Road Rage

Galatians 5:24

GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their corrupt nature along with its passions and desires.

Years ago I was teaching an evening class at Fitchburg State College. One evening as I was driving to class going down an almost deserted city street, I came up behind a motor cyclist doing about 15 mph (25 kph). He did his best to stay exactly in front of me. I began to realize that he was enjoying keeping me crawling along the street.

We came up to a red light, and I stopped next to him to await the green. He must have been dreaming for a moment because I quickly pulled ahead of him when the light turned green. I continued on down the road at the speed limit. This must have angered him because he pulled up right behind me and tailgated me down the street. In my rear view mirror I could see him riding so close to me that his front wheel was almost touching my bumper.

This went on for several blocks. There was no traffic, so he could easily have whipped on around me, but instead he clung to me like a leach. I could feel my corrupt nature seething with anger. A sudden all controlling, irresistible, diabolical urge to hit the brakes hard flooded my entire being. It took full possession of me. I could just see him wrapped all over the back of my station wagon. It would be his fault since he ran into the back of me. There was no possibility that he could avoid the wreck. It would teach the leach some manners and might indeed kill him. Death was too good for him!

But my corrupt nature was literally crucified. Its hands and feet were nailed down and couldn’t move. It had no way of hitting the brakes. Soon a cold sweat broke out on my forehead as I realized what had tried to take possession of me. I began to imagine how I would be able to live with a possible murder on my conscience. I have thanked the Lord many, many times for nailing my corrupt nature down at that time.

Oh Lord, continue to keep my corrupt nature nailed securely to Your cross.

To Treat or Not To Treat

Genesis 42:1-2

The Voice (VOICE)

Now when Jacob found out there was grain to be had in Egypt, he talked to his sons about it.

Jacob: Why do you just keep sitting here looking at each other? ² Listen! I’ve heard they have grain for sale in Egypt! Go down there, and buy grain for us so that we have enough to live and won’t die of hunger.

Mom used to tell of a neighbor they had in Oklahoma, whom I’ll call Joe. He had the reputation of being the laziest man in the county. One day during harvest time another farmer took pity on Joe. The farmer drove up to Joe’s home on a wagon stacked high with corn and drawn by a couple horses. Joe’s field was filled with corn and overgrown with weeds. His family was destitute and wearing mere rags. Joe was sitting in a rocker on his front porch and staring vacantly at his fields. The farmer called to Joe, “I’ve got a good load of corn here. Can you use it?”

Joe queried, “Is it husked?”

“No, you’ll have to do that yourself.”

After a minute’s reflection Joe drawled, “Drive on! The Lord will provide.”

Dick, a colleague of mine, had a grapefruit size tumor on his lower abdomen. I asked him how he was treating it. He replied that he wouldn’t use chemotherapy because of the harmful side effects it had on the body. He obtained a natural remedy from Mexico and used it faithfully. Esmé developed a brain tumor. She told me of the pain it caused her and how she was not going to have surgery and radiation. She was afraid of the effects this treatment would have on her memory. She, too, found a natural remedy that she could rely on. Then there was Robin who had prostate cancer.

There are two things that Dick, Esmé, and Robin had in common. For one thing, they all had a deep and abiding faith in God and His healing power. The other is that they all died from their cancers. Did God forget His promise to heal all our diseases (Psalm 103;3)?

One cannot help but query; since God had promised to make a great nation of his descendants, did Jacob deny his faith by sending to Egypt for food rather than waiting for God to provide it in Canaan for him? Was Joe showing more faith than Jacob? Are we denying our faith when we use modern medicine? Are we showing less faith if we combine modern medical treatments with natural treatments?

Dear God, whenever a crisis arises, You have an ideal solution. Help us to see and follow Your solution.

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Into Civil War or Not

Proverbs 16:9
The Voice (VOICE)
⁹ People do their best making plans for their lives,
    but the Eternal guides each step.

After five very interesting years at Ikizu in Tanzania, we returned to Iowa City so I could work on a Ph.D. The General Conference secretariat instructed me in writing that they were letting me study but there would be no place for me in the Afro-Mideast Division when I was through. The letter directed me to find another job when I graduated.

After three full years of study, the end was in sight, and I started looking for a position in the Adventist educational system. Two places sought me, the first to teach math at Middle East College in the Afro-Mideast Division and the second also to teach math but at Helderberg College in South Africa.

The call to MEC came first, and we started preparing ourselves for the eventuality of going there. We talked to several returned missionaries from Beirut, Lebanon, where the college is located, and they painted a mixed picture. Lebanon was in the midst of a deadly civil war. Each of these missionaries would talk with me about the plusses and minuses. Then, invariably, he would reach into his pocket and pull out a spent bullet.

“This came through two walls and embedded itself in a third wall in our daughter’s bedroom. God was looking after us and no one was hurt,” was a typical story.

You can imagine that this might be a bit disconcerting to a novice unused to living in a war situation. However I don’t remember being afraid. I figured that the Eternal was in charge. If He wanted us at MEC, then He would look after our safety.

At this time a group of Egyptian students were studying at the University of Iowa, and they advertised a semester long class in Arabic as a goodwill gesture. I signed up and attended regularly. Since Swahili has derived a lot of its vocabulary, including its numbers and abstract nouns, from Arabic, I made excellent strides. My teachers were very pleased with my progress.

But the Eternal had other plans for us. As the fourth year of study went by and I approached graduation, He made it abundantly clear that His place for me was at Helderberg, a continent away from Arabic and MEC.

Thank You, Lord, for guiding each step of our lives. I ask that You continue doing so in the future.

To Obey or Not to Obey

1 Peter 3:6

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

⁶ For example, Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her true children, if you do right and don’t let anything frighten you.

The standard wedding ceremony I attended as a youth in a very traditional South Africa used the wedding vows from the Book of Common Prayer. During the service the bride and groom would repeat the following

Groom: I,____, take thee,_____, to be my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.

Bride: I,_____, take thee,_____, to be my wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.

Sylvia wrote the vows we made at our wedding ceremony. We memorized them so the minister, her father, didn’t need to have us repeat after him. The vows were similar to these but replaced some of the archaic forms. They also did not include the bride’s promise to “obey” her husband. I commented on its absence and was informed that she certainly was not planning to obey me. I dropped the subject. By God’s grace we have lived up to our vows for almost 50 years now.

Apparently a lot of women and men have been uncomfortable with pledging to obey anyone−so much so that the 1928 version of the Book of Common Prayer also included an alternate version that omitted the contentious word.

These days, unfortunately, it seems that too many couples have no intention of living by their pledges of any form. Some even cheat on their spouses as early as while they are still on honeymoon.

Lord, give us the grace to live up to our vows to You.

In Spite of Ailments

Genesis 39:20-21

The Voice (VOICE)

²⁰ So Potiphar, Joseph’s master, put him into prison and locked him up in the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. Joseph remained there for a time. ²¹ But the Eternal One remained with Joseph and showed him His loyal love…

Helen lives a half an hour from us. Widowed, she lives alone in a tiny apartment. Prior to this she lived in suburbia where she kept a lovely garden. Many of her neighbors there were drug dealers. When police busted some of them, and because she was usually out in her garden, they assumed she had been spying on them and turned them in. After they vandalized her home, she knew she had to leave there.

At 90, Helen walks with obvious pain. She said, “I have arthritis from here to here,” as she hesitatingly pointed first to her chin and then to her thigh. She wears a neck brace to keep her neck from hurting.

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I took Sylvia over to see her and her collections of nutcrackers and ceramics. She has well over a hundred brightly painted nutcrackers ranging from one inch to five feet tall. The nutcracker “guarding” her front door stands taller than she and wears a fur hat.

She is proudest of her ceramics. She has scores of figures arranged on shelves and decorating her furniture. Each one is exquisitely sculpted down to the finest detail and then painstakingly colored before being fired. She made them all. She carefully picked one example of her work off of a shelf and lovingly handed it to us. It was an 8 inch tall perfect statuette of a neighbor. The neighbor was unhappy because it accurately reproduced all her wrinkles and blemishes.

“In my old home I had a big kiln; now I just have a little one that can take up to 8 inch figures,” she confided. She showed us a number of other items that were in various stages of completion.

Helen is no hermit. Neighbors often gather in her tiny home for parties or teas. Like Joseph who was unfairly thrust into prison for years with no direct communication from God, she lives above her ailments. She continues her creation of beauty and delight.

Lord, like Helen and like Joseph of old, may I continue to bring joy, comfort, and faith to those about me in full confidence of Your love.

_________________________

 [i] http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/nutcracker-figures-22437332.jpg

North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Song of Solomon 6:11

King James Version

¹¹ I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded.

We were invited to go to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with a group of junior high students from a Christian school. As you can well imagine, all was noise and bustle. Everyone dashed around setting up tents, spreading out sleeping bags, making supper. The camp was nestled under a great canopy of ponderosa pine which gave the whole camp that fresh clean piney smell.

Now it was time to see the Grand Canyon. We walked along a trail bordering the mighty cliffs on the edge of the canyon. Squirrels whistled our approach to a wary world. Shade from the tall trees made the air cool and caressing and pleasantly scented. Lizards hung on spots on the rocks in the late red and warm sunshine.

Here and there along the trail bright bursts of color told us spring was here to stay. White cliff rose blossoms looked pink in the evening sunshine. Multitudes of showy yellow flowers greeted us at every turn mingled with a scattering of red and blue ones to add variety.

At close to 9000 feet (2700 meters) this region is often still under snow at this time in spring. But the winter was dry with a warm, early spring sun that had brought out the blossoms like the lovers discovered in Solomon’s nut gardens.

Then to seal all this, as the sun set silently and gently beyond the western cliffs, the facing cliffs turned to rose. I walked back to the parking lot in awe of God’s magnificent artistry.

Thank You Lord for the resurgence of life every spring, and how this lifts our spirits from dull winter drudgery and renews our faith in Your promises.

Bring Back Our Girls

Zechariah 4:10

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁰ For who hath despised the day of small things? 

On the night of April 14-15, 2014, as many as 200 armed men invaded a girls’ school in Chibok in north-eastern Nigeria. An estimated 276 senior high school aged girls were kidnapped. The extremist Islamic group called the Boko Haram claimed responsibility for it. Their aim is to destroy western education, especially that of women. They have been credited for having killed at least 4,000 people during the first three months of 2014. In Boko Haram’s announcement, they indicated that the girls would be sold as “wives,” in reality sex slaves, at the going rate of about $12 each. The Nigerian government initially denied that it had happened. Finally on May 4, once stories surfaced from parents of missing students and from students who managed to escape and it became known internationally, the government stated that it was doing everything it could to find the girls. However, no increased government presence had been felt in the area. The first I heard about this atrocity was a brief mention of it on a 5:30 a.m. news cast on May 6. This news was not felt important enough to be mentioned at the normal times that I listen. Almost a year has gone by now and hardly anyone even remembers the event. None of the girls have been rescued.

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What was my response? I was very upset about it. Being the father of two daughters, I imagined how bad I would feel if one of those kidnapped were my daughter. What would I do? I sensed the totally helpless feeling a father must have to be up against such a force of evil. Looking at Google Earth, I saw a huge forest just to the north of the town. It would be really easy for these terrorists to disappear into that jungle. Going into that jungle alone would be suicide. Even if I could have raised a posse, we would be no match against the Boko Haram.

What can I do about this or other similar situations as I sit in southern California suburbia? Very little! If I write my congressman and my senator, what good would that do? Probably none! If every reader were to write our representatives in government and if all of our friends were to write and if all of their friends were to write against this renewal of the slave trade, then the combined pressure could possibly force action.

Lord, help us not to despise the day when all we can do is small things!

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[i]  http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/29/article-2641976-1DC5ED1600000578-287_634x352.jpg