Perfection

 

[2]

 

1 Peter 1:3 Good News Translation

A Living Hope

³ Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope,

 

This morning I read[3] “How beautiful you are, my love, how perfect you are!”

My mind roamed randomly through everyone I knew. I could think of no one that this compliment could be applied to. Firstly, my loving wife came to mind. She is precious in so many ways. She has faithfully looked after me as I lay at death’s door. In many ways she has been and still is the perfect love partner for me. Of course, when you get to know anyone, you begin to notice their foibles.

I thought of the people whom I have looked up to over the years: my colleagues and former associates. Then there were the teachers and pastors, some of whom spent considerable time and effort to meet my physical, financial, and spiritual needs. I admired many of them and am thankful for their care and interest in my well-being. But perfect? Not by a long shot.

One candidate might have been Pastor P. H. Coetzee. He preached the most powerful sermons I had ever heard as a young kid growing up. He ran a week of prayer at my primary school and held up the image of perfection in a beautiful way. When I was 8, I attended a junior camp at Hartenbos in South Africa, and he led out in a way that captured my admiration. Had you asked me about a perfect person when I was ten or twelve, I might have thought of him.

When I was studying at Sedaven High School, he was the chairman of the school’s board. At one point his son, Leon, was only peripherally involved in a gross breach of school principles that caused the faculty to expel about a dozen students. Many of those expelled were rebellious and evil in every sense imaginable. In many ways, Leon was an ideal student, so P. H. Coetzee called the school board together and reinstated his son. (Mark Twain[4] once quipped, “In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”)

He couldn’t just reinstate his son, however, without being accused of nepotism. So, he had all of those students reinstated in school. This resulted in a total breakdown of discipline in the school. It almost caused the school to close. Suddenly those perfection images of Pastor Coetzee, were ripped from my eyes.

None of us are perfect[5]; “everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.” As Peter writes “Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy He gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope.” This hope is that Christ has died for us so that we might live in His perfection. God’s plan is stated thus:[6] “As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins from us.” He then looks at us and says, “How beautiful you are, my love, how perfect you are!”

Lord, thank You that in Your eyes we appear with Christ’s perfection. Thank You for saving us completely!

 

 

 

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[2] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/63/7b/46637b6155595658043c561f192ba7dc.png

[3] Song of Solomon 4:7 GNT

[4] Mark Twain Following the Equator: A Trip around the World

[5] Romans 3:23 GNT

[6] Psalm 103:12 GNT

 

Think Love, Joy, Hope, and Beauty

[1]

Philippians 4:8 

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁸ In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable.

Shortly after I began teaching at La Sierra University, Hilmer Besel came into my office. He was very worried. His wife Lily was in hospital and I knew things were not going well for her. She was naturally very short and her osteoporosis had stolen another 6 inches from her height. Besides that about everything else in her body seemed to have given up. They had her lying in bed with tubes protruding out of almost every orifice. She couldn’t speak, drink, or eat. Everything hurt and she was miserable. She wrote a little note to her beloved husband and requested that they remove all the tubes and let her die in peace. Hilmer asked me what I would do if my wife had made that request.

Lily was a lovely woman. She was always interested in the welfare of those about her. She was a pleasure to talk to. We all hated to see her go. But who would keep such a lovely person alive in such unbearable torture? Hilmer gathered their three daughters around her and prayed with her and then they pulled all of the tubes out of her body and quit giving the life preserving drugs. The doctors told the family that she would be dead in twenty minutes.

Four days later she walked out of the hospital, delighted to be free from most of those pains. She regarded the next four years as a gift from God. When I would see her she was always interested in my well being and expressed no complaints. She had not been miraculously cured and her ailments finally took her about four years later. I remember visiting her again just before she died. She knew her time was short and she expressed her concern for Hilmer. Would I look after him especially when he needed something? I promised her I would.

Hilmer had founded the mathematics and computer science departments at La Sierra University. He ate lunches at the university cafeteria, so he would come by my office almost every day. He spent his time studying scripture, working on an elementary proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, or finishing his copper roof. He would report on progress and often seek my help in one or another of his current projects. Like his wife, he never dwelt on the failings of his fellow humans. He lived a lonely life, but never complained. At his lunch meals, students and faculty would often spend time with him learning from his wisdom. He outlived Lily by almost twenty years.

Thank You Lord for people who love to redirect our thoughts to joys, beauties, and topics beyond our meager existence.

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[1] Hilmer Besel at a Departmental Christmas Party in 2012