Moments

  DOWN THE RIVER WITHOUT A LIGHT   This is a piece I wrote many, many years ago, immediately after the experience described within this passage.      I tried to stay down the river tonight, but the mosquitoes ran me off.   All I had for a light was a flashlight with fast-fading batteries.   They faded completely.   I had to come about seven or eight uninhabited miles over a low river, full of snags, sandbars, and rock piles.   Surprisingly, I navigated the river blindly without hitting one log, rock, or sandbar.   Feeling my way up the river in the blackness, I had to trust to luck; no, not really luck.   Somewhere, something guided me.   I was surprised when huge logs would go brushing by, missing the boat by only a few feet.   Time and time again, I narrowly missed something I could not see.    Quite a scary thrill it is, coming up the river without a light, trusting only to faith.   Then again, wh...

  I was getting my cancer treatment when this neat-looking lady sat down in the chair beside me to get her own treatment.  She wasn't hard to talk to.  She sort of beamed hope from her smile and her demeanor.   We chatted about normal things, but soon the conversation came to our issues at hand- cancer.  Softly and plainly, she told me she had terminal lung cancer.  She didn't wince or fret in telling me the details, and she finished with a genuine smile that told me that, for her, God has got this. The conversation deepened as we talked of heaven and the peace of God in our lives.  She seemed healthy enough at the moment, but she seemed almost ready to go there.  She was an inspiration with her soft and gentle tone and the peaceful smile when she talked of heaven and when God would make all things new.  She didn't complain and say "why me," nor did she seem to have many regrets.  She smiled often and genuinely. She made my day. Pra...

  So, you want the freedom to hate religion, the freedom from religion?  OK.     But will you give the same freedom to those who have it, who practice it?  Oftentimes,   Christian freedom brought persecution for their faith. Is this because oftentimes they didn't live up to the faith they professed? Or was it because people of faith made them uncomfortable?  And then there is one faith persecuting another faith of a different doctrine.  All who believe will fail at living out their faith.  It goes with the territory of trying to be something better and higher than we were to God and the true exercise of our faith.   So it is worse to fail at trying than succeed at doing nothing? So if you fail by not trying to be anything, there is no shame or condemnation, but why persecute?  Why not just let the people of faith, any faith, just be happy with their own delusions as long as there is no injury to others? ...

  After some days of restricted breathing, I can breathe freely again.  There was some music playing, and I took it in with my breathing in and out.  It felt so good to be clear.  Then I breathed through my nose, and it went smoothly.    For this time in my life, God has restored the breath of life within me, and I find myself peaceful and so grateful.   Then I realized that, because of restricted breathing, because of the agony and frustration, I find myself more grateful to God than if I had never had a problem with breathing. Hardship brought me closer, relief, and knowing where and who it came from finds me grateful. Being grateful brings me peace, not because I believe things will always be great and there will never be restricted breathing for me again.   No, peace comes from gratitude, sure, but it comes from adding "nevertheless" in answer to whatever God brings me to.

  When Paul was struck down by the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, he first asked Who is this?  When Jesus identified Himself, Paul needed say nothing more than, "What would you  have me do?" Before Paul even knew the plan, the cost, or where he was being sent, he was yielded.  His first act was surrender, and his first breath as a new man is a question of obedience.  There was no  bargaining or interest in self-preservation; it was the response of a person who had been undone and remade in a moment. When I thought I was undone and maybe going to die, I surrendered too, right there in the MRI tube at the hospital.  And, I bet Paul wondered like I did. Am I going to survive this?  If I survive, Lord, what would you have me to do?  I was undone and remade to serve God with whatever the rest of my life looked like.  God didn't give Paul an action plan for the rest of his life.  His instructions were just to go to this certain place...

 T hursday before Good Friday.  The upper room was secured for the Passover meal.  Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem.  The Passover meal was prepared.  There is a sense of heaviness and anticipation, and he talks of betrayal.  At sundown, when it was time for the Passover meal, Jesus washed the disciples' feet.  The betrayal was announced, and Judas left. The Lord's Supper is initiated: Take, eat, this is my body, this is the cup of the new covenant."  Then Jesus embarked on some of His most intimate teachings for the disciples and for us as well.  It is a farewell discourse, with a new commandment, that we are to love one another, with a promise of the Holy Spirit, with vine and the branches teaching, with warnings of persecution, and His prayer for the disciples and all future believers. Then they sang a hymn and walked to the Mount of Olives.  He then takes Peter, James, and John deeper into the garden and prays three times, "If it be p...