Monthly Archives: August 2012

I’m sure.

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Dad and Mom lived in four homes during 50 years of marriage: a newlywed bungalow, their bring-the-babies-home house, their larger place, and a downsized-ranch. Mom loved being a homemaker, and when Dad (13 years her senior) suggested a retirement community, she wouldn’t hear of it.

Later, when he died after only two weeks warning, Mom clung to their home like it was Dad himself. Being without him was heartbreaking, but it focused her attention on life after death like never before.

She told us about the night she was out watering her garden near midnight when she heard footsteps approaching. “Were you afraid?” I said.

“Actually I was hoping he had a gun and would do me in,” she said. “Then I’d get to be with your father.” She was only half joking.

Not long after that, Mom fell and broke her hip badly, requiring surgery. She had great confidence in the doctor, a family friend, but was secretly hoping the O.R. would be her launch pad to heaven. But the surgery went flawlessly, and Mary was there to tell her about it when she came out of the anesthetic.

Still groggy, Mom’s first word was, “Carl?”

“No,” Mary said. “It’s just me.”

Mom pulled the covers over her head and burst into tears, realizing she hadn’t ended up in heaven after all. Days later, well on the way to a full recovery she said, “I gave God a perfect chance to take me, and he passed it up.” (She lived 13 more years.)

Mom’s push toward heaven seemed extreme, but I admire two things about it: (1) her true love for Dad came through, and (2) her certainty of heaven was unshakeable. Day to day, hour to hour, a real heaven was on her mind, a specific place where her beloved had already gone.

Mom’s desire to be with Dad wasn’t her only heaven-themed longing. Her deepest craving was to run into the waiting arms of Jesus her Savior. She referenced that moment often and never doubted its authenticity. In 60 years as her daughter, I never heard a smidgen of uncertainty in her talk of one day living with Jesus.

Sometimes I find myself a little unsure. It isn’t exactly doubt, but it’s a serious wondering. How will it work when I move to the next world? The greeting we’ve heard some will get at heaven’s gate (well-done-good-and-faithful-servant) won’t apply to me. I love the Lord, but faithful servant? Not really. So, what are the other greeting possibilities? I wonder.

And what about the rush of guilt I’ll feel when I look into Jesus’ eyes? Or the regret that’ll sweep over me about my disobedience? What about my idle words? Time wasted? Bypassed opportunities? I wonder and wonder. How can it possibly go well?

But Mom? She never wondered. She was just plain sure, and that was delightfully refreshing.

“You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.” (Psalm 73:24)

Rigid Rules

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Growing up in a Christian home was a benefit, despite my not appreciating it at the time. My conservative parents wouldn’t let my siblings and I go to the movies (“an immoral industry”) or use playing cards (“tools of gamblers”) or dance (“worldly nonsense”). Our music choices were closely monitored, and as for no smoking and drinking? They didn’t even rate an explanation.

By today’s standards my brother, sister, and I were forced to live a narrow, regimented lifestyle. Of course we eventually tested what life was like apart from that parental list of no-no’s and in the end landed a bit short of them. But the older I get, the more I see that high standards are better than low ones.

Mom and Dad believed in scriptural principles. Although they understood the Bible’s concept of living under grace rather than law, they also touted the 10 commandments as a wise, healthy way to live. The two generalized “new” commandments given by Jesus in the New Testament were fleshed out, they said, in the Old Testament’s one-through-ten.

Most people balk at that list of laws or, for that matter, at any rules. The minute we’re told what we can’t do, we want to do it. Of course the root problem is that we all want to direct our own destinies, because it goes against us to take orders from anyone else. We say, “It’s my life, and I’ll live it any way I want.”

Sometimes I think God sets forth a list of should’s and shouldn’ts as a test. He says, “I know this makes you bristle, but because it’s Me asking you, will you trust that it’ll turn out best if you just do it?” We suck air between our teeth and wince, wanting to make him happy but hoping we can do it without having to fully comply.

It helps us to know Jesus never told his followers, “You’d better… or else!”

He left it up to them. Sometimes, after he had delivered the goods, people would turn on their heels and walk away. Although Jesus didn’t try to stop them, we can see disappointment tucked between the lines of Scripture. It wasn’t that he needed their loyalty or devotion. Divinity doesn’t need anything. It was that he felt sadness for them. Rejecting his message meant embracing a much less satisfying life, not to mention what might happen in the next world.

I’m fairly sure my parents were motivated by much the same kind of thinking God had as they studied his rules and then came up with their own. They were doing their best to set their children on a path toward wise, fulfilling futures. Though we struggled to break free of their restrictions at the time, we had to admit the intentions behind the rules were laced with love, the rules initiated by Mom and Dad…

…and the ones initiated by God.

“The trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me.” (Romans 7:14)

At Peace

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I live near a busy super-highway and know where I am at any given mile by the signs I regularly pass along the way. One billboard I frequently pass 9 miles up the pike says, “A world at prayer is a world at peace.”

Really?

If the whole world would just pray for peace, would we never have another war? That doesn’t ring true. Maybe the sign implies a meaning beneath the surface. Maybe if the world would be full of people who pray, then no matter where we were or what was going on, our core would be at peace. That makes more sense.

One of the most impressive examples of this kind of peace is recorded in the Bible, the story of the first person murdered for his faith in Christ. His name was Stephen, and as he was being tried in a kangaroo court filled with false witnesses swearing to crimes he didn’t commit, Scripture describes his face “as that of an angel.” (Acts 6:15) How could that be? Amidst the venom, accusations, and lies, how could his face be radiating inner peace?

Immediately after that, as he was dragged out of town to be killed, his prayers continued and so did his peaceful demeanor. It lasted from before the first stone hit him until he died of the wounds they inflicted. This kind of unflappable calm defies logic and can only be explained as supernatural.

But that’s thing about prayer. If we’re communicating with Almighty God, we are linked with the supernatural. Once we admit that, anything can happen, even an experience of supernatural peace while being murdered.

To pray for this kind of peace is a good idea for all of us, even though our stress can’t compare to Stephen’s, and the Lord invites us to ask for it with gusto. In both the Old and New Testaments he says, “Seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:14, 1 Peter 3:11)

We’re not just told to look for it casually, glancing left and right in hopes we’ll get some, but to steadily and hotly pursue it. Both Bible passages also say that seeking this kind of peace from God is a key to “loving life” and “seeing many good days.” And who doesn’t want those?

Sometimes turmoil seems to dog us and be lurking around every corner. When it takes us by surprise, our first natural response is to frantically work to rearrange the mayhem around us rather than breathe a prayer for God’s peace. We wonder how whispering a few gentle words into thin air could do anything significant to bring calm in a crisis. But there is a reason why it can work: it’s God himself waiting at the listening end of our prayers.

So I guess that highway sign had it right after all.

“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer.” (1 Peter 3:12)