A new glimpse of eternity

  I don't get many original ideas. But earlier this year God used a troubling verse to help me understand eternity in a new way. First let me say that I am a social being. I like talking with people, I like playing games with people. I enjoy singing with people. However if you take the people out of these activities I find them somewhat boring and tedious. For this reason the idea of spending eternity worshipping God as portrayed in Rev.4 has left me somewhat cold. Don't get me wrong I love playing and singing praise to God, and when an entire gathering of people join their voices in worship - it's truly wonderful. But even the best worships begin to loose their luster after about and hour and a half. Now think of one that last for a couple hundred thousand years, or decades, or millennium - get the point. Who wants to be in church for that long? Do you, be honest now.
  My "original idea" (it wasn't original to God) came to me as we were reading the following passage in worship.
Deut. 5:9-10 (NIV)  
    You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, [10] but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 
   To be honest this is one of those passages in scripture that sort of pissed me off. How could a loving God punish a child, not for their sins but the sins of another? Now I understood the passage that our sins have consequences and as a father my screw ups leave scars upon my children that will last into my grandchildren and great grandchildren. But it was from this same passage that I received a new glimpse into eternity. For the scripture goes on that for those that love God their is a positive legacy that last not for two or three but a thousand generations. 
   If you really believe these words I hope you can believe this. In God's kingdom we will see the connections of how God has blessed us (usually through others) and these blessings will be evident as far back as a thousand generations. So my new picture of heaven is walking into the great assembly of God's people and having tons of people I've never met saying "John - I've wanted to meet you for years. Back when you were in Oklahoma you brought a youth group to the nursing home and sang for a half dozen grey haired old women. One of them was my great great grandmother who shared the joy she received from your visit with my her daughter, my great grandmother. From those few songs and a nervous hug you started my entire family on our journey of faith. As soon as he or she turns away I see a face and I recognize this woman, even though we've never met. I walk up and say "Mrs Patterson - we've never me but your son Craig is largely responsible for me being here today, thank you for passing the blessing on to your son, who then passed it on to me. Imagine a 1000 generations - people from rural Africa being connected to people born 10 thousand years before who never left the fields of Kentucky. People from small home churches being connected to pastors of mega congregations. Blacks being connected with whites. People who speak only Swahili being connected wtih believers in China. Talk about a party! And what's better it will never get old because you are always meeting new members of God's family that you blessed or you were blessed through them!  Now that is a heaven I can get excited about! 




      

God I do love (and hate) Your Timing

A few weeks ago I once again found myself in Kenya a country that is quickly becoming near and dear to my heart. I was there as part of a mission team putting on an vision / eyeglass clinic in to town of Molo in the western part of the country. The clinic had attracted thousands of people each coming with some kind of eye issue. By the final days we were nearly out of everything. Our doctors had run out of medicines, our supply of lenses and frames would be gone by midday. In the midst of this a group of students arrived. Most of these students had 20/20 vision, but they nearly all complained about watery eyes, eyes that hurt, or not being able to see well on sunny days. These are real symptoms of living on the equator where the sun is especially harsh and the air is filled with dust, pollens, and smoke from the fires used to warm homes and cook. I had heard the same complaint from dozens, perhaps hundreds of young people throughout the week and I wanted to yell at this young woman named Elizabeth that we could do nothing to help her. Suddenly God (for it certianly wasn't me) spoke (no I never heard a voice) to me and said "she didn't come here for eye care. I brought her here for another reason". I  told Elizabeth that I did believe her eyes bothered her. I assurred her that her eyes were fine, and that I felt God had brought her to me for some other reason. I ask her what that reason might be. She thought for a while then looked me right in the eye and said with conviction in her voice "I think He wants me to be saved!"
   Only moments before I was about to crush this young spirit with harsh words that I couldn't help her but God in his perfect timing had a wonderful surprise for me. We go to Kenya, not only to provide eye care services, but to fulfill the great commission  and and the great commandment.You've got to ove God's timing! Countless times in my ministry I was ready to throw in the towel and a card, email, or phone call would come, often from a student I ministered to years before new feeling led to let me know the effect that I had on their life. God's timing is perfect. But waiting is not something that I enjoy. I am incredibly impatient. In the past few years I have been praying that God would show me where my new calling was not that I was no longer a youth minister. I am still waiting. I know by faith and by experience that God's timing is wonderful, but it is also hard at times to wait upon.
     I can imagine the Hebrews in the wilderness following the cloud. Yesterday it led them to a sheltered valley, out of the wind maybe even water. Yes, here is a great place to stop. Then the next day it's off again. This time it settles over a batten stretch of rock and sand where the wind howls and there is nothing that would want them to stay. But the cloud does stay for days that turn into weeks. Why couldn't God have stopped us yesterday in the peaceful valley?
       So I stand in awe (and at times contempt) of God's timing. In Kenya through a young woman named Elizabeth God reinforced the idea that his timing is so much better than mine. That I need to be patient and like Elizabeth ask the question "Why has God brought me here".  What do I need to learn? What rough edges need to be honed smooth? For  what  I need to remember is that God even has a purpse for my waiting.
John

A Gentle Tug

No this is not the name of a chidren's book about a good natured tug boat it is a simply philosophy taught to me growing up on my grandma's farm in Kidder, Missouri. One day my cousin and I picked a bunch of peaches off one of the trees in an orchard on the farm. They looked good. But when we took them in to my grandma she gave each a squeeze and announced we had picked them too early. We told her they looked right and she explained that the tree knew when the fruit was ripe. Now grandma was a wonderful woman but even at 10 years old I doubted she talked to the trees so I asked her "how does the tree let you know when the peaches are ripe?" Her answer was simple "when you pick the fruit too early the tree tries to hold on to them it resist having the fruit removed from it's branches, but when it's ripe a simple gentle tug is all it takes - and the tree releases the fruit right into your hand. However if you miss this opportunity the tree will release it's fruit and it will drop to the ground where the insects eat at it and the sheep and cows step on it.  We need to be aware and it may take several gentle tugs before the fruit and the tree are truly ready". (This is a paraphrase since I can't remember where I put my car keys 5 minutes ago, much less the exact words spoken by Mabel O'Connor to two of her grandsons over 4 decades ago.)

This philosophy was lost on a 10 year old but 40 plus years later it is making great sense. In the past few years I have spent some time looking back over my 30+ years of ministry. What I have found is that when I tried to "force" spiritual  moments to take place (at youth evnts, retreats, confirmation classes) they seldom happened. But when I simply was present in the lives of people, in the midst of their joys, their mundane daily activities and their pain, I often found that a simple word, hug, or gesture brought the greatest rewards. Being there when the fruit was ripe and then being willing to  offer a simple gentle tug changed lives. As I begin a new season of ministry I am left with Jesus words  found in Matthew 9:37-38 (NIV)  
    Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. [38] Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." I don't know what the Lord has in store for me. But what I do know is that I want to be a worker in his harvest field. Investing my life in things that will never pass away. Moving naturally through life and using every opportunity to give a "gentle tug" in Jesus name.