but I became completely immersed in the spectacular, to the point of ignoring how my wife felt about the whole thing. All the while I was being told how full of wisdom I was, and how I was going to be used in a miraculous way. I don't remember anyone telling me to turn back towards my wife and family, or, that I had become obsessed with not missing God. Except my wife.
My wife? She got to tend the nursery as a good, submissive wife. I got to listen to two hour sermons on some "new" teaching. She got to listen as I dreamed out loud of quitting my job and becoming some kind of "minister". And, my wondering out loud why she wasn't joining in. Her being ignored for "spiritual" reasons really did hurt her soul.
By the time our third child arrived, my wife had had enough. She didn't need some man following signs and wonders. She needed me. She simply did not feel loved, cherished, and respected.
To make a long life short, my wife died at the age of 52, after 11 years of brain cancer. And, "we" never made it to seminary. We did return to our little Episcopal Church, where the soft rhythms of the liturgy and the beautiful hymns appealed to her broken mind and spirit.
Throughout 33 years of marriage and for several years after my wife's death, I couldn't figure out why I had a lifelong dream of being a priest in my heart, yet it was never fulfilled. Why didn't God provide?
Sometime doors don't open in order to get our attention. My door was not going to open until I saw the real priestly ministry I was to enter into first.
This Advent, while I was waiting, I saw where I had missed the boat. I could have had that seminary education. I was just too preoccupied with my own dreams and plans to see it. I was neglectful of the most important things. True, priestly things.
God did indeed provide. The second my wife and I were engaged, the provision was there, but I was blind and deaf. I could not see the provision. Like Elijah, I was looking for God to show up in a spectacular way. I was waiting for that big voice, from God, or at least from my "spiritual" friends, who loved telling me what God was saying. I totally missed that 'still small voice.'
I realize now my ministry was to my wife, first and foremost. I was to give myself to her, sacrificially, as Jesus gave himself to, and for, the world. What if I had cared less about fulfilling some dream until I made sure my wife knew she was loved unconditionally, and cherished and delighted in?
I never made the 180 degree turn from my dreams to my destiny. With that kind of turn, I could have seen my wife for who she was...God's provision. Without my love and support, she must have questioned what kind of real priest I would be. Whatever my hopes and dreams were, they could not be fulfilled without the proper relationship with my wife.
My real training ground for learning how to love, and how to die to self and live for God and others, was not in sermons and teachings and conferences. It had been provided and was right in front of me. It was a relationship with my wife. That would have truly been priestly. "Seek first the kingdom of God..."
Sadly, if I had given my wife my full attention and an undivided heart, life would have been joyous. Our children would have felt happy, safe, and secure. And, if I had delighted in her the way Jesus delights in us, she would have followed me to the ends of the earth. Yes, I may have had to wait a bit longer as our relationship solidified, but it would have been a hopeful, joyful wait.
An Advent wait.
TO SET THE BURDENED FREE
14. Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. News that he was back spread through the countryside. 15. He taught in their meeting places to everyone's acclaim and pleasure.
16. He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, 17. he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,
18. God's Spirit is on me;
he's chosen me to preach the Message of
good news to the poor,
Sent me to announce a pardon to prisoners and
recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free
19. to announce, "This is God's year to act!"
20. He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. 21. Then he started in, "You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."
Luke 4: 14-21 The Message Bible
BEING AND DOING
13. "Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. 14. The way to life - to God! - is vigorous and requires total attention.
15. "Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don't be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.
21. "Knowing the correct password - saying 'Master, Master,' for instance - isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience - doing what my Father wills. 22. I can see it now - at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.' 23. And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'
24. "These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. 25. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit - but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
26. "But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. 27. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."
28. When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. 29. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying - quite a contrast to their religion teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.
Matthew 7: 13-29 The Message Bible
A LIFE OF GOD WORSHIP
30. "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers - most of which are never even seen - don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? 31. What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. 32. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. 33. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all of your everyday human concerns will be met."
Matthew 6: 30-33 The Message Bible
The Last Anniversary
My wife of 33 years died on our anniversary on Saturday, August 9Th. Eleven years ago, we had celebrated our anniversary days after her first surgery for brain cancer.
My wife was an extraordinary person. Over 350 people turned out for her funeral. Her love for her family and friends, her courage, and her ruthless trust in God are a few of the things that defined her. She was known in this small town for her beautiful smile and her positive attitude.
A couple of weeks before her death, and before her speech went, she told me she didn't want to leave me. We talked about how we had been able to be together every day since her second surgery 3 years ago. I told her we could have spent a lifetime together and, if she would have been healthy, may have not spent that much time together. She also said she wasn't dying, she was living. She always said she could not ask "Why me" without asking "Why not me." The priest at our little Episcopal church told of her many trips to the altar rail during our Wednesday evening healing service. Never once did she ask anything for herself, but always asked for prayers of strength for me and our boys.
I was able to keep her at home, and she died surrounded by our boys, two daughters-in-laws, and her best friend. It was hard. The hardest thing I have ever experienced. But, I would not trade those days for anything.
Her funeral was held at 5:30 in the afternoon on August 12. The burial at the cemetery wrapped up just as the sun was setting.
I will miss her dearly.
Fiery Trials
As Christians, if we suffer long enough, or if "friends" and/or "Christians" don't understand or agree with our suffering, meaning suffering is something they can't handle for whatever reason or reasons, we sometimes find ourselves alone. In my own case, this can be an opportunity to identify more closely with Christ, who himself died alone.
Jesus never condemns us in our suffering. He never tells us that we have no idea about real suffering, given the suffering He endured on the cross.
Rather, Jesus comes along side us, and shares in our suffering, as we mystically share in His.
"Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner." I Peter 4: 12,13 The Message
My circle of friends has gotten very small as my wife and I have suffered. I take comfort in the communion of saints. We have, by God's mercy, been able to "have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18,19 NIV)."
