Redeemed ... What a Thought

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

(Isaiah 43:1-3, ESV)

While on a business trip and staying with friends, I've taken the opportunity a couple of times to walk on the "rail-to-trail" park that runs right by their house.  On one trip I had my MP3 player going and was listening to Isaiah being read.  The first track happened to be Isaiah 43 and it put a smile on my face to here the words I posted above.  The very thought of being redeemed, rescued, and protected is just so awe inspiring I knew I had to write about it. And then I checked the time as I made my turn.

I use my phone and, hitting the display button, I saw I had missed a call.  It was from my wife and I quickly began to return it.  While it was ringing, the tone went off to let me know I had a voice mail ... which is not at all like my wife.  As she answered, my curiosity was at a bit of a peak and I soon found out what prompted her to leave a message.

My wife and girls (and the two dogs) were in the process of huddling in a closet to wait out a tornado warning.  Given what we could find out, a funnel cloud had touched down just a couple miles from our house.  It appeared to be headed away, but caution dictated they play it safe.  We hung up for the moment, her in our house under a tornado watch and me 800+ miles away feeling helpless.

It turned out just fine (we didn't even lose power though it was out down the road from us closer to where the action was).  But I still had a bit of a helpless feeling inside.  What possibly could I have done even if the tornado was in my neighborhood or on my street?  Just how much was I willing to place my faith in the God who says he will keep me from harm and redeem me?  Thing happen every day where people are not "kept from harm" at least from the human perspective.  Was this the reason Isaiah 43 had played on my walk tonight?  I'm thinking, as I write about it, that is exactly the case.

The Crooked Path offers only one promise - God will not abandon us.  Isaiah 43 is evidence of that truth, not some misapplied blather about us never experiencing anything bad.  No, it just reinforces the idea that God is still God and my job is to trust him and follow, knowing all the while I will walk through the river and the fire and the tornado while still coming out whole in him.  And that is quite a thought when you are this far away from a family huddled in the closet under a severe weather warning.

Being a Father

I don't think anything in this world gives me more joy than being a father and a husband to the wife who gave my girls to me.  I remember the first time I saw each of them.  I remember the videos we shot and the pictures we took.  I remember teaching them to ride a bike, taking the to the park, and trying to comfort them when they were sick or hurt.  I have keepsakes of all kinds, both those I can touch and those I can remember.  They are my pride and joy ... and they always will be.

This year, I'm away from them for the "big day" which is fine.  I'm a typical guy when it comes to the sentimentality of a Hallmark holiday.  But I still have them with me.  We've talked on the phone and via video.  One e-card has shown up and another (a fantastic one) will be on its way in the morning.  So even if we're apart, we're still together.  That's how connected we are and how much I love them.

Our heavenly father sees this same joy in us.  He has the same kind of memories and "videos" of us.  He would hang the pictures we make for him on his fridge if he had one.  He loves us that much.  So on this Fathers' Day, when the Crooked Path has me in a different location from my wife and girls, I want to take the time to tell my heavenly father that I love him more than ever and thank him for the girls he has entrusted to me.

Waiting ...

“And they (Job’s friends) sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”  (Job 2:13, ESV)

Oh the waiting game ... often played, rarely appreciated.  I'm playing it now and I hope that I can take a lesson from Job.  Those seven days where nobody spoke a word were essential to what unfolded.  Too often, we (and by that I mean I) want to rush to the solution or the end or at least something other than the waiting.  And, when we do that, we miss the opportunity to appreciate so many things.  So, while I'm still waiting on what comes next for me, here are some thoughts that should make me appreciate this silent period.

I had the most wonderful time away with the family.  We really needed it and despite not having a job to come back to, it was a great experience where lasting memories were made.  That can get lost in the waiting impatience if I let it and it really shouldn't.

I have had the chance to see just how big my network is over the past few weeks.  No, nothing firm has turned up for employment, but there have been some great conversations and we have not gone hungry or begun living outside yet.  The breadth of people I know at many levels can get lost when I'm focused on busy and not in a waiting stage.

Serving others is a valuable thing that rarely gets done when we are so focused on what is next.  This past week, I had the opportunity to serve my sister by ripping out and replacing her porch.  The job ended up bigger than we planned, but it also ended up as a much nicer porch.  She will have many pleasant mornings, afternoons, and evenings sitting on that porch and just enjoying what life brings in front of her.  Had I not been waiting, it would have taken a month or more of weekends to do the job.

God doesn't promise a precisely running clock on the Crooked Path.  He only promises to be with us - and that extends to the waiting period.  The waiting is a chance to listen a little more closely, reflect a little more deeply, and take time for opportunities that otherwise might have been missed.  And, as Isaiah stated, it can be a time to renew that which sustains me as I travel.

So Many Thoughts

So many thoughts swirling around in my head today. Too many to just focus on a single post, and yet there is a single idea that does make me pause to consider that magnitude of it.  It is a very comforting thought in difficult times and an encouraging thing on which to base my faith day to day.

First, John Eldridge's daily post today was from his book Desire.  The first part of the e-mail said this:

"This may come as a surprise to you: Christianity is not an invitation to become a moral person. It is not a program for getting us in line or for reforming society. It has a powerful effect upon our lives, but when transformation comes, it is always the aftereffect of something else, something at the level of our hearts. And so at its core, Christianity begins with an invitation to desire."

I carried that thought into the Sunday School class I'm co-teaching on C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.  But it was one of the verses attached to the e-mail that really struck home with me and a few of my friends.  Jesus ends his discussion with the Samaritan woman with this, "The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life" (John 4:14 The Message).  What a way to capture that thought.  And how encouraging when we face so many difficulties in our lives.  We have a well spring within us, gushing LIFE!!

In my current search for the next career situation God has for me, through the loss of a dear family friend rather suddenly, to all those little aches and pains that accompany nearly half a century on this Earth ... I have a connection to LIFE that gushes refreshment and renewal right inside me.  God's Spirit will not fail to provide what I need in absolute abundance.  The emotional comfort, the physical needs ... all of it is taken care of by a God I can trust completely.

Now I realize I've rambled a bit, but I think I gave fair warning about that.  The Crooked Path of life often comes at us in what seems like hyper-speed.  But God's provision - the LIFE in Christ he provides - will always be what we need, when we need it, and in overwhelming abundance.  I may not be able to focus my thoughts all that clearly, but God knows them and knows me completely.

A Little Perspective

About two years ago, I had one of "those" meetings with HR and my manager.  It wasn't a big surprise as there were many changes going on.  Still, it was a change that we had to accept and it meant a more aggressive search for a new job and all that comes with that.  It took about four months to get into something stable and even now, I've not held a "permanent" job since I left that company.

Today is the first day of another journey.  My current contract was not renewed (again, not a big surprise) and we're in that search mode once again.  I've had some bouts of feeling sorry for myself, but they have been tempered by the overwhelming knowledge that I belong to a God for whom nothing comes as a surprise.  And this same God promises to be with me no matter what.  He tells me that instead of worrying, I should bundle up my worry and give it over to him.  It's not an easy thing to do, but I am trying to practice it day by day, hour by hour.

All this puts things in perspective for me.  I have yet to find myself without more than just the bare necessities of life.  In fact, through all of this I have been more than blessed.  Perspective also bids me to look around and see that others suffer in far greater ways.  Once again this week, the headlines are full of truly evil acts.  Phone calls, e-mails, and social media posts tell of others who have greater cause for concern about things that matter far more than my job.

Perspective ... it can be a difficult thing to interpret at times.  I've said before that the Crooked Path makes some rather tight turns and seeing very far ahead just isn't going to happen.  Especially in those times, I need to trust the one who has a far greater perspective of my life and know he loves me deeply and will make his best happen in his own way.

Work In Progress

I've spent more than a few years in multiple industries over the course of my career.  In nearly every one of my situations, there is a concept called WIP or work-in-progress.  It's that intermediate stage that has taken raw "stuff" and begun to make something tangible and planned out of it.  Sometimes there is a little work, sometimes there is a lot.  Either way, it's necessary and it is very intentional.  It isn't the finished state, but it has value as it progresses toward that end.

Paul understood this when he wrote to the Philippians (1:3-6, The Message), "Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God’s Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears."

It is the same with me today.  God is performing good work in me (not just through me) with a purpose he has in mind.  He's doing it so that I will continually be transformed and conformed to the image of Jesus.  It leads to perfection in his divine timing and in the way he defines "perfect".  It means he is going to mold me through the good and bad, redeeming even the most evil things that I encounter.  Even the most terrible is not beyond his ability to bring about his glory in his way.  I don't have to understand it (I rarely do anyway); my job is to trust God and believe he is ultimately good.

The Crooked Path is filled with this work in progress.  As I move through it all, I can take refuge in the knowledge that I do not travel alone.  The work in progress has purpose and the one guiding it does not leave me alone.  He has a specific purpose and the work in me is good always.

Brevity

I read a post from a former teacher this week that gave me cause to stop and think about things that are going on all around me.  Bonnie had received notice about her high school graduating class and remarked how several of them were listed as "deceased".  She added, sadly, that only a couple of those she knew of were believers.

I thought about that post and then about how events in Boston played out ... and it brought me back to the verse in James where we are told out life is as brief as a vapor - as momentary as the mist that hangs in a grove of trees on a Spring morning.  In the perspective of eternity, no matter how long you live or how old you think this Earth might be, what we know and see are mere blips on the radar.  I don't know about you, but this stuff gives me at least the opportunity to re-evaluate my life and, if I let it touch my heart, I take that chance like I did this week.

The thoughts of brevity lead me to other thoughts as well - and these are of great hope in difficult times.  In the Upper Room Discourse, our Master and Friend told his disciples that he would be going away, but that he would not leave them as mere orphans.  They were still in the orphanage with all its trappings, but they were children of God.  Paul emphasized that hope with his writing on our troubles being temporary as well.  He saw through the mist and knew it would lift.  The brevity of our time should be of great comfort if we take that perspective.

It is just that - perspective - that we need to keep as we travel this Crooked Path.  Life is hard at times, but when weighed against the scale that is eternity, the difficulty is brief.  While this gives us hope, it also brings the same perspective my friend Bonnie had when reading that list.  Brevity should go hand in hand with urgency - we want to bring others with us into our Hope.