Plus or Minus?

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Making the long drive home from Florida to Michigan includes both positives and negatives.

In the plus column, I get to have a chunk of time to pray, think and plan. I can also listen to sermon tapes (4 en route, 3 back), and even pen a few blog thoughts (without looking down, of course). I can crank my music up and sing, or I can sit in silence.

Also on the plus side is Jack, a model traveler, who lies down as soon as we hit a high speed. And one more thing. Motoring from south to north as I did today, palm trees give way to flowering crabs and eventually to majestic mountains, a feast for traveling eyes. Even flat farm land offers attractive views of plowed fields, weathered barns and grouped silos.

On the minus side, nearly 20 hours of sit-down time is too much. (Just ask Jack.) And driving through wild weather (sideways rain this time) can be harrowing. Also, the farther we drove, the colder it got. I had to surrender my flip-flops in Nashville. When we pulled in the driveway, it was 32 degrees.

Another minus is trying to bundle gas stops with dog walks, a problem in the cities. Also, exercising Jack late at night in unfamiliar neighborhoods is unsettling. But the most significant minus of driving 1200 miles is the accident potential of so much high-speed driving.

On this trip something scary happened that’s never happened before – twice! Purring along at 70+ miles per hour in semi-crowded traffic, a sudden flash of break lights immediately in front of me and a burst of blue-black smoke forced my foot to the break pedal. In less than a second, cars and trucks ahead were swerving, and my brained was yelling, “Doesn’t compute!”

In both instances, as confusion clouded the situation, a massive slab of black rubber flew past my car, tumbling wildly after exploding off someone else’s tire. As all of us jerked to slower speeds, the culprit was evident, a truck in one case and a horse trailer in the other.

After each crisis had passed, my mind listed the many ways serious injury had been avoided. The only damage in both instances was a few heart-pounding seconds.

I wonder if God was the one protecting us and if his protective angels aren’t preventing all kinds of disasters on a daily basis. People are quick to blame him when natural calamities hit: “How dare he? Why didn’t he stop it?”

The reality is that he’s probably preventing a thousand catastrophes for every one he allows. Maybe hearing the details of these “saves” is one of the reasons our afterlife has to be eternal. Telling all those stories will take a long time!

For now, though, it’s a good idea to daily hunt for the instances when tragedy was avoided, giving God the credit. We’ll stop blaming him and see that the plus column is always much longer than the minus.

”Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be at your side and will keep your foot from being snared.” (Proverbs 3:25-26)

Cry No More

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Half of me is in heaven, the Nate-half. Many of my thoughts have followed him there, and my questions seem never to end. It’s encouraging to know the answers will one day come, and in the mean time, I’m trying to keep my ears and eyes open. Just this week I learned something significant.

We all love the verse in Revelation that says, God will wipe away our tears. The same passage tells us he will also do away with sorrow, pain and death. But there’s one thing about this thrilling statement no one ever mentions. Scripture says the wiping away of tears will happen at the time of the new heaven/earth, and that won’t be our dwelling place until the end-times battles are over and Satan has been permanently defeated.

In other words, not yet. So Nate isn’t living in that new heaven but is definitely living with Jesus. It’s probably the place Jesus referred to as “paradise” when he was on the cross. I’m not worried about Nate, but I do wonder, has he been crying?

It’s very possible.

If God is going to wipe away tears, there will have to have been crying first. What would Nate be crying about? He no longer has cancer and has been freed from back pain. He’s living with the Lord, experiencing the ultimate in security and joy. So what would reduce him to tears? I may be off base, but the answer might be “himself.”

Technically I can’t speak for Nate, especially now that his life has been so dramatically altered, but I can speak for myself. When the Lord confronts me with my own mistakes, failures and deliberate sins now, before I’ve gone to paradise, I’m devastated and am often brought to tears. How will it be to have Jesus looking at me while I’m feeling like that? I know I’m eternally forgiven for those things, but I’ll be acutely aware of the lack of righteousness within me. Surely that’ll make me cry.

Scripture says Jesus will be the one to present me to God the Father as completely sinless because of his having taken all the punishment that should have been mine. Without him, I was destined for the God’s dreadful wrath. So, in that interim period between earthly death and the new heaven/earth, between arriving into Christ’s presence and being presented to God, I wonder if my tears will freely flow.

How could I look at the numerous scars my sin inflicted on Jesus, scars from whips, thorns, nails and a sword, and not feel like weeping?

The more I get to know Jesus, the more I’m sure those stinging tears will serve a positive purpose, because he promises to bring good from everything, even pain and sorrow.

So if Nate has been crying in paradise, and if some day I will too, I know it’ll all be for a good reason.

“God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain…” (Revelation 21:4)

I promise!

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When the local toll roads were first built in the 1950’s, their promise was that all toll booths would be removed after the highway was paid for, about 3 years. Fifty-three years later, we’re still paying.

In the early days of driving the toll road, we received a card when we got on and then turned it in when we got off. Our toll was calculated from the card. Eventually that system was replaced with a cash-as-you-go payment, starting at 25 cents per toll. We had to stop every 30 miles or so to throw change into a plastic bin before continuing.

Now, of course, we have “open road tolling” which means the toll road can take our money without us stopping to give it to them. When Nate and I used to drive the toll road between Illinois and Michigan, he’d often complain about the highway authority going back on its word to upgrade the road into a freeway, once a certain amount had been collected. Quite a few people felt that way, expressing their opinions in law suits and citizen groups established to put pressure on the powers-that-be. But today we’re still paying.

Keeping our word is important. It’s a character quality seen less and less these days and runs rampant in the political world with unmet campaign promises. But the most important place to keep our word is in one-on-one relationships such as husband-and-wife, parent-and-child, friend-and-friend. If I was given the chance to do one thing differently in my past, it would be to keep my word better, to do exactly what I said I would do.

If I told Nate, “I’ll pick you up at the train at 6:35,” I’d be there waiting for him rather than allowing him to wait for me. If I told the kids, “Don’t do that again or you’ll get a spanking,” I’d follow through.

It’s especially important to keep our word when we tell someone we won’t share a confidence with anyone else. If we violate that, our word becomes worthless, not to mention the damage we do to that person and our relationship with him or her.

I’ve asked myself, “What would the Christian life be like if God acted like I did and didn’t keep his word?” He’s told us that he does everything he says he’ll do, and Scripture backs that up. He’s kept his promises in my own life, and I’ve seen him do it in others’. Because I’ve experienced failure at always keeping my word, I’m doubly appreciative that I can count on him to keep his. After all, his has eternal consequences, and I’m trusting him 100%.

Driving the toll roads is a helpful reminder that I want to be trusted to keep my word. And maybe in the long run, the toll road will make good on its promise, too. The latest word is that it’ll be paid for in 2034. If I still have a driver’s license at 89, you’ll find me driving the freeway.

“Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (Psalm 141:3)