Because He Was There

Sometimes you forget who your Savior is, or at least I do. I guess it’s a little like having a friend who just happens to be the President or the King. You’re used to being around him, having access to him, and you don’t always remember he’s also the most powerful person in the world.

I remember seeing President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna on a talk show while her dad was still in office. The talk show host said something like, “So you could just call him up right now?” And the daughter took out her cell phone, punched a number, and started talking to the President of the United States. Pretty amazing.

What Keeps You Going?

My friend Bob told me about attending a conference at his church where a panel of veteran missionaries were asked, What keeps you going? 

Bob was intrigued with the question, and posed it to his small group Bible study. During our week in Dallas with Bob and Nancy, that question became part of the dinner conversation one night.

It’s a good question because it admits that life is hard. We need to figure out how to keep on keeping on. Certainly missionaries who serve God cross-culturally need special endurance, but so do all of us Christians. It's also a good question because when we share our answers, we help one another find more ways to keep running our race.

So what is it that keeps us from tubing out? How do we continue to walk in holiness when enticements to impurity assault us at every turn? How do we keep trusting Christ when God allows or allots suffering and heartache? How can we finish our race when it would be far easier to drop out and sit on the sidelines?

I’ve been pondering Bob’s question for a week or so now. I know that ultimately my perseverance is God’s gift and not my effort. Without His steadying hand and sustaining power, I would surely stumble and fall. [He] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:8).
 

But here are some of the ways He keeps me going.

The Loan of Children

My wife and I just spent time with our older son and his wife. Soon to be a father for the fourth time himself, we had a short but blessedly full visit with him and his family that left me reflective on life and parenting and eternity.

Both of my sons provoke this response in me. They are both men, husbands, and fathers who have  personalities and preferences, gifts and skills, that did not come from me or my wife. How is that possible?

How is it that our children end up being people who exceed us and delight us and bewilder us? I guess it’s because they are only ours on loan in the first place.

When they’re born, their whole world is you. You know every moment. You watch them in their sleep, you look in on them when they’re playing, you see them when they never see you. Like a circle within a circle, their world is entirely contained in yours. When they were small, I came into their rooms every night and prayed over them while they were sleeping. They never knew.