JD Wetterling, Author.xml

Sunrise, sunset...

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:59:43 -0400

Tevye fiddled on the thatched roof of his house at sunset, singing about the cycles of life and pining for worldly riches. It’s a scene from the stage play, Fiddler on the Roof, that Karen and I saw in London’s West End in 1971. The milkman in early 20th century Tsarist Russia struggled to maintain his family traditions and religion while the world around him was changing rapidly, just like a Christian father in 21st century America.

Funny how some snapshots of life’s experiences are so perfectly preserved in the grey matter and float to the surface at the most opportune times. That mental image revealed itself from the archives during another one that is overwhelming me with God’s grace. This scene is a 10x10-foot tent pitched in Myakka River State Park, Florida, as I lie in a sleeping bag with my wife, 9-year-old son, and 3-year-old daughter beside me. Somewhere in the middle of the night a full moon shined right in my eye through the screen window of the tent, a Hillary (as in Sir Edmund) brand purchased from Sears for the then princely sum of $110. It woke me up. I lay there counting my blessings to the heavy breathing of my sleeping family, which was barely audible above the angry zing of a billion skeeters outside the tent, voicing their frustration at not being able to dine at the smorgasbord of warm Wetterling blood inside.

This Saturday night my thirty-something son and family will be camping in that very same park…same campground…same tent! It’s a life cycle that warms my heart and an investment that is still paying dividends three decades later. My grandson, Logan, has joined the Cub Scouts, a family tradition—his father went all the way to Eagle Scout. I have a number of delightful memories of camping with my son, and I recall how sad I was when he advanced to Boy Scouts and dads could not go along on campouts…unless they were willing to be scout leaders, a civic duty outside the parameters of my personal sloth. These days not just dad but the whole family is invited along when a Cub goes camping, a wonderful idea! Logan is beside himself with anticipation.

I cannot wait to hear all about it next Sunday night. We will be making a quick visit to his home near Naples after a speaking engagement at a Presbyterian Men’s Retreat at Lakewood Retreat in Brooksville, FL, on Saturday and teaching a Sunday School class at Westminster Presbyterian Church in suburban Tampa on Sunday morning. Perhaps you recall I’d rather write and speak than eat. Enroute to Florida we are stopping for a day (Thursday) at the Atlanta RV Show (danger, danger!). I am at least as excited as my grandson at the upcoming adventures of this weekend. God is so gracious to this unworthy and his family!

Confluence

Tue, 4 Sep 2007 07:18:32 -0400

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,
for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

This confluence of outwardly unrelated events happens with some regularity in my life, for the good of my spiritual life if not also my physical life.  Actually I know it works this way in every believer's life. The Navigators Military Ministry held a conference here again at Ridge Haven this Labor Day Weekend.  The vast majority of the group was young soldiers and their families. I took part in more intense conversations—peppered with “Sir”—and overheard more passionate discussion on the great commission (Matt. 28:18-20) by young men with high-and-tight haircuts, than I hear the rest of the year at Ridge Haven by men and women of any other age or hairdo. What an encouragement to this aging passionate patriot/Christian zealot!

Simultaneously two disparate pieces of excellent writing presented themselves before me.  The first was a periodical entitled, The Intake: Journal of the Super Sabre Society, by a newly formed group of ever more doddering former F-100 pilots, of which I am a charter member. The F-100 Super Sabre was the first plane to break the sound barrier in level flight, one of the first widow-makers in the Air Force’s expensive learning curve for pilots and aeronautical engineers of swept-wing supersonic fighter aircraft.  I served in one of the last USAF F-100 squadrons—the 494th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, at RAF Lakenheath, England in 1971-2—long after the lessons about prevention of adverse yaw, unrecoverable flat spins and other such unpleasant esoteric events were learned at catastrophic cost.

Contributing Editor and former F-100 pilot Bob Krone wrote (Summer 2007 edition) about a recent interview between Tom Wolfe, author of The Right Stuff (an American classic about fighter pilots and astronauts—the movie was a classic, too) and a reporter on Fox TV News.  Bob wrote:

He was asked, “Wouldn’t you say that one can also speak of ‘The Right Stuff’ in journalism or in the business world where everybody’s up against tough moments?”

Tom Wolfe replied: “The Right Stuff is a very specific term applied to the code of military pilots who have the moxie to hang their hide over the great gulf of death, be smart enough to bring it back, then go out again tomorrow and do it all over again. People don’t know how dangerous it is just to take off in an F-series airplane.  When a businessman dies it’s usually choking over a hunk of chateaubriand in a classy restaurant.  The Right Stuff has no application to anyone but pilots and astronauts.”

I think it was a pretty presumptuous question from a reporter who apparently did not read the book, but with my forty years of hindsight and God-given sanctification/enlightenment in His providence, I no longer share Wolfe’s eloquent hyperbole—I know “the stuff” was not of my own manufacturing. I also vividly recall, when “the stuff” was not sufficient, the Super Sabre responded in ways that had nothing to do with my adrenaline drenched inputs…or in spite of them. The Apostle Peter drew his sword and was ready to take on the world in Jesus’ presence in the Garden the night he was betrayed (John 18:10), then a few hours later was  a craven coward in the presence of a peasant girl who fingered him as one of Jesus’ followers (John 18:25-27).  Then again, 51 days later, on Pentecost, he was a courageous preacher who delivered one of the most efficacious altar calls in history (Acts 2:14-41). By the grace of God I am what I am…, as Paul told the Corinthians (I Cor. 15:10).

  I also think Wolfe applied the term to far too small a segment of the warrior class.  Robert Kaplan makes that plain in an insightful think-piece for The Atlantic Monthly (August 24, 2007) entitled “Rereading Vietnam,” that also profoundly moved me this weekend.  A better title might have been “Rejudging Vietnam.”  I happen to personally know some of the warriors Kaplan wrote about—Medal of Honor winner Bud Day and the Vietnam era Misty pilots (F-100 pilots)—and I am so grateful that at least one highbrow, highly regarded liberal establishment periodical is finally seeing the light about the debt America owes it warriors in the modern era’s “unpopular wars.” Yes, it would be too much to expect such a secular source to declare that courage in the chaos of combat is a God-given gift to an undeserving nation, but one day we will all understand, we will all be sophisticated theologians (John 16:8), some eternally grateful, some eternally sorry (Matt. 25:31-34).

The soldiers—military laborers—here at Ridge Haven this Labor Day Weekend, many of them Army Rangers, are of that “Right” warrior class, and their courage is simultaneously directed toward another, greater war, the one between good and evil, witnessing to God’s truth in a hostile culture that worships such absurdities as atheism, diversity and politically correctness. By grace it extends to a willingness to die for a citizenry, a significant segment of which, in their self-absorbed rush to judgment, holds them in contempt, both for their career field and their faith.  It is indeed the Right Stuff from the Right Source, the source of all truth and the only Judge that matters. It was a my great blessing to serve them.

Attitude

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:06:39 -0400

We ended two weeks vacation with the blessed birthday celebration of our 1-year-old granddaughter, Anna, in Cincinnati, then returned to the real world just in time for an equally blessed funeral of an 82-year-old saint, Carolyn Boatright, in our church the next day. Life seems nearly that short looking back on the last half-dozen decades. Two weeks of mountaintop and lakeside decompression/contemplation/meditation, after an intense summer, do wonders for one’s priorities. I am sorry I never did it before in my life, but, on the flipside, getting into the daily grind again after a hiatus that long, even in a vineyard in suburban heaven like Ridge Haven, is a major adjustment. Perhaps that is all part of the Divine plan. Only our heavenly rest is eternal, the one saint Carolyn is now adapting to and the one that every Christian looks forward to. Hearing my pastor, Dr. Andy Silman, from the pulpit at the funeral, even at the funeral, after missing him two Sundays, was surely an antidote for an attitude. And this much I know, my Lord and Savior never had and never will have an attitude problem or mood swings, and one could easily argue that, as fully man, He had far better reasons than I. Next week I’ll be more verbose....

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Back to Basics: Ten Days in a Tent

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:40:04 -0400

No phone. No internet. No 112-volt wall outlets. No indoor plumbing. No current Wall Street Journal, just old issues because they make such good kindling for the campfire, twisted tightly. Karen and I agreed it was the greatest vacation of our lives, which says a lot, given our global travels. My reading material was my Bible, J.C. Ryles’ and Martin Lloyd Jones’ devotionals, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and a grim but gripping account of the prosecution of King Charles I (simultaneously with the creation of the Westminster Confession) by a Puritan lawyer named John Cooke, entitled The Tyrannicide Brief (recommended). There were several reading/writing/meditation settings, but the best was under towering hemlocks and rhododendron at water’s edge of Price Lake in Julian Price Memorial Park at mile marker 297 (Tent site A16, nonreserveable, but keep it under your hat and arrive before noon if you want a glimpse of the nearest thing to heaven on earth). In God’s providence we got a fabulous view of it at the base of Calloway Mountain on one of our hikes.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 460-mile-long national park. We lollygagged along a third of it and never got out of North Carolina. The creation of the Parkway, a government program to employ starving men back in the Great Depression days of the 1930’s, may be the best government program ever, a magnificently beautiful legacy to the citizenry of the land of the free for those heirs who spend their time racing the rats down the streets of its crowded cities. We stayed in four different campgrounds on or near the Parkway, explored as many more for future reference, and hiked a few miles of trails nearly every day.

“Back to basics” is a relative term that Daniel Boone, a sojourner in those parts, would scoff at. I lit the campfire with a butane lighter, made the coffee on a two-burner propane camp stove on the concrete picnic table provided, dwelt in a palatial two-room 10x16-foot tent—nap room and screen room (unneeded, praise God) by day, and bedroom and bathroom by night. I blew up the air mattress with a battery-powered air compressor, lit and cooled the place (rarely needed) with a ceiling mounted light/fan. And this one would have blown Daniel’s mind: a cleverly disguised inside porta-potty that eliminates the skeeter bites of nighttime getups, a critical codger issue.

The last time I took a bath in a bucket was in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, in a simulated POW compound, in a box in which I could not quite stand up in…nor lay down in, enroute to the war zone of Southeast Asia 39 years ago. And I wasn’t grilling New York Strips over the campfire back then either.

God is so gracious. My bride and I absorbed His Word at the dawn of every day while simultaneously glorying in the visual feast of His creation—a wonderful worldly-care blocker. I don’t recall a vacation this long or so thoroughly decompressing in my life—a great mistake, I confess.

There is only one negative to this lifestyle. When making of one of my mandatory getups off the floor in the middle of a moonless, starless night in the woods, the interior of a tent is dark as the inside of a cow, a treacherous balancing act for a codger. But an investment matching the new truck can eliminate that, along with the bath in the bucket… and North Carolina’s biggest RV dealer just happened to be along our route home….

By His Grace

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:16:35 -0400

It’s a mountain man’s Cadillac, and it cost more than the only Cadillac I ever owned (back when early business success made yielding to my own ego way too easy). You could say that after six years in these magnificent Blue Ridge Mountains I am finally fully acculturated. It’s a full-sized Ford F150 truck, bottom-of-the-line styling but with the big Triton 5.4L V8 suck/blow. That phrase is fighter pilot lingo for a hot jet engine, but actually it just feels that way after driving a bottom-of-the-line 2.2L, 4 cylinder Chevy S-10 for the last 12 years. I’m gonna have to learn to get a light touch on the gas pedal—that monster keeps trying to get out from under me. That Ford, my lord, is a towing moe-sheen with 300 horses that will lug an 8800 pound RV past just a few more gas stations than it will stop at.

It happened this way. We get lots of RV visitors at Ridge Haven. Many of them belong to SOWERS, a wonderful organization of RV’ers who work at non-profits around the country in return for free RV hookups. There are a handful of similar organizations, and some folks just do it on their own, like our favorite RV servant/saints—Cliff and Barbara Mudge, retired farmers. Our tent campground is named Mudgeville in honor of all their hard work as unto the Lord there. These saints put the lie to Emerson’s observation that travel is a fool’s paradise. Sowers always ask us to lead them in daily devotions at the start of their abbreviated work day, so 2-3 of us rotate in that divine duty, often in their RV’s. Thus I see the inside of a lot of RV’s…and now you can figure out the rest of this story.

We decided a travel trailer, versus fifth wheel or motorhome, would fit our “needs” best, and they require something bigger that an S-10 to tow them, if you want one big enough for two people to turn around in. Well, truck marketing is all about meeting ego needs. The vast majority of new trucks that roll off a dealer’s lot in these mountains is a gargantuan 4-wheel-drive, four-door, “crew cab” with as many extra’s as the dealer’s finance man will allow, and they can pull more than the John Deere I learned to drive on back in the last century, and they cost more than my first house. I see many of them parked in front of western North Carolina houses or singlewides that appear to cost less than the truck. I get off-road a bit as a Resident Manager of Ridge Haven, but in a mostly sane manner and have never gotten stuck in my 4 cylinder 2WD S-10, and snow is minimal in these here southern slopes of the Appalachians, so I have never found a need for the expensive, gas-economy-killing gears required for 4WD. I had to drive 65 miles down into the foothills of South Carolina to find a dealer with a new no-frills-work-truck with 2-wheel-drive.

I researched the used truck market but quickly learned that basic work trucks get used for…uh…actual work, and get driven till the crankshaft quits cranking. Though I’ve bought very few vehicles in my life, I long ago learned that model-year-end is the season when dealers deal most agreeably for new vehicles, especially after a gas-price-induced bad season for gas hogs like this past one. And the “instant depreciation” of owning last year’s model is a non-economic issue if your drive them long enough.

After some preliminary email and phone conversation we walked into the dealership with fear and trepidation, steeled for a high pressure pitch, and met a low key Christian young man who made it almost joyful to write a big check for a depreciating asset.

On the way home I stopped at the truck accessory store, ordered a cap for the bed, and made one impulse buy over which I agonized not one second—a $30 stainless steel plate for the front license plate holder that says, “By His Grace.” That says it all. Just as that truck requires continual copious quantities of gas to keep going, so do I require continual copious quantities of grace through Christ in whom I live and move and have my being.

As you read this we’re breaking it in on the Blue Ridge Parkway for the next couple of weeks, stopping at every overlook and every tent campground, and hiking every trail in God’s creation we can between Mt. Pisgah and Stone Mountain State Park up near the Virginia border. God willing, two weeks in our 10X16 foot two-room tent with screen room, costing less than two tanks of gas for that new truck, will take the irrationality out of the RV research….

Reign of Grace

Tue, 7 Aug 2007 09:04:28 -0400

My bride and I sat on a rocky ledge at 6000 feet, our feet dangling over the edge, above the tree line and just below the brow of Black Balsam Knob. We were celebrating the end of the summer harvest season at Ridge Haven, 2/3 of a mile below and 7 miles south, as the falcon flies, of our semi-private picnic spot. Our famous Appalachian blue was particularly opaque. The twelve ridgelines/four states view was limited to two ridges and a portion of Transylvania County from our granite perch in a “bald” of wildflowers in two shades of yellow atop broadleaf greenery. Air traffic was heavy and noisy, from basso profundo buzz to a high whine as all kinds of air freight carriers lugged loads of pollen from feast to feast. We co-existed famously with our not always friendly fellow creatures. Give a bee a field of wildflowers and a human cannot provoke him to sting. Perhaps it is because his leg sacs are so full he cannot squat to apply his stinger…or perhaps he is just too happy to be provoked in his field of dreams.

In all my years of marveling at nature up close, I’ve never seen a mid-air collision of God’s flying creatures. Even the silent butterflies, likewise enjoying the yellow smorgasbord, never collide with other air traffic in spite of their seemingly erratic flight paths. I wonder what kind of radar God gives these creatures. Their pinhead-sized (or smaller) brains are better than human ones in that regard. And how do the bees fly, violating all the rules of aerodynamics taught in engineering schools? And whence cometh the strength to flap their wings so fast they sound like a propeller? It’s simple in reality: With my new heart and eyes to see (John 3:3), my Creator is gloriously self-evident in endless details of His magnificent creation. Any other explanation is a lie.

I lay back and stared straight up at blue sky thru tall grass. What a worshipful perspective for a temporarily earthbound mortal enroute to a heavenly home. Blindingly white ragged clouds tumbled and swirled in all directions in the mountain air currents and eddies. The sun peeked out from behind churning cumulus billows and steamed the sweat off my T-shirt. High overhead a buzzard glided upward in tight circles inside a thermal. I could barely make him out, though he was probably counting my chin whiskers and trying to judge, from the aroma of my T-shirt, how long before I’d be lunch. I sat back up and met the caress of a cooling zephyr just above the tall grass.

A mile away, from ten to two o’clock low, the silver ribbon of the Blue Ridge Parkway snaked thru the variously vertical greenery of our near-rainforest. Closer in, hikers with half-legs emerged from the evergreen tree line and meandered up the knee-deep mountainside trails worn by years of foot traffic and gully-washing rains. The occasional distant shrieks of happy school children on guided nature hikes were the only other human sounds aside from the superlative-laced conversation of us two lovers on the ledge. Superlatives in spite of dozens of Kodak moments in these mountains in the last six years. It wasn’t just from the visual stimulus. There is a soul-deep sense of the nearness of God in such a setting, as mysterious and overpowering as the Triune God Himself, that only the elect can know, invoking a humble adoration that saves all the superlatives for the King of Kings, whose love and mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22-3). This past summer I concluded my summer camper teaching with the admonition, “Don’t ever quit being amazed at grace!” When God’s reign of grace allows one to live in a wilderness cathedral like this, no effort is needed to comply.

Danger Danger!

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:08:35 -0400

The Croc Man, Steve Irwin, pronounced it “dine-ger dine-ger” in his inimitable Aussie accent before that very danger did him in at an early age. My grandchildren introduced me to his TV show and I enjoyed it as much as they and a few million other souls did. I recalled his warning voice as I read my devotions this past weekend. I never cease to be amazed at how often Divine Grace schedules my daily devotional readings, written years ago, with events occurring in my life today that require precisely those truths.

I was basking in the afterglow of a successful summer camp program at Ridge Haven, remembering many precious moments and trying to tally in my mind how many young hearts were changed by God’s grace. It was also a time to catch up on some periodical reading, and World’s July 28, 2007, cover story caught my eye: Big Bucks Ministries. The story was an embarrassment to me as a Christian, to use a polite word, as it detailed the private lives of televangelists who lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous while refusing to publicly account for their stewardship of viewer donations.

“How ready Christians are to be puffed up with success!”  J.C. Ryle said in his Daily Readings From All Four Gospels, expounding on Luke 10:17-20.  It could not have been more timely for my correction and sanctification. “Let it, however, never be forgotten that the time of success is a time of danger to the Christian’s soul…. Then is the time that the seeds of evil are sown in us by the devil which may one day astound us by their growth and strength. There are few Christians that can carry a full cup with a steady hand.”

I rushed immediately to judgment of the puffed up big bucks boys (and girls). How dare they live such lavish, self-indulgent lives on the backs of many widows’ mites. Don’t they know that the lives they live drown out the words of the sermons they preach? But then Jesus’ words struck at my heart:

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:17-20).

The seventy-two exulted in what they knew was God’s power given to them—…subject to us in your name. Jesus’ comment, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, was his way of saying he saw their success, then he reaffirmed that it was his power given to them that made it happen. Matthew Henry infers an “only” in Jesus’ next sentence—do not rejoice in this [only]… but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Ryle explains it even better: “Gifts and [even] the power of working miracles are very inferior to grace…. The disciples were right to be thankful. But it was a far higher privilege to be converted and pardoned men and to have their names written in the register of saved souls.”

Being used of God in the lives of other people is heady stuff, and the danger of self-exaltation and self-satisfaction is very real, as World magazine sadly details. But our own wisdom and might, absent grace, procure no victory. It is God’s Word, applied to hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit, that wins souls.  Salvation, a gift for which no one is worthy, no one can earn, is of the Lord from first to last. That is what Jesus called his disciples, and televangelists and teachers today, to rejoice in (Luke 10:20).

“In the midst of our triumphs let us cry to God for humility” (J.C. Ryle).

Four Point Rolls Over Ridge Haven

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:57:08 -0400

We are in the seventh and last week of summer camp at Ridge Haven.  Teaching campers has been the most wonderful experience in my six years in this Wilderness Cathedral, which were already the best six of my life.  I look forward to my classes this week as enthusiastically as the first.  And of course the teacher always learns more than anyone else…on a subject I thought I already knew pretty well.  God’s grace is amazing. His Word is living…sanctifying.

The challenge this summer has been to effectively communicate with youth from age 8 to 18 simultaneously.  This is the first summer we have tried combining worship for all age groups into one, and we were not without naysayers, some of whom chose to stay on the sidelines when we planned it.  I’ll have to wait till the end-of-summer debrief to get the collective opinion of savvier folks than I as to its effectiveness.  From where I stood, all ages seemed to be paying attention. Any experienced speaker can tell if he has his audience or not.  Either there is roomful of statues or a fidgeting, whispering, elbowing milieu of uninterested adolescents.  One or twice this summer I noted a few cases of sleep deprivation winning out over my words, but on balance they were statues.  And the comments after class or as I signed kids’ books were just worth more to me than 100% royalties in any currency.

But retention is the acid test of teaching, and the votes on that may not be in till long after the T-shirts are worn out and the “scruffy-bearded codger” who taught has joined the church eternal…and it’s in God’s hands, not the teacher’s anyway.  I worked at creating mnemonic devices with the objective that God’s word eternally etched in an 8-year-old mind may, God willing, one day be understood, even if it is beyond comprehension when heard. My own experience with catechism class and worship liturgies from the Psalms as a kid in a heartland Swedish Lutheran church has made me a believer in the classical model of learning. Interestingly, of all of Luther’s catechism I memorized, I remember none, but of Scripture, the memorized verses still come to mind right when I need them the most, without my immediately realizing they have been retrieved from 50-year-old grey matter archives.

One device I used with the aid of my PowerPoint videos.  I introduced the first one by explaining what a 4-point roll is in an airplane, then showed what it would look like from the cockpit of a jet fighter using aerial photographs of the Ridge Haven horizon.  Then, at the end of each study of one of Jesus’ No one… quotes ,we did a 4-point roll with that quote superimposed on the picture from the cockpit.  The kids then shouted out the quote every time it appeared on the screen  Go here and use your imagination now, as this is not a PowerPoint slide show.

Well, anyway, it seemed to hold their attention, and God willing it is in their hearts and minds for the ages.  This Friday we’ll do our last 4-point roll over Ridge Haven and I’ll be doing victory rolls into some vacation time. That Super Sabre I flew so long ago has served me again, long after it ended up in the USAF bone yard in the Arizona desert.  But, better by far, I’ll be spending eternity in the company of my Super Savior and—please dear God—as many of my 750 students from the summer of ’07 as your sovereign grace allows.

One Woman's Witness

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:15:42 -0400

For the fifth year in a row it was my great joy, this past week at Ridge Haven, to serve missionaries just home from the field at the Mission to the World Summer Conference. I’ve made many friends through this conference and many other MTW gatherings, but none dearer than Paul and Jan Kooistra. Paul heads MTW, one of the best run missionary operations anywhere and the most financially sound agency of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), while Jan bears a quiet but no less shining witness to her Lord and Savior. This is Jan’s story, told at the women’s luncheon while the men and children enjoyed a cookout:

When Steve Collins asked me if I would give the devotional at this luncheon, the answer came quickly and easily—No! I’m not a public speaker…getting up in front of a group absolutely terrifies me!  But the Holy Spirit started talking to me just as quickly. In essence, He said, “Jesus went to the cross for you, you know.” He did not have to say more and here I am, in front of you. I could do no other.

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the prayers you have offered up on my behalf, as well as prayers for my husband and family. Those prayers have given us the strength and encouragement to keep on keeping on, to trust in the only wise God and to love Him the more as we walk through our Gethsemane. Because this is way out of my comfort zone, this is probably more a sharing of my life than it is a devotional.

Everyone knows, I’m sure, that I’ve been living with metastatic breast cancer for almost 4.5 years now. It’s the one word, in any language, that strikes fear in everyone. The original diagnosis in 1995 was frightening, but after 2 surgeries and 5 years of oral medication life returned to what seemed “normal.” We had almost forgotten that I HAD cancer. But then….
A scan revealed a lump on my clavicle. A doctor palpated my neck one Monday afternoon and said, “I can tell you right now, you’ve got cancer!”  And he left the room. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. We went home in shock, returning the next week for more biopsies and scans. And he was right. It was metastatic breast cancer, which is incurable—I would be kept alive as long as possible.

My mind was numb and at the same time in a whirl. I wanted to grow old with my husband. I wanted to see my grandchildren grow up to love and serve the Lord. I didn’t want my aged mother to have to watch her daughter die, nor did I want my children to have to watch. I wasn’t ready to leave this world. And the questions that raced through my mind…. Who would take care of my husband? Wash his clothes…iron his shirts…cook his dinner…pay the bills…make sure the taxes were paid…and on and on I would go.

All that took about another week, but then the word spread and we started hearing from people all over the world. It was obvious they were all praying, for we found peace—peace in knowing we were in the loving arms of the Lord Jesus. Peace that could not be conjured on our own, peace that only He can give. Peace in knowing that God was in control.

And so the endless trips to Winship Cancer Center, this doctor, that doctor, this scan, that scan, this chemo, that chemo. Some chemo’s worked, some did not. Cancer is tricky—it changes properties. There were hospital stays for blood clots in my lungs, a long bout in the hospital after finding that my liver did not have the enzymes needed to metabolize the chemo I was taking at the time. It destroyed the mucus membranes, from my lips and mouth all the way down through my intestinal tract. That was a very frightening time, though again, knowing I was in the hollow of His hand brought the peace that can only come from Him.

There are those in the medical field who have urged me to join their support group and can’t understand why I decline. My family is my great support, and of course the faithful prayers of so many. Frankly, it has amazed and humbled me to hear of the people who have not tired of praying for me, so many that have prayed daily and continue to do so.

Paul Jr., our son. moved his wife and 3 little girls from St. Louis to within 5 miles just so they could be near us. He is always full of questions about the latest treatment, cat scan or bone scan. He’s fed us many of his gourmet creations, gives great hugs and calls just to say, “I love you, Mom.” His wife is always ready to run errands for me or bring her famous chicken and cheese soup. And who can resist a 2-year-old’s sloppy kiss on the cheek, two chubby hands holding your face and the words, “MY gramma.” Or watching her 6-year-old sister push herself to the limit on her swim team to bring home a first place ribbon.

Shary, in St. Louis, calls daily and keeps me posted on Sam’s Little League games and Maggie’s last craft project. Though I think she finds it difficult to talk about my cancer, I know she is daily in prayer for me and would cheerfully run the vacuum or clean the bathroom for me if she were about 600 miles closer.

Sidney, who is here with me today, was living with us from last Christmas until just a couple of weeks ago, when she and her husband found the house the Lord had for them to move into. She has been a great help with cooking meals, being my personal nurse, and ever my cheerleader. Their children have kept me smiling with questions like, “Gramma, is your hair falling off?” Or when 8-year-old Alysia, upon asking me to remove the scarf covering my bald head, gave me her most horrified look and then quickly wrapped me up in her arms and said, “You’re still beautiful to me, Gramma.”

And of course my husband. THE example of “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” His constant prayers, love and encouragement have been unfailing. And he’s learned how to use the washing machine, where to find the vacuum cleaner, and has advanced his culinary skills way beyond peanut butter sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs. Other than my own salvation, he is God’s greatest gift to me.

The Lord has given me a wonderful doctor. Though not a Christian, he is the most caring and compassionate man. He never enters or leaves the room without a hug…for both of us. Believe me, he has heard much about the Lord, and though he’s  firm humanist, the seeds have been and are being planted.

The nurse who has taken care of me week after week is a Christian and has become a dear friend. In the unbelievable maze of Winship Cancer Center, she has cut through many obstacles for us and made our trek through that maze a little easier. Unfortunately for us, she was recently promoted to Assistant Director and we are now left to God’s divine intervention in other ways.

We’ve become friends with the pharmacist there, who is a Christian and very active in mission work in Kenya.

Of course there are those around me in the other chemo chairs. Some know the Lord, others do not. We meet their loved ones, we share stories, we weep together, we rejoice together, we laugh together. We share terrible chemo jokes, like “Why don’t they have an express lane at the grocery store for cancer patients? After all, we don’t have as much time as other people.” Or, more seriously, we questions things like, “Should I buy a new pair of shoes? After all, will I be here to wear them?” It’s amazing the things you think and talk about when you have cancer.

Sometimes I go in and find that one of those friends has died. Those are really bad days. I’ve known one who left life with no interest in the Lord whatsoever, another who claimed to once know Him but over time rejected Him, and one who was filled with the love of his Savior and was a testimony of God’s love and care until his home going.

It is very fascinating as God weaves the fabric of my life, bringing His people, and some who are not, to minister to me in a variety of ways. And if God has used me in any way in that place, then it is my privilege to be there.

So, how do I walk with cancer day by day, week by week, month after month and year after year? First of all, I take one day at a time. I remember the blessings throughout my life. I remember how good life has been…and still is. I remember that I was not created for this world, but for eternal life in heaven, with my God and King. As the old spiritual aptly says, “this world is not my home, I’m just passin’ through.”

I remember Tim Keller once said, “Never, never, never think that God is not at work because you cannot see it. And never, ever, ever, ever think you can figure out what God is doing.”
Do I ever have fears, do I have doubts, do I have anxiety? Of course…there are moments, hours, and sometimes days  when I wonder if I can keep going. I am human, I am frail, I am imperfect and in constant need of the Savior. I need to begin every day anew with Jesus. He is my comfort, my strength, my peace. And I remember  Psalm 139. “You formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother’s womb…your eyes saw my unformed substance, in your book were written, everyone of them, the days that were formed for me.” I remember Moses telling Joshua, “be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
I remember John 14:1-3. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” I remember Isaiah 26:3. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”  And I remember Psalms 31:14-15a. “But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hand….”

Amen.

The Brook is Drying Up

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:35:53 -0400

“And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. (1 Kings 17:7)

Some days the news is so grim I’m sorry I read it. Monday morning was one of them. Only Phil Johnson’s blog, Pyromaniac, on the above scripture rescued my attitude. The New York Times, in a front page editorial, declared with glee that the President is beginning to loose his own party’s support for helping a major Mideast nation nurture its precious American-blood-bought freedom. A fledgling USA had a second major war with England 36 years after its War of Independence, enroute to the world’s longest running experiment in government by the people, but a transition from decades of bloody despotism to democracy must happen in a relative heartbeat or liberal politicians want outta there at any price. God-forbid that Iraq joins Vietnam, Beirut, and Somalia on the list of American allies abandoned on the battlefield by the world’s greatest superpower. In some cave on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border there must be much laughter. The terrorists knew all along that the most potent weapon against a few hundred billion dollars worth of military might was the most basic of human attributes—will power. The most heinous attack on American in its history wreaked horrible death and multi-bullion dollar destruction with nothing more than cardboard box cutters as the highest tech weapon, at less cost than a  load of GPS guided bombs on one F-16, and suicidal willpower.

History reveals national prosperity breeds hubris, sloth, decadence and weak wills. That is overwhelmingly obvious to the most causal objective observer, friend or foe, of Europe and American culture today. Rome, the former great superpower, in the fifth century was rotten within when the barbarians approached the gate, making it a walkover for an inferior force with willpower far short of suicidal.

Old Testament Israel was in similar self-induced straits when Elijah’s life-sustaining brook ran dry, but he had God-given willpower, a living faith chronicled in the Bible as a testimony to all mankind, that God’s grace is sufficient for the day, one day at a time. The MSM’s penchant for ballyhooing bad news ignores God’s grace still at work in the world. In spite of the liberal conceit that the Middle East is not ready for democracy, a tiny nation a few hundred miles south of Iraq and 100 miles west of Iran in the Persian Gulf is demonstrating otherwise. The small island nation of Bahrain, with a 98% Muslim indigenous population, a Shi’a/Sunni Muslim mix similar to Iraq—the supposed oil and water combination that ostensibly prevents freedom’s success there—and a 34% foreign population (half of whom are non-Muslim), is thriving economically as a constitutional monarchy, with both male and female suffrage and relatively persecution-free religion. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom rates it “one of the most open economies in the world” over the last decade. A US military presence—US Fifth Fleet Headquarters—on 79 downtown acres in the nation’s largest city, lives in peace with the population.

But long before the US Navy (in 1944) and even big oil companies (in the late 1920’s) arrived in Bahrain, a handful of Dutch Reformed American missionary doctors arrived in 1893 and built the American Mission Hospital in 1903. It thrives without headlines to this day. The Holy Spirit requires no MSM support—he is efficacious where he wills. AMH’s mission statement proclaims it’s power source, and it is not the point of a sword: “American Mission Hospital maintains a century-long commitment to provide quality, affordable medical services to all who seek our care, to carefully manage the process by which quality care is delivered, and to embody the Biblical principles of grace, truth and love.”  It is demonstrating to the world that Christians can serve Muslims in love and work together in peace in the Middle East, that the greatest sermon a Christian can ever preach is the life he lives. If those pioneering Dutch Reformed missionary doctors could return from the grave they would not call today’s free Bahrain and AMH’s century-old compassionate commitment to Biblical truths an historic coincidence.

America’s influence in the world may well wane, the ocean will ebb and flow, brooks may run dry, depraved mankind will kill with hate till the end of time, but God’s grace and truth and love will endure forever.

To a Wayward Soul

Tue, 3 Jul 2007 13:52:18 -0400

I believe one can speak from the grave…if he is a writer. By God’s grace I have been far more edified by dead writers who loved the Lord than contemporary writers on any subject. During this intense harvest season at Ridge Haven, amid the turbulence of a fallen world, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, a young 19th century Scottish pastor, in his memoirs, has been stirring the depths of my soul and speaking to me right where I hurt. Perhaps you hurt in the same place, or know someone who does…. M’Cheyne wrote this letter to “a youthful parishioner, for whose soul he felt much anxiety.”
“Larbert [Scotland], August 8, 1836

My dear G,

You will be surprised to hear from me. I have often wished to be better acquainted with you; but in these sad parishes we cannot manage to know and be intimate with everyone we would desire. And now you have left your father’s roof and our charge; still my desires go after you, as well as the kind thoughts of many others; and since I cannot now speak to you, I take this way of expressing my thoughts to you. I do not know in what light you look upon me, whether as a grave and morose minister, or as one who might be a companion and friend; but really, it is so short a while since I was just like you, when I enjoyed the games you now enjoy, and read the books you now read, that I can never think of myself as anything more than a boy. This is one great reason why I write to you. The same youthful blood flows in my veins that flows in yours, the same fancies and buoyant passions dance in my bosom as yours; so that when I would persuade you to come with me to the same Saviour, and to walk the rest of your life ‘led by the Spirit of God,’ I am not persuading you to anything beyond your years. I am not like a grey-headed grandfather,—then you might answer all I say by telling me that you are a boy. No; I am almost as much a boy as you are; as fond of happiness and of life as you are; as fond of scampering over the hills, and seeing all that is to be seen, as you are.
Another thing that persuades me to write you, my dear boy, is, that I felt in my own experience the want of having a friend to direct and counsel me. I had a kind brother, as you have, who taught me many things. He gave me a Bible and persuaded me to read it; he tried to train me as a gardener trains the apple tree upon the wall; but all in vain. I thought myself far wiser than he and would always take my own way; and many a time, I well remember, I have seen him reading his Bible, or shutting his closet door to pray, when I had been dressing to go to some frolic, or some dance of folly. Well, this dear friend and brother died; and though his death made a greater impression on me than ever his life had done, still I found the misery of being friendless. I do not mean that I had no relations and worldly friends, for I had many; but I had not a friend who cared from my soul. I had none to direct me to the Saviour—none to awaken my slumbering conscience—none to tell me about the blood of Jesus washing away all sin—none to tell of the Spirit who is so willing to change the heart and give the victory over passions. I had no minister to take me by the hand and say, ‘Come with me and we will do thee good.’ Yes, I had one friend and minister, but that was Jesus Himself, and He led me in a way that makes me give Him, and Him only, all the praise. Now, though Jesus may do this again, yet the more common way with Him is to use earthly guides. Now if I could supply the place of such a guide to you, I should be happy. To be a finger-post is all that I want to be—pointing out the way. This is what I so much wanted myself; this is what you need not want, unless you wish.

Tell me, dear G., would you work less pleasantly through the day—would you walk the streets with a more doleful step—would you eat your meat with less gladness of heart—would you sleep less tranquilly at night—if you had the forgiveness of sins, that is, if all your wicked thoughts and deeds—lies, thefts and Sabbath-breakings—were all blotted out of God’s book of remembrance? Would this make you less happy, do you think? You dare not say it would. But would the forgiveness of sins not make you more happy than you are? Perhaps you will tell me that you are very happy as you are. I quite believe you. I know that I was very happy when I was unforgiven. I know that I had great pleasure in my sins—in Sabbath-breaking, for instance. Many a delightful walk I have had—speaking my own words, thinking my own thoughts, and seeking my own pleasure on God’s holy day. I fancy few boys were ever happier in an unconverted state that I was. No sorrow clouded my brow—no tears filled my eyes, unless over some nice storybook; so that I know that you say quite true when you say that you are happy as you are. But ah! is not this just the saddest thing of all, that you should be happy whilst you are a child of wrath—that you should smile, and eat, and drink, and be merry, and sleep sound when this very night you may be in hell? Happy while unforgiven!—a terrible happiness. It is like the Hindu widow who sits upon the funeral pile with her dead husband, and sings songs of joy when they are setting the fire to the wood with which she is to be burned. Yes, you may be quite happy in this way, till you die, my boy; but when you look back from hell you will say it was a miserable kind of happiness. Now do you not think it would give you more happiness to be forgiven—to be able to put on Jesus and say, ‘God’s anger is turned away?’ Would you not be happier at work, and happier in the house, and happier in your bed? I can assure you, from all that I have ever felt of it, the pleasures of being forgiven are as superior to the pleasures of an unforgiven man, as heaven is higher that hell. The peace of being forgiven reminds me of the calm, blue sky, which no earthly clamors can disturb. It lightens all labor, sweetens every morsel of bread, and makes a sick bed all soft and downy; yea, it takes away the scowl of death. Now, forgiveness may be yours now. It is not given to those who are good. It is not given to any because they are less wicked than others. It is given only to those who, feeling that their sins have brought a curse on them which they cannot lift off, ‘look unto Jesus,’ as bearing all away.

Now, my dear boy, I have no wish to weary you. If you are anything like what I was, you will have yawned many a time over this letter. However, if the Lord deal graciously with you, and touches your young heart, as I pray He may, with a desire to be forgiven, and to be made a child of God, perhaps you will not take ill what I have written to you in much haste. As this is the first time you have been away from home, perhaps you have not learned to write letters yet; but if you have, I would like to hear from you, how you come on—what convictions you feel , if you feel any—what difficulties, what parts of the Bible puzzle you, and then I would do my best to unravel them. You read your Bible regularly, of course; but do try and understand it and still more, to feel it. Read more parts than one at a time. For example, if you are reading Genesis, read a psalm also; or, if you are reading Matthew, read a small bit of an Epistle also. Turn the Bible into prayer. Thus, if you were reading the First Psalm, spread the Bible on the chair before you, and kneel, and pray, ‘O Lord, give me the blessedness of the man,’ etc. ‘Let me not stand in the counsel of the ungodly,’ etc. This is the best way of knowing the meaning of the Bible, and of learning to pray. In prayer confess your sins by name—going over those of the past day, one by one. Pray for your friends by name—father, mother, etc. etc. If you love them, surely you will pray for their souls. I know well that there are prayers constantly ascending for you from you house; and will you not pray for them back again? Do this regularly. If you pray sincerely for others, it will make you pray for yourself.

But I must be done. Good-bye, dear G. Remember me to your brother kindly, and believe me your sincere friend,
R. M. M.

Memoir and Remains of R. M. M’Cheyne, First published 1847. First Banner of Truth Trust edition, reprinted from the 1892 edition 1966, ISBN 0 85151 084 1, page 47-50 .
________________________________________

The LORD's Battle

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:11:46 -0400

Ridge Haven summer camp is not yet half over—three weeks down, four to go—but I can say with conviction that teaching the Doctrines of Grace in Jesus’ own words to kids four days a week has been the highlight of my life at Ridge Haven. I will not soon forget the summer of ’07.  The thrill of dancing the wild blue with a supersonic angel, the adrenalin rush of jinking in the crosshairs of the enemy, and the exhilaration of being shot at and missed, were never like this. To be used of God in the lives of children, to see in vivid, knee-knocking real-time the Holy Spirit’s power to change a life, is to be blessed by God beyond all expectation or deserving.

Never has it been more apparent to me that the battle belongs to the LORD, that it is God’s Word, not mine, applied to depraved hearts, that transforms lives. Harvest time in full swing at Ridge Haven has drawn the attention of the evil one, as is often the case. The devil only counter-attacks where he is loosing the battle. Other responsibilities I have as a member of the family of God have intruded at the most inopportune time. The fruit of human shortcomings producing serious problems that appear to have no solution absent a powerful dose of Amazing Grace, have kept me sleeplessly staring up into the dark of the night from my bed and thwarted my focus in class. This week I stepped on my tongue, drew blanks in the middle of key points, mangled syntax, and contradicted myself, disrupting the flow of God’s truth to eager, enthusiastic young minds, and yet…and yet God used it all efficaciously for His glory.

If only I spent as much time on my knees in prayer as I spent this week getting down on the kids’ level to write a verse of scripture and sign their copy of my book and give them a brief word of encouragement. It took maximum self-discipline not to hug every one, kiss every cheek, but even in a church camp such is not prudent in this darkening PC culture.

I had hoped that after three weeks my presentation would be so set that I could relax between sessions, but such has not been the case. Thoughts for improvement flood my mind and I can’t wait till the next class to try them out. When lamenting the lack of a respite in the intensity and my constant editing of my lessons, my associate, Pastor Curt, relieved me of that naïve expectation. He said, “Of course!  The Word of God is living!”  Now I understand more fully what the Puritan divines were driving at when they spoke of the “experimental [experiential] acquaintance with the grace of God.”

The week’s classes ended with my prayer that all the kids there—177 of them—might remember Jesus’ No one… declarations long after they had forgotten the old codger in the scruffy beard who taught them. After class a young lad came up, shyly stuck out his hand and said, “I would never call you a scruffy codger.”  He received a man-to-man handshake and a watery-eyed “thank you” in return.
* * *
Note: The heart of my friend, Emery Bunn, quit hurting and his faith became sight last Thursday at 4 p.m.  His daughter, Anne, told me he lived out what I wrote about him (Candy Man) to his last breath.  The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD (Job 1:21).

Dad's Day Grace

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:42:19 -0400

Another week of amazing grace and kids—spiritual grandchildren in class all week, culminating with some hearts born again by God’s amazing grace, and five of my own flesh-and-blood grandchildren, all together for the first time in their lives for Father’s Day Weekend at Grandpa’s house in the mountains. I am truly blessed. God willing, some forever memories were made in more than just Grandpa’s mind.

The night before Father’s Day we camped out with the oldest 4 grandchildren, one girl and three boys aged 6 to 2.  The key to successful tent camping with young grandchildren is exhausting activities, full bellies, dads along—my son and son-in-law, better fathers than I ever was—for loving discipline at bedtime, the acid test of parenting, and a big tent. In all, seven souls in a tent made for 12.

Saturday afternoon began with a family hike to our favorite waterfall, followed by climbing Ridge Haven’s new “Bouldering Wall.” Supper was another outdoor adventure—brats and wieners roasted over an open fire using whittled maple branches (as opposed to those metal branding irons you get at the hardware store) followed by S’mores till there were no more. Exhausted little bodies and full tummies quickly overcame the excitement of the first-ever sleepover in the woods with grandpa and the cousins. Having a tent already pitched, part of Ridge Haven’s Great Adventure summer camping program was a significant part of the blessing for Grandpa. It seemed no time at all after hitting the sleeping bag atop the air mattress that all I heard was the night music of the woods and a babbling brook. God was gracious and I slept like the dead!

Next morning I slipped out of the tent at twilight, got the fire and the coffee going and stretched out alone in a folding camp chair with footrest, an incredibly comfortable high-end ($15) piece of camp furniture.  Looking up from my reclining position at blue sky through 100-foot-tall pines, their tops drenched in sunlight, while listening to an ecstatic avian choir of yodeling wood thrushes high above, accompanied by the crackle and pop of burning pine pitch at my feet, is about as worshipful a setting as you can find anywhere on a Lord’s Day dawn.

  Then a small blond angel came stumbling sleepily across the forest floor from the tent.
Heaven-sent Hope is the most prayed over baby in the family tree. She arrived three weeks early, after a few dry runs to the hospital, just before midnight on July 24, 2002, after a high risk pregnancy—prenatal tests indicated Downs Syndrome and only one umbilical cord, an indicator of a dreadful list of possible maladies.  It was then that her prostrate parents called on their only hope and proclaimed this tenuous life would be a testament to their faith in her merciful Creator. Her name would be Hope…and God blessed us with a perfectly healthy little girl.

Dragging a well-used security blanket, she wordlessly climbed into my lap by the fire to get warm. All the worst days I ever had as a parent, combined, were worth it for that one cuddly moment by a campfire in the woods at dawn on Dad’s Day with my beloved grandchild. Thank you, Lord.

The Voice of Angels

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:28:02 -0400

I heard angels sing this week. What glorious music it was, and in God’s providence, what perfect timing! This week John MacArthur’s jolting National Day of Prayer message—“A Nation [the USA!]Abandoned by God”—got worldwide dissemination through the Focus on the Family daily radio program. Dr. Del Tackett’s blog, Truth Observed, headlined it with a three-day blog follow-up entitled, When God Abandons a People. Everyone who calls himself a Christian needs to hear and read these messages. No one who reads the Bible and follows the daily news can deny that the USA is going down the road of Old Testament Israel, or that our culture is a high-tech replay of Sodom and Gomorrah. And MacArthur anchors his assertion of Divine abandonment solidly in scripture.

MacArthur did not leave us without hope, Christians never are and good preachers constantly remind them, but in my beloved Blue Ridge Mountains I got an extraordinary antidote—the voice of angels. It was my first week of teaching Ridge Haven Summer Campers from my book, No one…. I was prepared to teach, more so perhaps than anything I have very taught, but I was not prepared for such enthusiastically teachable children. Summer camp is not Sunday School. With God’s grace and long hours of planning, preparation, and training of godly counselors, Ridge Haven summer camp is a 24/7 immersion in the kingdom of God. The beauty of God’s creation in this magnificent wilderness cathedral, passionate worship leaders, and doctrinally-sound great music all put the kids in a teachable mindset, and I was the recipient of all that hard work. There were more frantically waving hands in the air than I could respond to and still achieve my lessons objectives in the allotted time.

I’m using a lot of PowerPoint visuals in my teaching, but without all the distracting bells and whistles and fancy fades and spins—just Jesus’ plain and simple language—a visual reinforcement to the verbal communication of God’s word to aid recitation and retention.

Kids love stories—“felicitous illustrations,” Andrew Bonar called them—that illustrate God’s truth. The challenge is to keep the story short, vivid and complimentary, not dominant, to imbed truth by grace in nascent grey matter. Spurgeon is my mentor here. He could find Jesus in every verse of scripture and a vivid felicitous illustration in the most mundane detail of daily life.

But the angelic visitations occurred after class and in the informal moments of the week, when, for example, a seraphic smile framed with black pigtails tentatively approached and said, “Mr. Wetterling, I like your class,” then proceeded to tell me how God was working in her heart, melting mine in the process. I got down on one knee to better look her in the eye…and because my knees were weak.

My wife tells me I can be an intimidating codger. God willing, a summer’s worth of this angelic antidote will put an end to such off-putting arrogance. Perhaps I learned more than the children did this week….

John MacArthur may well be right that God has abandoned America, in fact I think he is—God has. There is abundant evidence pointing in that direction. But I also know this: He never vacates born again hearts. And God is till calling out His chosen from this depraved world. He is still regenerating hearts and opening eyes to His kingdom (John 3:3). We can never know for sure, but I am pretty confident I met several of His elect this week. I pray that God used me in their young lives as much as He used them in mine. Dear God, may the cup of cold water I offer these little ones (Matt. 10:42), living water from the spring from which I have drunk, water the seeds of your truth planted in their souls and produce a bountiful crop for your glory. In this growing season in the summer of ’07, may I be invisible as your covenant children at Ridge Haven feast on Jesus (John 12:21). In His name, Amen.

menõ

Tue, 5 Jun 2007 14:09:35 -0400

J. D. Watson has been blessing my socks off this year.  I’ve been reading his daily devotional, A Word for the Day, sandwiched between J. C. Ryle’s Daily Reading From All Four Gospels, and Martin Lloyd Jones’ Walking With God Day by Day.  It’s world class theological company, but J. D., small-town preacher from deep in the Colorado Rockies (Meeker) more than holds his own with these two British titans from the last two centuries.  His daily one-page exposition on a year’s worth of the most important Greek words in the Bible—a word a day—has convinced me of the importance of understanding scripture in the original language.  English words simply do not carry the etymological clout, finely-tuned grammar or nuanced definition of the Greek language.  Add to that the challenges of translation between any two languages and you have no trouble understanding why any seminary worth its salt sets Greek as a first semester required course.

  Here’s a daily sample from the June 3rd reading that, in God’s providence, I found particularly profound and timely in my life:

"Another glorious application of the word abide [menõ, 3306, pronounce it like the little fish you use for bait. jdw] is that God abides in the believer.  In other words, as the meaning of menõ indicates, God remains in the Christian; He’s always present there, and He never leaves.
John 15 is the most graphic passage on this truth.  This word appears to be one of John’s favorites, in fact, as he uses it twelve times in verses 4-16, and is also translated “continue” (v. 9) and “remain” (v. 11).  The picture here, of course, is our Lord’s analogy of a vine that illustrates how He abides in us and we in Him. Verses 4 and 5 declare, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.  I am the vine, ye are the branches; He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing.”  As a vine gives life and sends nourishment throughout the entire plant, so Christ gives us life and sustenance.

"Another vivid example of this principle appears in John 14:16: “And I [Christ] will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” We’ll examine this verse in more detail June 5 and 6, but the wonderful truth here is that the Comforter (the Holy Spirit) abides in us and will always abide in us (since “forever” is a long time).

"God makes the same promise in Hebrews 13:5: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” This is actually a quotation of Deuteronomy 31:6: “Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them [i.e. your adversaries]: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” What a promise! And we can be assured of the promise because “God…cannot lie” (Titus 1:2; cf. Num. 23:19).

"What peace there is in knowing that God is always with us!

"Scriptures for Study: John again uses menõ many more times in his epistles.  Read 1 John 2:6-28, for example, noting each occurrence of abide and continued. [I would add that Crosswalk.com reports the word appears 34 times in the Gospel of John and 105 times in the whole New Testament in a KJV verse count.  Repetition is a sign of importance in God’s Word.  jdw]"

The June 4th reading expounds on what it means for the Christian to abide in God (Abide in me, and I in you.), but you’ll have to buy the book to read that one.  I urge you to do so.

*     *     *

I began my teaching from “No one…” to covenant children and their friends, from ages 8 to 18, here at Ridge Haven Summer Camp this morning (There are still some openings for your children and grandchildren!).  It will continue every Tuesday thru Friday morning through the end of July. God willing, these children will say, with the hymnist, at summer’s end,

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I covet your prayers, dear reader, that I might be our LORD’s witness with all the passion and plain English He wills to provide.  And I pray the Holy Spirit will take the words of a flawed old codger and do a mighty miracle in the hearts of these dear children, that they and their friends might go home abiding in God and He in them, with a joy that No one will take away…ever.

A Memorial Day Lamentation

Mon, 28 May 2007 05:56:57 -0400

As I write this on a Sunday afternoon, 4-500,000 motorcycles are making their way slowly in three columns from the Pentagon parking lot into Washington DC and down Constitution Avenue to the Vietnam War Memorial, there to park on the grass of The Mall and pay their respects to fallen soldiers.  It’s the 20th anniversary of Rolling Thunder, a massive veterans tribute to fallen veterans.  A few years ago I was there as a spectator and found it moving in the extreme. The sound of a half-million idling  motorcycles—like rolling thunder—vibrates every bone in the body in frequency with those in the middle ear. It was my first pilgrimage to the Vietnam War Memorial thirty-nine years after I returned home from that war. I had been awestruck by the half-scale-model traveling version when it came to our town two years earlier, but it was inadequate preparation for this.

My thirty-something son, who accompanied me, allowed me to wrestle with my demons in silence as we shuffled in respectful procession, amid that flowing river of humanity, along the overwhelming black onyx wall. I rubbed my fingers over the names of three friends indelibly engraved on that wall: Lance at panel 57W, line 037, Lynn at panel 51W, line 032 and Vince at panel 27W, line 103. It warmed my soul with electrifying, gut-wrenching gratitude to God for such courageous patriots.

The sky that day was a dirty galvanized tub inverted over the seat of the world’s greatest superpower. It matched the mood of the hushed cortege while anointing bowed heads with drizzle. Cool drops diluted hot salty ones on ruddy cheeks of middle-aged vets, mine included, for whom the Vietnam War was the watershed event of our lives, perhaps our post-modern culture. It was the first time in our nation’s history that we abandoned an ally on the battlefield, compounding the grief of 58,200 lost lives.

On this Memorial Day, 2007, it appears we are about to do so yet again.  Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate for President, this week summarized the liberal strategy of political-posturing-over-patriotism better that any I’ve read:

“Voting against our troops during a time of war shows the American people that the leaders of the Democrat Party will abandon principle in favor of political positioning. Their votes render them undependable in the eyes of the men and women of the United States military and the American people.”

I would add “unworthy” to “undependable.” The liberals’ push for surrender by the world’s greatest nation to tenth rate despots and stateless Muslim terrorists is the most despicable form of cowardice, even treason. How long, O Lord, will we continue to squander the lives our nation’s brave young men by walking away from wars we start with the noblest of intentions? Every terrorist tortoise in the world knows he can win the race over the Yankee hare, who can’t sprint past the next election. The only help the turtle needs is a cohort of suicidal dupes and a press agent. Until and unless we elect politicians with the selfless courage of our soldiers, America will go the way of every other world power in history, doomed by its political leadership’s own hell-bound hubris.

My fears, expressed to my son at The Wall that day, have grown enormously in the intervening eight years.  We have an enemy now that has vowed to destroy us, has demonstrated its ability to wreak havoc on us with nothing more than evil ingenuity, with a rabid development program for weapons of mass destruction. The enemy’s advance party is now among us, awaiting orders, with reinforcements clamoring ominously at the gate, and the majority party on the Potomac ties itself in knots over…the weather.  It makes Nero’s fiddling while Rome burned seem sane.  God help us.

  I told my son I could envision that awesome granite wall as radioactive lava just a few blocks from ground zero and some old soldier somewhere repeating Jerome's shocked cry for an earlier world superpower—Rome—1600 years ago: “My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I dictate; for she is captive, that city that enthralled the world.”

Another ancient eyewitness lamented over another fallen city, Jerusalem in 586 B.C., its sins so similar to 5th century Rome and 21st century America—blatant God-defying sin and covenant breaking rebellion—that this Christian is driven to his knees in fear for his country and his grandchildren.  But the prophet Jeremiah, witness to Jerusalem’s fall, after some of the darkest poetic lamentation in all the Bible, expresses the only hope of depraved mankind:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him (Lamentations 3:21-25a).

This Memorial Day I am grateful to my pastor, Dr. H. Andrew Silman, who preached so powerfully on this passage precisely on the national holiday weekend when my grief for my heroic friends and fears for my country peak, and every annual summit seems higher than the one before.  With my namesake, Jeremiah, I have no hope in man or governments in this wearisome, sin sick world, and I groan for the holiness of heaven.  My hope is in God’s faithfulness, and biblical hope is hope with assurance based on a sovereign God’s promise that it will come to pass. As Dr. Andy says, “Life is hard, but God is good.”  His compassions never fail. Thereon I stake my eternal soul.

Adopted

Tue, 22 May 2007 11:44:52 -0400

North Carolina native Charles Kuralt said, “If a fella is a mountain man, he’ll tell you. If not, why embarrass him by asking?”  I saw his quote printed on a beautiful poster of these mountains in my cardiologist’s waiting room in Asheville this week. I was there proving to the doc, via a nuclear stress test, that I had the “heart of a thirty-year-old,” to quote a smiling nurse. That’s less than half my chronological age, for those who don’t know. I attribute that diagnosis to these mountains, the God-breathed mountain air I inhale, the exercise I get on this topsy-turvy topography, and the serenity my soul absorbs by grace in this Blue Ridge wilderness cathedral. Above all I owe it to the providential God who made them and me and everything else I see here. If you ask, you won’t embarrass me—I’m a recovering flatlander and I’ve adopted these mountains.

This was the last free weekend till sometime in August and my bride and I took advantage of the freedom, severe clear blue skies and a perfectly moderate temperate to explore this suburban heaven, something we never tire of. We began by tying a bright red table cloth among the trees of our eagle’s nest, shot a compass heading on the Devil’s Courthouse (352°), a famous rocky promontory on the horizon, then spent the next 40 minutes driving up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Courthouse to see if we could see our eagle’s nest as clearly from the opposite direction. I know, you’re thinking I have too much time on my hands. But, if I may paraphrase Voltaire’s rhymes in response, it is in every respect / a luxury fit for the elect (The Man of the World).

The 4th Commandment requires us to worship and contemplate God one day in seven.  The glory of these mountains generates a spontaneous Sabbath in me much more often than that. If there is a better way than this to prepare for the next (eternal) life while gratefully enjoying the God-given gifts of this (transitory) one, I don’t know it. Anyway, we could not see the bright red cloth from 12 miles away, but I was able to just make out, with binoculars from the devil’s overlook, using the reciprocal of the compass heading, a couple of neighbors’ houses.
After our picnic lunch we went exploring mountain byways unknown to us and discovered a delightful place (it’s a pdf file and the pics are worth the wait!). It was a house on a hilltop overlooking a small trout-filled lake (minus a dozen or so on a fisherman’s stringer), with a near and far horizon view to die for—gaze down on the lake, up on the mountaintops—well away from humanity and perfect for a family reunion getaway (sleeps 16). I had actually discovered the lake from Wolf Mountain Overlook on the Parkway an hour earlier, a few miles west of the devil’s place as I swept the mountains below me with my binoculars. It wasn’t on my map, but the lakeside sign read Balsam Lake. It appears a landowner bequeathed it all to the guv’ment.  It’s now a State Park and the house can be rented out for overnights or weekends. These mountains are full of surprises like this.

We also took a trip up over the spine of the Appalachians from Asheville on the southern slopes to Johnson City, Tennessee on the northern, one of the most beautiful one-hour freeway drives (US 26) in America. Kuralt, a lover of 2-lanes for 25 years for CBS, said freeways are a means of getting across America without seeing it, but this freeway was not completed when he was on the road. It took years and millions to drastically rearrange some mountains to carve out four lanes and a wide green median, but it’s been completed long enough now that the non-granite scars have all healed with fresh green. It is so spectacularly gorgeous you need to swap designated drivers periodically to absorb it all and not run off the road, which in some places would result in a freefall to terminal velocity.

When I lived in Florida I used to scoff at northerners who claimed to prefer four seasons. Well, now that I am back among them, yet significantly further removed from the North Pole than in my earlier years, I apologize for my arrogant apostasy. A great part of the thrill of the resurrection green of spring is the winter of dormant non-green that preceded it. New life every spring is a soul-stirring form of Blue Ridge typology. I’ll have a new life of my own one bright day, in heaven with God who graciously adopted me, through Christ who makes all things new. It will be a shorter trip than for non-mountain men.

Quiet Beauty

Tue, 15 May 2007 14:42:01 -0400

Summer arrived this Sunday just past. We spent the Lord's Day afternoon at our mountaintop aerie, basking in the holiness of His Blue Ridge glory. The hymnist said it best:

Heaven above is deeper blue,
earth around is sweeter green,
that which grows in every hue
Christless eyes have never seen.

Only about 20% of the mountain laurel buds have opened thus far to accent my favorite color—the new green of spring. And the beauty of Heaven’s deeper blue, punctuated with blinding white cotton wads, overpowered even our expensive digital camera’s ability to capture reality. The play of the cloud-cast shadows on the mottled green of the mountain ridges and peaks was mesmerizing. Such a glorious panorama can only be fully appreciated by being here in the flesh with Christ-opened eyes (John 3:3). Surely this is the kingdom of God. The best of the season is yet to be, and all is but a shadow of the promised glory we await (1 Corinthians 2:9).

There was even more to make this particular worship time special—stillness, as in, be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10), another of my favorite things. I have been disappointed to discover that mountaintops and mankind don’t usually make for heavenly quietude. All sounds seem to float to the top—dogs barking, ATV’s defiling the tranquility of the woods, trucks grinding up steep grades in the distance, or guns being fired. Even loud voices carry surprisingly far in the mountains. Perhaps all the noisemakers were inside honoring mama on this special day. The loudest noises we heard were nature sounds—a squirrel high overhead in an oak, chastising us for disturbing his tranquility, (but we outlasted him) and a brief outburst from a crow fussing over something. The only other sound was the baritone buzz of a bumble bee as he feasted on the mountain laurel blossoms all about us, his leg sacs bulging with pollen. Unbeknownst to that aerodynamic anomaly, he was guaranteeing a bountiful crop of mountain laurel blossoms for next season, just one of a billion similar serendipitous scenarios in nature that proclaim the glory of the Divine Designer to all but Christless eyes.

Intermittent sweet smelling zephyrs caressed the cheeks and delighted the olfactories with a heavenly incense. The Psalmist says, Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him (Psalm 37:7). What a joyfully easy thing that is to do on a summer Sabbath Mother's Day in the quiet beauty of this Wilderness Cathedral, with the mother of my children, a beauty in a class of her own. I’m a blessed man.

Grace and Good-by's

Tue, 8 May 2007 12:16:41 -0400

It was two-and-a-half years ago that Brother Jack and I said good-by for the last time. If you don’t know about my dear friend, Annapolis grad, WW II hero, nuke sub commander, Regan staffer and born again child of God at age 79, then please go here first. He was living in an apartment in one of southern California’s most elegant retirement communities at the time and it was a profoundly moving good-by.

But God had other plans. Jack Bennett is still with us, as you can see. As I write this I’m at 33,000 feet eastbound over Texas, (If this were an F-22 I’d be home by now.) returning from a wonderful weekend with Brother Jack, now age 89. He’s proving what I already knew—he’s one tough sailor.

In the last two-and-a-half years he has progressed through all the standard stages of retirement community life, from independent living to assisted living to the skilled nursing section, “the last stop,” he said with a smirk. He now needs assistance for everything except thinking and talking, his towering intellect trapped in a languishing body. He’s been unable to communicate via email the last few months, and even phone conversations have been a struggle. Hearing aids just don’t hack it when talking on the telephone. But man to man in the flesh it was like the good old days, though in slow motion. We spent the weekend studying the 14th and 17th chapters of the Gospel of John, interspersed with war stories from WW II and Vietnam. I had some help on my side from our mutual friend, Paul Otto, a retired Navy fighter pilot who lives nearby and dropped in. Brother Jack still insists he wants to be a fighter pilot, probably the only lifelong dream he has not fulfilled. I think he’d be bored after what he’s lived through. God willing you’ll be able to read all about his amazing life in a memoir in search of a publisher, entitled No Time to Waste, about God’s amazing grace in our lives in two wars and His providence in bringing us together.

We discussed plans for his memorial celebration. A Navy Captain may retire, but he never quits planning. He has asked me to officiate at his funeral, and I offered to handle the graveside service as well. It will be at the opposite end of the country, the cemetery at Annapolis, where he’ll be interred with his beloved wife, who predeceased him many years ago, and his classmates (USNA Class of ’41). It’s an honor for which I am unworthy but joyfully eager to do. It was such a blessing to witness this self-described “poor student” of the Bible calmly discussing such grim details with all the assurance of a born again child of God.

There were bountiful blessings this weekend. Between the San Diego airport and Jack’s place, on Friday, I had lunch with Tim Lickness, an attorney, Vietnam vet, and likewise brother in Christ. We have been email friends for nearly 11 years and this was our first face-to-face meeting. Tim ministers to the Marines in basic training at Camp Pendleton near his home. Sunday morning I addressed the adult Sunday School class and worshiped at Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Orange County, where my friend, Dr. Ron Gleason, shepherds a thriving flock. Brother Jack, Tim, Paul, Ron and the family of God at Grace put the lie to Gallagher’s old joke that SoCal is a bowl of granola. I never met a single fruit, flake or nut all weekend, but I sure met a lot of folks who love the Lord. I still prefer the blue of the Blue Ridge to SoCal’s occasional yellow/brown haze, and dirt under my feet rather than all that concrete, and 2-lane roads over 16-lane parking lots, but God is building his church in sunny SoCal, and the gates of hell will not prevail. As Tim tells his young Marines, “There’s a cosmic battle going on, too, you know. Why not enlist on the side we know is going to win [no matter which way Congress votes]?”

Monday morning Brother Jack and I once more said good-by for the last time on earth.

“You're blessed to be able to live in such a beautiful place with such a caring staff, Brother Jack.”

“I'm blessed for a whole lot more than that.”

I concluded with, Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:1-3). That will be a wonderful day, Brother Jack, where…no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9 ).

“I…am…so grateful.”

“And the best, by far, is yet to come! I will see you there, if not before.” My flip response, as I gripped his shoulders, belied the anguish within. I found my way out of my brother’s room and navigated down the wide, carpeted hallway on autopilot, blinded by the Amazing Grace of the Light of the World. Our God reigns.

A Teacher in Word and Deed

Wed, 2 May 2007 06:21:19 -0400

He’s a southern gentleman in the classic sense of the word, right down to referring to his wife as Miss Lois. In his ninth decade of life he’s a walking lexicon of comparative religion and a passionate professor of reformed theology. Sitting in his Sunday School class these last five-and-a-half years has been like attending seminary without having to pay tuition. There’s a good reason for that. Dr. Morton H. Smith is a founding professor of two seminaries. After studying under John Murray at Westminster Theological Seminary and earning his Ph.D. under G. C. Berkouwer at the Free University of Amsterdam, he helped start Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MI, where he taught for 15 years, and then Greenville (SC) Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where he still teaches one day a week. Between those two professorships he sandwiched 16 years as Stated Clerk (Chief Administrator) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), where he was intimately involved in writing the Book of Church Order. It’s been quite a productive life for a World War II throttle jockey—he was an instructor pilot in Curtis AT-9’s (shown) and AT-10’s, the twin-engine advanced trainer for B-26 bomber pilots, during the war and flew his own small plane long past the time when airline pilots are required to retire.

Dr. Smith is currently teaching through one of his many books, entitled Harmony of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. I believe it is the best of the many classes I have heard him teach. What a blessing it is to sit under a theologian in the twilight of his years whose inner light burns brighter than ever after a lifetime of teaching God’s word and mentoring men to teach it. To the extent mere man can model Christ as he teaches God’s truths, Dr. Smith comes the closest of any “preacher man” I know.

One of his students from seminary long ago, my friend, Rev. William H. Smith (no relation), had this to say in a tribute to Dr. Smith on his 80th birthday surprise dinner:

  I thank you for your teaching me as a seminary student over thirty years ago. You grounded me in a system of doctrine that has been the foundation of my ministry since I was ordained in 1972. I have told several seminary presidents, as well as others, that, while other professors have their distinctive gifts and contributions, the remarkable thing about your teaching is that you have been able to get across to students a theology they understood, believed, and used in ministry. I am never embarrassed to say, “Morton Smith gave me my theology, and it is that theology that has guided me and that I have preached and taught in every place that I have served as a minister of the Gospel.”

I am appreciative, as well, that you have modeled before many of us and encouraged us to have the courage of conviction. You have stood for what you believe in all the seasons of your life and without fear or favor in the life of the Church. All this you have done as a godly man and a Christian gentleman.

         This grateful elder/Sunday School student can only add, “Amen.”  But you don’t have to take Rev. Smith’s word or mine for it. Go here and listen to Dr. Smith yourself. The last lesson this past Sunday, April 29, 2007, from Chapter Nineteen of the Westminster Confession (with questions 98-105 of the Larger Catechism) was profoundly moving.

This 350-year old Confession, created by 151 godly Englishmen over a five year period beginning in 1643, at the direction of Parliament, is the doctrinal standard of my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). It is subordinate to God’s Word, but it is a guide, a roadmap, a scintillating summary of scripture that by God’s grace changed my life a few decades ago. It turned on lights, put puzzle pieces together, and brought coherence to all of God’s Word, with abundant scriptural proof-texts, and I have referred back to it with regularity ever since, both in private study and corporate worship. So it’s not that I am hearing new information in Sunday School class these days, rather I am basking in old truth presented afresh after a lifetime of study by a fellow aviator—convicting, inspiring, sanctifying—delivered with all the passion and plain English an octogenarian seminary professor can muster. And its mega-wattage enlightenment from one of the greatest living reformed theologians, my Sunday School teacher, Dr. Morton Smith!  I'll fly on his wing anywhere.

A Little While

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:59:28 -0400

Gone is that demonic device, called a TV, from our gatekeeper’s cottage. According to my pastor you could call that a form of fasting (hear his sermon on Matt. 6:16-18) , but I think that would imply there was some want and willpower involved. There is none on my part, only a sense of freedom from revulsion. Thanks to the antidote of Willy and OJ’s transgressions dominating the evening news at the tail end of the last century, I easily, joyfully overcame that addiction. A few months ago my wife realized she hadn’t turned her TV on in her office for several months. She cancelled the satellite service and now only raindrops bounce off our rooftop dish.

The only tangible link left to my former life is a hard copy subscription to The Wall Street Journal, going on 38 years now, and that’s in addition to an online paid subscription. I pay serious bucks by periodical standards, even more so measured against the income this “job” provides, and it is not just because, twisted tightly, it make great fire starter, be it campfire or fireplace. I cannot envision ever opening my mailbox to the sound of rushing water and not seeing it folded up there. It’s the only MSM voice of reason left worth real money. It has the only editorial page that is not afraid to quote Scripture and unashamedly espouse biblical principles. God bless ‘em. (In the interest of full disclosure, they have paid me for my scribblings twice in my life.)

A few months back they added a Saturday delivery, and that 118-year-old world-leader newspaper got even better. The Saturday edition seems to focus more on the business of life than the business of business—soul food versus money and manna. That is something I desperately needed back when I was trying to corner the world’s money supply and found a two-day weekend a hindrance to achieving my goals.

Last Saturday’s edition (April 21, 2007) was a case in point. There were two front-page case studies on the wages of sin in business and politics, and, in one of them, a modicum of redemption. But what most grabbed my attention and caused me to ponder long was a front page article about a 61-year-old high-tech tycoon who cashed in a few years ago. He pierced his ears, spiked and frosted his hair, got tattooed with his friends on an impulse, acquired a 23-year-old girlfriend and now spends his time with his friends flying around the far Southwest US desert in an ultralight airplane. That’s when he’s not building himself palatial homes. I was drawn into the story by the picture of the ultralight because in truth I do miss my flying days, which predate my business days, which I’ve never missed for a microsecond.

I confess I lusted over his ultralight—I watched the online video (subscribers only) several times—but by the time I finished the article I had tears in my eyes. I think I would genuinely like this guy—aviators do have a unique rapport. Perhaps one day we’ll meet and get to fly together. But…I felt an overwhelming sadness.

When I took early retirement at 57, with far less than a tycoon-class net worth, so that my wife and I might flee to the mountains and Ridge Haven, we discussed at length how these years working not for money but for the things that last were a God-given opportunity to prepare for the life to come.

I’m in the middle of a wonderful book by Iain H. Murray entitled A Scottish Christian Heritage.
One of the spiritual titans featured in the book is Dr. Thomas Chalmers, the Scottish preacher/professor who’s statue in Edinburgh calls him, “the greatest spiritual force Scotland saw in the nineteenth century.” Chalmers believed that a man in his sixties should give himself chiefly to preparation for heaven, likening the seventh decade of life to the Sabbath rest from worldly pursuits. He prepared right up to the last evening of his life, mentoring the generation of young preachers (M’Cheyne, Burns, Bonar, Summerville, et all) who were used by God to lead the early 19th century Scottish revival.

The providential juxtaposition of my preparation-for-the-next life reading with the secular reading is becoming so commonplace it is no longer remarkable. My food for thought, as I hiked these woods these last few magnificent spring days, has been comparing and contrasting a man like Chalmers with a man who “has it all” by worldly standards and is playing his life away. Now it is possible the tycoon knows the Lord, but, if so, it is atypical of the WSJ not to comment on such an important aspect of who he is. Aside from using the word “heaven” to describe a flying scene, the fruit that he bears, as reported in the story, would not be classed as good as the Bible defines good fruit.

C. H. Spurgeon said, “A little while—a little while, and then glory forever.” Natural man is not a rational man. How sad that a brilliant man in a position of complete freedom from material want would spend his most precious wasting commodity—the dwindling minutes of his life—focused on maximizing pleasure in the decreasing “little while” rather than infinite joy for eternity.

Christ’s warning is crystal clear:

“Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.
Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit
is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
(Luke 3:9)

For this Reason?

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:28:59 -0400

It’s 7 weeks till the first of 7 weeks of Summer Camps at Ridge Haven, when the woods of this wilderness cathedral come alive with the joyful sounds of covenant children. Deadlines loom in all directions for our new Ministry Director as he strives to find and hire all the key people needed and makes decisions on a hundred other critical planning issues. Generally summer is a slothful time for me, as camp counselors pick up a lot of the guest services duties that fall to the Resident Manager the rest of the year, but this summer will be different. The theme of Summer Camp is “No one…” based on a little introductory apologetic book I wrote that was published by Christian Focus Publications last year. I will be the teacher of all age groups—800 to 1000 kids from age 8 to 18, four times a week for 7 weeks. I have done a lot of public speaking all over the country in my life, before a variety of groups, and taught a lot of Sunday School classes and preached a number of sermons (I’d rather write and speak than eat.), but none of them ever excited me like the prospect of this.

Since this decision was made, far above my pay grade at Ridge Haven earlier this year, I have been consumed with the prospect of presenting God’s plan of salvation, in Christ’s own plain and simple words, to young hearts and minds. Virtually every passage of Scripture I read these days I see a connection to one of Jesus’ six quotes beginning with “No one…” in the Gospel of John. Memories from my out-of-the-ordinary life come to mind at any hour of the night or day that demonstrate one of these quotes and I ponder ways to tell the story to our campers in a winsome way that drives home our Lord’s truth. I have scribbled notes to myself in a dozen places—notebooks, scraps of paper, margins of books. I wrestle with ideas for visual aids that will help engrave God’s Word for the ages in young minds. I awoke at 3 a.m. this morning, early even for me, with ideas I just had to get recorded in my computer.

It is by grace alone that I’m still breathing, let alone planning such a summer. Thirty-eight years ago last night I got into a hellish post-midnight gunfight as a young fighter pilot in Vietnam. I dove through a fire hose of glowing red bullets in my face that looked far too thick to fly through…and survived unscathed. My soul brother wingman did not. I watched him die in a massive fireball, and plane and pilot have never been found. Few days have passed since then that I have not wondered why God spared me and not my friend. There were other survival-by-the-grace-of-God-alone battles, like this one. It doesn’t take much thought for me to come up with some wonderful possible divine reasons to every combat survivor’s question, “Why me?” There have been 38 more years of wedded bliss to the beautiful bride of my youth, two God-fearing adult children married to God-fearing spouses, and 5 grandchildren who are my life’s breath because He chose to spare me. I doubt I will ever know how God prioritized His reasons (if He does that kind of thing) when he planned my life. Perhaps, just perhaps He brought me through it all so that one summer in the autumn of my years I might witness to His Amazing Grace, that I might preach His truth with all the passion and plain English He is pleased to provide me, before 1000 spiritual grandchildren. And one day, long after the “No one…” summer camp T-shirts are worn out, when they are grandparents themselves, they will look back with gratitude on their life and remember the summer of ’07 and that codger with a scruffy beard at Ridge Haven who taught them God’s plan of salvation in Jesus’ own words. Lord willing, they will think, “That man pointed me in just the right direction—the gospel according to Jesus—and “‘No one’ has and no one will take away my joy!”

Dear Lord may it be so for Your glory alone.

An Easter Always Strategy

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:06:40 -0400

My bride is in Colorado helping her mother move from a beautiful home on Cheyenne Mountain into a condo with a magnificent view of Pike’s Peak. I spent Easter afternoon alone, pondering what I could do, by God’s grace, to make this spiritual mountaintop of Resurrection Day into a plateau that stretches all the way to the horizon. How can an adopted child of God, redeemed with the Son of God’s own blood, sealed unto eternal life with Christ’s resurrection, maintain the passionate joy of Easter morning all year long? With such a list of amazing grace-filled accomplishments by the Son of God, how can I not?  I disgust myself. Why do I let the minor irritants of life in this fallen world, the spiritual skirmishes that are in reality just mopping up patrols against an enemy in his death throes, bring me down off this mountaintop?

The truth is the old man and the devil in his death throes are still formidable foes—in fact, my old man rarely needs the devil’s help—and with John Owen I must work to mortify the sin still in me. It’s that God-is-providential-but-I-am-responsible truth that seems like such a conundrum to natural reason. But rather than share any more of my post-Easter angst with you, I’d rather offer some practical helps that I’ve discovered and am endeavoring to employ to level the mountain without reducing its altitude. God in his providence has put some great words from my favorite icons of the faith before my eyes this past Holy Week.

Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs quoted one my favorite Baptist preachers of the 19th Century, Charles H. Spurgeon with some help-for-the-ages in this regard:

"O blessed morning! not to be celebrated by an Easter once in the year; but to be commemorated on every first day of the week, more than fifty times in each year. Every seven days that the sun shines upon us brings us a new record of his resurrection…. The first day of the week stands for ever as the remembrance of our risen Lord, and on that day he renews his special communings with his people. We believe in him; we rise in him; we triumph in him…."

The Christian Sabbath became the Lord’s Resurrection Day, the first day of the week instead of the last, as in Old Testament days, out of the sheer joyous spontaneity of the disciples, the joy that Christ promised them could never be taken away (John 16:22). It was the fulfillment of the Psalmist prophesying, in the present tense to emphasis the certainty of it: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalms 118:22-24). By the time the Apostle John was an old man imprisoned on Patmos this day was enshrined till Christ returns as the “Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). The Puritan sage, Matthew Henry, explains it best:

"…it may very fitly be understood of the Christian sabbath, which we sanctify in remembrance of Christ's resurrection [my emphasis], when the rejected stone began to be exalted [He arose!]; and so, (1.) Here is the doctrine of the Christian sabbath: It is the day which the Lord has made, has made remarkable, made holy, has distinguished from other days; he has made it for man: it is therefore called the Lord's day, for it bears his image and superscription. (2.) The duty of the sabbath, the work of the day that is to be done in his day: We will rejoice and be glad in it, not only in the institution of the day, that there is such a day appointed, but in the occasion of it, Christ's becoming the head of the corner. This we ought to rejoice in both as his honour and our advantage. Sabbath days must be rejoicing days, and then they are to us as the days of heaven….

"Thus highly has God exalted [Christ], because he humbled himself; and we, in compliance with God's design, must make him the foundation of our hope, the centre of our unity, and the end of our living. To me to live is Christ. (3.) The hand of God in all this: This is the Lord's doing; it is from the Lord; it is with the Lord; it is the product of his counsel; it is his contrivance. Both the humiliation and the exaltation of the Lord Jesus were his work, (Acts 2:23-4). He sent him, sealed him; his hand went with him throughout his whole undertaking, and from first to last he did his Father's will; and this ought to be marvelous in our eyes. Christ's name is Wonderful; and the redemption he wrought out is the most amazing of all God's works of wonder; it is what the angels desire to look into, and will be admiring to eternity; much more ought we to admire it, who owe our all to it."

One cannot savor Henry’s thought and be anywhere but at the pinnacle of the mountain. I had been attending church for many years before I realized I went to church on Sunday instead of Saturday as in Old Testament times because it commemorated Easter. Now, too often I forget it. Too often, as a Ruling Elder, I drive to church as if it were a business meeting. I mentally itemize my to-do list—must talk to so-and-so between Sunday School and worship…must tell whathisname thus and such, must not forget to drop memo in pastor’s inbox…ad nauseum. It’s some of the old man’s best work. Lord, have mercy. By your grace may I celebrate your resurrection, honor you alone the first day of every week until you return. I have proven my solo incapability repeatedly, to my great shame.

How then to stay rooted at the summit from Monday to Saturday?

This Holy Week I read a biography of a man who appeared to do just that. Alexander Smellie has written an excellent biography of Robert Murray McCheyne, a nineteenth century Scottish Presbyterian pastor. McCheyne “…was enrolled among the volunteers and athletes of Christ who have prayed for ‘a short life in the saddle’ rather than a ‘long life by the fire,’ and to whom their Lord has granted their request.”  He “burned out for God” with an intense flame two months shy of his thirtieth birthday. At the risk of offending some dear friends, I don’t think they don’t make preachers or laymen like McCheyene anymore. At age 23 he planted (in modern terminology) a church in Dundee that had over 1000 Scots in the pews for the first service, and it grew from there. He had wanted to be a missionary, but in 1830’s Dundee “there was a paganism as dense as that of Central Africa (Does that sound at all like 21st century America?), and early and late he strove to dissipate and vanquish it.”  He was driven—“haunted”—by Paul’s admonishment to the Corinthians, Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2b). He even paraphrased Shakespeare with a better choice of words than the bard’s. “‘There is a tide in the affairs of grace, which, taken at the flood, leads on to safety; omitted, all the voyage of our souls is cast in shallows and in miseries.’ As much as in him lay, he persuaded men to take advantage of that blessed tide.”

Here is his practice that resonates most with me, and I am striving to emulate him. “…he waited; he expected; he thirsted [italics mine] for more holiness, more illumination, more fitness for obedience and service. So prayer became the initial necessity of the day. ‘I feel it far better to begin with God,’ he said, ‘to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another.’ And as habitually, he listened  to hear what Christ revealed and commanded. His acquaintance with the Bible grew rapidly into a singular intimacy.”

I start my day in the Word long before sunrise, my favorite time of the day, and with my weekday schedule it can be pretty open-ended, and often is—an enormous blessing!  I have assembled the best devotional reading ever (here and here) this year to accompany my Bible reading. I hear McCheyne saying I must make prayer the “initial necessity,” I must request the enlightenment that comes when the Holy Spirit applies Scripture to my heart before I open the Word to read it—I cannot receive if I do not ask (James 4:2). Then I must listen and strive for singular intimacy with God’s Word, a noble goal indeed that will take much grace.

In my Berean proof-texting of the ideas of these great but fallible men of God, with the invaluable (free with a paltry fee for nifty add-ons) productivity enhancing help of Instaverse and e-Sword Bible software, I followed the electronic cross-references to the last book of the Bible, where I found the Son of God’s powerful “altar call” to the Easter mountaintop. In perhaps Holy Spirit’s favorite modus operandi, old familiar Scripture reveals enhanced meaning in the context of my study. In the seventeenth verse of the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, after 66 books of God-breathed revelation of absolute truth, the Son of God says, Come…come…come (Revelation 22:17). Repetition is a common method of emphasis in God’s Word, but here is the unprecedented urgency of triple emphasis. …“Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. How can words be more magnetic than this?

Lord, make me always thirsty on your mountaintop. In your Grace make me thirsty 24/7 for that water of life that is free. Sanctify me, that I may come closer and drink more of your life-giving water every day. And please make those I love who do not know you thirst also. Now is the favorable time; now is the day of salvation. Make them to thirst sooner than soon, that they might come and be with me on this Resurrection mountaintop before your Word’s concluding thrice-over promise is fulfilled:

Behold, I am coming soon (22:7).
Behold, I am coming soon (22:12).
Surely, I am coming soon (22:20).

With the Apostle John, I pray to my risen Savior, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!