Ripples

Do you or did you have grand plans for your life?  How is that working out for you?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.  I made it to instructor pilot in the Air Force.  Didn’t last long at that, the end of the Viet Nam war meant that overnight there was a surplus of pilots.  So I was released from my six-year commitment three and a half years in.

I came to Christ shortly after I started pilot training.  It soon dawned on me that the planes would burn, but the men in them would live eternally either in hell or in the presence of the Lord.  My focus changed.  I gave up the idea of flying reconnaissance and instead chose to be an IP so I could be around the men who were helping me in the Christian life.

When I left the Air Force I moved into the basement of a Navigator rep’s house and begin to work as a cost engineer and to help him start the ministry at UAB.  I had no idea how to do that.  A year and a half into that project I married my female counterpoint in that ministry.  Shortly after we were married we moved to East Lansing, Michigan to be trained at the Navigator training center there to be collegiate staff.

Two years later we moved with the director of the training center to Knoxville to help him start the training center at the University of Tennessee.  Our first child was born there.  I had the first few of seven sinus surgeries there.  The Air Force called and asked if I wanted to come back and fly tankers; I said no.

I could go on, we were at another campus, had two more kids there.  I took at ThM at Dallas Seminary, where we had our fourth child.  I have been to Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Trinidad and Tobago (multiple times), Morocco (multiple times), Nepal, Cameroon, and Togo.  We are pursuing opportunities in other African countries, and I have been asked to consider a return trip to Nepal…

My kids are all married.  They all, but the youngest, have at least one child, the youngest has a dog.  One of my son’s wife passed away several months after she had her child.  My parents and my wife’s parents have all gone home to be with the Lord; we buried her father last Sunday.

When I reflect on this, nothing has really turned out as planned.  In the process of this journey thus far, my wife and I have encountered and been in various depths of relationships with hundreds if not thousands of people.

It is impossible, or perhaps better, impractical to measure the impact we have had.  We had hopes, plans, vision, but those all changed.

At some level, some significant level, it feels as if we are pebbles that have been cast into a pond.  The impact creates ripples.  We do not see how far those ripples spread.  We do not see the impact or result of the ripples.  In a real sense we didn’t cause the ripples.  The one who cast us into the pond did.

Our responsibility is to trust and abide in the one who cast us into the pond.  There are days that that is easier than others.

I’m not an astronaut, I’m a pebble…

Death Unnatural

My father in law is dying.  His will be the fifth death in our family in the last couple of years.  He is 93, His wife was 91 when she passed.  My dad was 94.  One of the deaths was a miscarriage; one was a new mother of 32 years. 

People will say about my wife’s parents and my dad that they led a full life and that their deaths in their 90’s were normal.  They do not say the same thing about my daughter in law or the miscarried child.

The facts are though that death is not normal.  It was never meant to be our experience.

In Genesis 2:16 – 17 (here @ Bible Gateway) the Lord commanded that Adam not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The Lord promised that in the event that Adam did this, he would surely die.  In Genesis 3:19 (here @ Bible Gateway), after Adam had disobeyed the direct command of the Lord, He fulfilled His promised result, “…you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Death is the result of the fall of the race; sin.  It may not be a particular sin in the case of a person.  But, the fact that we are human, descendants of Adam, whose nature changed when he disobeyed, we will experience death.

That is one of the reasons that we grieve so deeply.  At a core level, we know that it is wrong.  I watched life leave my father.  It was obvious that he was no longer there.  We talk of dying with dignity.  There is no dignity in death.  It is a result of our condition as sinners before a holy God.

The great news is that we have been offered a remedy.  Christ died for us to pay for our sin.  That allows us the opportunity to be restored to the life we were meant to live.  To have eternal life with Him.  We will still, should He delay His return, go through this physical death to be sure.  However, if we trust Him, if we choose to follow Him, we will receive the gift of eternal life in His presence.

What we experience here was not the intention.  What we can experience through Him is the gift.

Continually Stunned

The workshops that the Lord has allowed me to conduct over the past 10 years focus on 2 Peter (here @ Bible Gateway).  Depending on the amount of time that is scheduled we cover from one to seven methods of investigating the text.  In the process of interacting with those who are participating in the various workshops, one of the points I share is that even though I have the book memorized, have read it more times than I can count, and have studied it over a hundred times, still, every time I read it, come to its pages, I see something I missed previously.

This morning 2 Peter 1 (here @ Bible Gateway) came up in the reading plan I have been following for the past three years.  True to form, the Lord showed me something I had never seen before.  This time, however, I did not make it much past the first 4 verses (here @ Bible Gateway); which depending on how the version you read deals with the Greek, is the first couple of sentences Peter pens to the recipients.

What I saw is not the point.  The fact that I saw it, that it was new to me after so much engagement and exposure to this letter is.  As I turned to the book I wondered if, in fact, my experience of seeing something new would again hold true.  As I shared, I didn’t make it past the first two sentences.

In Psalm 119:18 (here @ Bible Gateway), David prays that the Lord would open his eyes so that he could behold wonderful things from the Law, His Word.  That’s the point.  This Book, the Bible, is unique.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, revealing the nature and character of God, with unfathomable layers of knowledge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I am continually stunned at its depth.

Dive in.