As Observant as a Child

[i]

Mark 8:18 

The Passion Translation (TPT)

¹⁸ You have good eyes, yet you still don’t see, and you have good ears, yet you still don’t hear, neither do you remember.

There was a family walking towards me on the Barker Dam Trail. The little four or five year old had been looking up at the great rock to his left.

“Daddy, why do they have goats on these rocks?” He queried in typical kids full voice.

“Maybe they keep them for food for the workers in the park.” His father plodded on, watching only where he was placing his feet on the sandy and stony trail.

Instantly there flashed through my mind the fact that kids are far more observant than we adults. I glanced up to the top of the great rock to my right. My heart thrilled at the rare sight of seven beautiful desert big horn sheep in a shady nook in the rock. They were studiously ignoring us. I looked back at the family retreating up the trail. Fleetingly, I felt like calling after the family and sharing with them what they were missing. I didn’t. Someone once quipped, “Ignorance is bliss.” All they had seen were lots of gigantic boulders and sand, and their kid had seen “goats.”

I stepped off the trail and sat down on a large rock and watched these magnificent animals for twenty minutes or more. There were a couple pine trees in the nook and a little green grass that some of them were munching on. Their grayish hides rippled over powerful muscles that enable them to nimbly leap up or down twenty feet if they wished to. Instead they stood there eating or chewing their cud. Big horn sheep are a rare sight in Joshua Tree National Park and I am thrilled every time I have the good luck to see them. It’s only about once in twenty visits or so that I see these magnificent animals that survive the harsh desert we were in.

Dozens of people walked by in both directions on the trail in front of me. To some of them I would say, “Did you see the big horn sheep?” and point in their direction. Many of them shared the thrill I felt, but the majority would glance up and keep trudging. I have no idea why they took the time to come out into this harsh desert.

How often, Lord, do I toil down the road of life oblivious to the great beauty You place all around me?

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[i] https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Mammals/Bighorn-Sheep/Desert

Created for Good Works

[i]

Ephesians 2:10 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Earlier in January I went uptown to a stamp show. With all of my cancer fight and what that has entailed, I hadn’t been to one for well over a year. One of the dealers whom I count as a personal friend told me he has been seeing blood in his urine. He is, of course, running scared. He pointed out that we are both well into our seventies and both born under Aquarius—not that I attach any meaning to Zodiacal signs.

His father was a conservative Christian pastor, and my friend had attended a conservative Christian university where he took a theology major. But the years have jaded some of his Christian zeal. His Christian world view, however, still affects his life. I encouraged him to get some immediate medical attention. Between dozens of interruptions by visitors to his booth, we also spent some very meaningful time reviewing the marvelous hope we have in Christ Jesus.

A couple days ago there was another stamp show uptown. I told my wife that I felt I needed to go to this one, too, in order to see my dealer friend. He was there, and I spent several more hours at his booth. He, his wife, and I were able to chat some more. Things had not gotten any better. In fact not only was there still blood in his urine, his wife mentioned that his bowels had also been totally shut down for over a month now.

He had looked gaunt last time and appeared even more so this time. At least he now had several appointments this week for various medical checkups, lab work, x-rays, and other tests. I have fears that things may not go well with him, but at least he seems to have a blessed hope in Christ and his future. I pray for his well being and wisdom on his part and the medical people who help him.

The very next day I had an appointment with a doctor whom I have known for many years. I sat in the waiting room and in an examination room for over two hours. When the doctor came into my room, he closed the door behind him. He sat down and told how a mutual friend of 50 plus years is now on life-support in intensive care. He told me further that he had been chosen as the chair of his church’s finance committee. The experience has been a real eye-opener to him as to how church policies are actually implemented—or simply ignored.

I told him about our experience when my wife and I first went to Africa as full time employees of the church as missionaries. Over the first two years we were shocked at what happened, how policies were ignored, how lies were told, etc. It became a real crisis in our Christian experience: After all, we were working for an organization that we considered to be God’s organization on earth most closely connected with our hope of salvation. After discussing and praying about it, we decided that we were still working for Jesus Christ but were being paid by a human organization. Furthermore, we chose not to fault our Savior for this weak, imperfect, and at times corrupt big business—the church.

Lord Jesus, we thank You for the privilege of working for You for our entire career. We pray not only for our own salvation but also for those devoted, but often confused, humans who do things in Your name and for Your sake.

#Stamps, #Stampshows, #stampdealers, #prostatecancer, #IE, #SoCal, #California, Christiancrisis, #corruptchurch, #Savior, #salvation, #hope, #Doctor, #WaitingRoom, #Africa, #ChristLove

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[i] https://www.tsdastamps.com/

When is it Essential and When Not?

[i]

2 Timothy 2:23 

New King James Version (NKJV)

But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.

We attended church one Sabbath in one of the larger Adventist churches in Michigan. Two of my cousins were with me, one Adventist and the other Lutheran. We were planning to eat at the Sabbath potluck after the service. (Dad always used to say, “If you want to taste good vegetarian food, attend an Adventist church potluck.”)

While we were waiting for the good ladies to get things going on the potluck, I noticed an old man in a wheelchair. On a second look I recognized him as Edward Specht, my major professor from college days some 50 years previously. He was well up in his nineties but still totally with it intellectually. I knew him to be someone who “did not suffer fools kindly.” We were having a great time reminiscing when a woman walked up to me and demanded, “Are you from La Sierra?”

“I am!” I replied, and turned back to Ed.

“Well, it’s a crime what you are teaching to those Adventist youth.” She was on her soap box in full style. She went on and on with accusations and misinformation.

I tried to gently and politely get rid of her or shut her up: to no avail. She was just itching for a fight. Finally, I assumed my voice of authority and commanded her, “Listen, lady, I am visiting with my former major professor whom I haven’t seen in decades. Leave us alone!” I turned my back on her and continued talking with Ed. She finally left in a huff, figuratively shaking the dust off her feet. Ed looked half amused and half pained. I knew he had been subject to controversies and bigots before that he simply had to walk away from.

I began to sympathize with Paul who had to face bigots who criticized his stance on things like circumcision and eating of certain foods. Over the years the topics have changed from the nature of Christ, to communion service, to baptism, to origins, to ordination, to wearing of clothes or jewelry, to evolution, to the role of women in church, to sexual preference. Historically people have actually died for their stance in the particular argument of the day

La Sierra and all other Adventist universities are walking a serious tight rope between keeping their secular accreditation and meeting church expectations. To best meet the intellectual and spiritual needs of the students, La Sierra requires all students who take freshman biology, where the subject of evolution is ever present, to take a 10 week seminar to help them reconcile science and Scripture.

Lord, may Your prayer for us to be one in Your love be fulfilled in Your church today in spite of our different understandings!

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[i] https://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/tag/religious-bigotry/

Just Where Is Heaven?

[i]

Ephesians 3:17-19

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

¹⁷ and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love,¹⁹ and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Some have pointed out that Heaven is a spot on the other side of the Great Orion Nebula. Furthermore God’s administrative center must be hidden behind this magnificent nebula.

On the other hand we view that God is the creator or prime generator of not only our Solar System but of the entire vast universe we detect beyond it. Whether your concept of this creation stretches back in time to a monumental week some 6,000 years ago--or to an inconceivably huge big bang some fourteen billion years ago--or some point of the past in between, you probably have breathed the query, “What was God doing in the eternity before this universe?”

St. Augustine quoted someone who quipped in response to this question, “He was preparing hell for those who pry into mysteries.”[ii] From the context of this remark Augustine clearly regarded this answer as an ill-posed jest.

But seriously, since God is “the same yesterday, today, and forever;”[iii] He was undoubtedly creating other universes. Where might he place these other universes? Well, certainly not within our universe; they must indeed be “beyond” or “outside” our universe, which was not here before He created it.

It is not impossible that Paul was hinting at a possibly vaguely understood concept when he expressed a four-dimensional measuring “length and width, height and depth” of God’s love. This concept just might be vital for our understanding of the presence of God. If there is another spatial dimension besides the three in our universe, then God would not have to be in a heaven over 1344 light years away. He might be just a scant millimeter away in this fourth spatial dimension and yet be beyond our sensory perception of Him.

Writers of the newly reincarnated science fiction Star Trek series hint at a similar notion of a space “warp”. How can space be warped unless it is in a dimension outside of the space itself?

Thank You, Lord, for being ever close to our side at all time!

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[i] http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Portal-Vortex-Time-Travel-Wormhole-Warp-Space-2514312

[ii] Book XI, Chapter 12 of the Confessions of St Augustine

[iii] Hebrews 13:8 (HCSB)

Preacher, Cook, Blog

[i][ii]

Psalm 143:8

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁸ Remind me each morning of your constant love,
    for I put my trust in you.
My prayers go up to you;
    show me the way I should go.

I sat in the large congregation of people celebrating the life of Dr. Harold Fagal. As they told of how he had let his witness be known, first as a pastor and later as a professor, I decided that I should write down my thoughts about God and put them somewhere where others could read about them if they wanted to.

I created a file on my computer called simply Devotions, and my first entry was on January 26, 2011. I continued filing my thoughts and turning over and over in my mind how I might place them where others could see them if they chose to. People had spoken about blogs and how they could find things on a blog. I had no clue what a blog was, but that weird word stuck in my head.

Then I purchased the video Julie & Julia simply because my daughter’s name is Julia (and definitely not Julie). In the movie Julie created a blog where she entered her experiences of cooking each of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The blog gained lots of readers. Julie then published these blogs in a book. Julia Child was livid with anger; she felt that Julie was simply using her name to make money. I said to myself that if Julie could make a blog, so could I.

Between Julie and my own nagging head, I started to investigate blogs. I found there were lots of public blogs. Many of them cost a monthly fee, which I was not about to pay. Some of them were free, and Blogspot seemed to be a leader in the free group.

So on November 8, 2013, I posted my first blog, entitled Speaking Well, about a young soldier on duty in Germany who spoke the most abominable English I had ever heard but loved me into reconsidering Christianity after I had completely given up on it. I ended that blog with the prayer “Thank You, Lord, for your love that flowed through this soldier to me. May Your love flow through me to others!”

For seven years now I have written hundreds of devotions, and for well over five years I have posted some of them. I tend to be technologically challenged, and it still takes me a half hour or more to post a single blog, not counting the hour or two it takes me to think about it and write it down. I see that last year I only posted 13, about once a month! I can do better than that.

Father in Heaven, You remind me each morning of Your love for me; help me to express my appreciation to You more frequently.

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[i]Harold  Fagal http://ak-cache.legacy.net//legacy/images/cobrands/PE/photos/mugs-513521mg_20110109.jpgx?w=200&h=200&option=3&fc=fff

[ii] Julia Child http://cook.fnr.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/cook/editorial/blog/legacy/devour/2010/8/Julia-Child-The-French-Chef-588.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.616.462.suffix/1505357138862.jpeg

Cancer and Hope

[i]

Joshua 1:9

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁹ Remember that I have commanded you to be determined and confident! Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go.”

On Friday afternoon I spoke with my cardiologist. I had looked for my report from Parkview Hospital of my 3 weeks there during the first stage of my West Nile Virus (WNV) treatments. I had gotten them from the hospital on a CD, and I took a copy to him back in June last year. I hoped he might be able to lay his hand on it.

Of course he asked me why I needed it, and I told him I was planning to see an oncologist in Los Angeles about my prostate cancer (PC) growth. The oncologist wanted any lab reports, etc. that I had gotten recently. He asked me what I am doing currently, and I told him I was taking two hormone treatments. I told him that the oncologist in LA had an alternative treatment system that I wanted to investigate.

My cardiologist pointed out how well I am improving and healing from my WNV encounter. He insisted that I am in a lot less dangerous position now with PC than I was under the WNV. He pointed out how well I am currently. He urged me to follow the standard treatments used in medicine today and not to get lulled into some promises of alternative medicine. In his own optimistic way he urged me to “be determined and confident”, and not to “be afraid or discouraged”. He went on to tell me that he would see me in 10 years and then in 15 more years (then I would be 100).

Thank You, Lord, for Your encouragement and Your promise to be with me wherever I go! I am confident that You will do exactly that.

#CALIFORNIA, #SOCAL, #IE, #HEALTH, #CANCER, #PROSTATE, #PROSTATECANCER, #WNV, #WESTNILEVIRUS, #HOPE, #HORMONETREATMENT, #MEDICINE

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[i] https://www.24hrcares.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/this-picture-says-there-is-hope-for-prostate-cancer-because-of-the-blue-ribbon.jpg