I Want to be Ready

              The two tall shining ones were ushering their newbies into the New Land. Ayzair’s charge, Sam, kept chattering away, overjoyed. 

“Hey, thanks for helping me…when do I get to see Jesus? Oh, wow! Look at the size of those trees! Are those apples? Oh, my gosh, can I eat one?”

“Of course,” said his giant helper. Sam jumped maybe 20 feet in the air and landed holding an apple the size of a grapefruit. “Oh, my gosh – that’s the best apple I’ve ever tasted,” he said, mouth full and chin dripping juice.

Another Reason to Look Forward to Heaven

The main reason to look forward to heaven is the presence of Christ. When Jesus prayed for "His sheep," He emphasized that the highest blessing the Father could bestow on them is to bring them into His glorious presence forever: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

Anyone who truly loves Christ needs no other motivation to long for heaven. Like the Psalmist said, “Whom have I in heaven but you?” (Psalm 73:25a)

Yet there are other reasons to look forward to heaven.

Fear of Divine Judgment - How Jesus Overcomes Our Fear of Death

Many people assume that death is bound to be better than our suffering right now. How often have you heard somebody say, “Well, at least he’s not suffering anymore…”? Or “Now she’s at peace; she’s in a better place.”

If you’re in heaven, you are in better place where there is “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Tears and suffering are over forever.  But according to Jesus, not everyone goes to heaven. Christ said, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it (Matthew 7:13-14, NLT, my emphasis).
           

If you end up in hell, the suffering is infinitely worse than anything you might experience in this life. Christ described hell as a place where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48).

In three previous posts I’ve talked about the reasons why people may fear death. But this last one, fear of divine judgment, is the most important one. People should fear being punished for their sins.

No Fear in Death - by Christ's Death and Resurrection

Recently I read an article by a medical doctor who spoke transparently about his own fear of death. He developed a crippling anxiety which resulted in physical symptoms of various kinds. Eventually he was diagnosed with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) - associated entirely with his fear of death.

Death comes to all of us. So what do we do about fearing the inevitable? Christianity’s answer comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (Hebrews 2:14-15). We look to Christ to deliver us from the fear of death that makes slaves of us all.

How Christ Overcomes the Fear of Death (With Jesus on the Road to Samarra)

A merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the market one day, but the servant soon returned, trembling with fear. “Master,” he said, “I met Death in the crowd, disguised as an old woman. She made a threatening gesture, and I ran. Please lend me your horse, and I will flee to Samarra to avoid my fate. Death won’t find me there.” The merchant lent him the horse, and the servant raced north, away from Baghdad. Then the merchant walked to the market, found the old woman, and demanded to know why she made the threatening gesture. Death replied, “I wasn’t threatening your servant but was only surprised to see him here. You see, I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”*

Five Reasons We Fear Death, and How Jesus Gives Us Victory

John Donne famously wrote,

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so*

But, for many people, death might as well be proud. Because death does seem “mighty and dreadful.” People do fear death. They dread their own deaths and the inevitability of their loved ones’ deaths.

The Christian gospel addresses this basic fear.

Glory is Not Just a Destination

"I've got a home in glory land that outshines the sun."

I remember singing "Do Lord," and that stanza, the year I became a Christian. "Glory land" means heaven.

It’s true. Believers in Christ are headed to a place where God dwells, a place Jesus prepared for us, where we’ll be with the Lord and with all His redeemed children forever. It is truly “glory land.”

God's Unseemly Behavior

Many people, even some who claim to believe in God, find what He does or what He permits, well, unseemly. Why would an all-powerful, infinitely benevolent God wipe people out in Old Testament times? Why does He let children die of cancer? Or anyone, for that matter? To ordain or even to permit this kind of suffering seems inappropriate - not right somehow.

Digital Photography and the Resurrection

My photographer friend Camden Bennett took some pictures of my wife and me a few weeks ago. Then he uploaded them to his website and gave us access to them via a password. Pretty nifty.

So I downloaded the pictures to my laptop, and decided to make some prints at everyone’s fine arts center, Costco. They went from my computer to the Costco photo center website, where I selected the size prints I wanted, and placed my order. We picked up the prints about 2 hours later.

What I’m Going to Miss About Downton Abbey

Last night my wife and I watched the final episode of Downton Abbey. Until the British drama aired here in America in 2011, I wouldn’t have thought of myself as an Anglophile or a fan of period pieces celebrating an “upstairs – downstairs” way of life.

But after the first couple episodes, Dionne and I were both hooked. And watching the final episode last night was a little like saying goodbye to a good friend you know you’ll never see again.

So I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to miss.

Reflections on the Death of Our Little Dog

Last night we had to do what all dog lovers dread.

A Life Fully Lived: For Shepard

How do you know when a life is complete and fully lived? I wrote about this question a while back in A Life Cut Short?, the story of a young police officer who was murdered last December.

So what makes a meaningful life? Some people live a long time, seemingly without purpose and without much positive impact. When is a life “fully lived?”

I have been thinking a lot about this because of a heroic little boy in our church who died on April 4 at the age of seven months. His name is Shepard Summerlin. He and his parents fought valiantly and faithfully, he was treated at a world-class hospital by wonderfully competent and caring doctors and nurses, but finally he passed away.

It was my privilege to preside at both his dedication to the Lord and at his funeral. On those occasions I tried to point out how Jesus loves little ones and how they are saved and taken to heaven, not because they are sinless, but because of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God "(Luke 18:16)

Four False Assumptions About Life After Death

On November 1 Brittany Maynard, age 29, took her own life, as she had planned. I wrote about her story here. I hope and pray for God’s mercy and peace upon her family.

But something Ms. Maynard said just a few weeks ago continues to nag at me. She told CNN that when the day came to kill herself, she would tell her family, “Come say goodbye as I pass into whatever's next.” Without any disrespect to her or her memory, those words seem to point to certain assumptions about life after death.

When I Come to Die - The Story of Two Women with Terminal Cancer

Brittany Maynard is a 29-year-old wife with terminal cancer. Her story has been all over the internet, including her own first-person account on the CNN website here. Brittany has a form of brain cancer that is particularly aggressive, and those who have it usually die within 6 months.

She and her husband moved from California to Oregon, a so-called “right to die” state, because she wants to end her life on her own terms. She plans to do so on November 1, and is spending her last days as an advocate for the right of all people to commit suicide when and how they wish.

Here’s one quote from the CNN article: "When my suffering becomes too great, I can say to all those I love, 'I love you; come be by my side, and come say goodbye as I pass into whatever's next.'"

Here's One for Your Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? You know, goals you hope to accomplish before you “kick the bucket.” Lots of people talk about their bucket lists. The website www.bucketlist.org claims to have over 100,000 members, with almost 2 million goals.

You can sign up, list your goals, and then check them off as you complete them. Featured goals right now include – paint a mural; visit Mount Yoshino, Japan; celebrate Holi in India; get a job as a singer; meet Chuck Norris; and learn how to surf.

What’s great about a bucket list? Well, it’s exciting to make learning to hang glide or visiting the Great Wall of China or ordering a meal in French part of your life’s ambition. We all accomplish more, travel farther, and live more fully when we work toward goals.

I do have a couple concerns about bucket lists. One is that a lot of the goals seem driven by self-indulgence rather than serving God or others. Sure, it’s cool that you want to hike the Appalachian Trail or do a set of stand-up comedy. But maybe we Christians ought to aim higher.

The Best is Yet to Come - Through the Flood and the Fire: Part 3

Into each life some rain must fall, said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But sometimes it’s not just a brief shower. It’s a downpour, a torrent, a gully-washer, a deluge. Life sometimes brings a monster storm with driving rain, gale-force winds, deadly flooding and scorching flames.

That’s where Isaiah 43:1-3 comes in. Three promises from this beloved passage have often kept my wife and me going through the flood and the fire. I’ve already mentioned two. First, we belong to Him. And then second: there is no wasted pain.

Here’s the third: God promises His presence and His protection. And the best is yet to come. Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:1-3a).

But what about believers through the centuries who have met their death by drowning? And what about Christian martyrs who were burned to death at the stake? Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword (Hebrews 11:36b-37a).

So how can the promise that “the rivers…shall not overwhelm” and that when you walk through fire “you shall not be burned” – how can this be true?

Reunion

I think of heaven quite often. I know more and more people who are already there, people I am looking forward to seeing again. And of course I long for the day when those I loved then and love now may meet.

Nobody on this side of glory knows exactly what heaven will be like. Believers in Christ will be immediately in the presence of the Lord when they die (2 Corinthians 5:8), which is the most important thing to know. But then in God’s timing there will be resurrection, the reuniting of soul and body. And creation itself will be re-created; this fallen, broken old planet will be the New Earth (Revelation 21:1). 

I wonder if that doesn’t mean that places we once loved will be remade, more than restored, new but still familiar. I was thinking about all that, and about my dad, when I wrote the following.

            I’m standing in the pasture west of the farmhouse and I can smell apple blossoms.

I remember this as a small field, planted in alfalfa. Now it seems huge, as big as a football field. The alfalfa is growing, knee high, with large purple clusters. I can see and hear a chorus of bees sampling the blossoms.

The orchard just beyond the field is bigger too, the trees taller and fuller than my memory, more like oaks than apple trees. They are covered in enormous pink and white blossoms. I remember old black and white photos of this orchard from my childhood. The trees looked like they were blanketed with snow.

            And then I see him, striding toward me through the trees and into the pasture. I hurry to meet him.

            He’s dressed in Levis and a denim shirt with open collar and sleeves rolled up. He walks quickly like he’s been expecting me, old laced work boots clogging through foot-high alfalfa. He looks pleasantly winded, like a man just taking a break from hard, but enjoyable, work. He’s not wearing a hat—he always liked the sun on his face.

            He looks about the same age as in that old picture I got from my mother—early 40’s, I guess. Shoulders square and broad, big hands curled from a lifetime of work.

            I wonder how old I look to him. A lot older than fourteen, the last time we were together.

            His blue eyes twinkle as he walks toward me. He has that big smile—the signature gap between his front teeth. I’d know him anywhere.

            I’ve dreamt of wrapping him in an embrace, of feeling his strong arms around me once more, the scratchiness of his whiskers against my neck.

            I kiss him on his lean, sun-browned cheek. Not like the last time, lifetimes ago, when I was trying to grow up and be a man, when I thought men used handshakes to seal their affection instead of little-boy hugs and kisses.

            Now I don’t worry about such things.

            I hear his voice again. “Hi, Boy.”

My memory flickers like a camera shutter, old snapshots of pleasant days, the ranch as it used to be, walking with him from the milk barn to the house, and this very orchard. No one ever called me “boy” like that, and it feels good now, though I haven’t been a boy for a very long time.

           

            That’s how I envision it, anyway. My imagination falters a little on the details.

I don’t know what we’d talk about. Maybe we’ll both have questions. I’m not sure what he’d already know about me and my life in all the years since we’ve been together. I want to tell him—I’ve always wanted to.

            I’ll promise to introduce him to Dionne. He’d want to know about her, I’m sure. And of course, the boys. My boys. Men--now, old men, too, I guess.

            And maybe after we have hugged and cried a little and laughed and talked, they will come walking through the trees, the light of Christ at their backs and in their eyes.

            One is brown and lean and bright, coiled with energy and fun. Dark eyes ready to laugh. The other is blond and muscular, intense and interested. Careful and controlled and calm beside his older brother.

            “Dad, here’s Andy. And Zach. Boys, this is my dad.”

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.

Don't Pull the Wagon Over Yet

My mother was born on a cattle ranch in a bleak part of the Midwest. When I was a boy, we used to visit my grandmother, who still lived near the old homestead. I came to know that part of the country as hot, sandy, dry, and windy, with almost no trees or water. Mom told me the winters were so brutal that a man could get lost in a snowstorm just trying to go from the house to the barn.

So I began to wonder, why did people settle here? 150 years ago people traveled west, lured by the promise of land of their own. They scraped together enough to buy a team of oxen and a wagon, and headed into the sunset. But why did they settle in hot, dry, flat, inhospitable places with no trees and no water? Knowing that they could push on to California or Oregon, why pull the wagon over and build a sod house?

I thought of all that when I read about how excited the seventy-two were when they came back from their ministry tour. The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”(Luke 10:17)

Jesus confirmed that He had given them authority over demons, but warned them not to settle for joy in earthly victories. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20, my emphasis)

We're all tempted to settle, to look for joy here, in this life. But don't pull your wagon over too quickly. Don't settle in this dry and dusty land when just ahead is the place of real joy.

It's Jesus' joy that awaits us in the place He has prepared for us. And in the meantime it's the pursuit of His presence that makes the journey an adventure instead of a daily dust storm. 

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11

A Place of Our Own

The other night at Bible study someone told the story of a woman who had been homeless for years, but finally was able to rent an efficiency apartment. She was full of joy to have her own safe and secure place, her own refrigerator, her own bed, her own blanket.

Most of us take our own place for granted. In America most people have more stuff, more space, more blankets, than we’ll ever use.

I remember a late night taxi ride I took in Chennai, India, many years ago. It was my first international trip, and I had a short layover in a nice hotel near the airport. I was shocked to see hundreds of people lying in rows, sleeping on the sidewalk. Another time at a conference I attended a young African church planter was asked where his family lived. He replied simply, "Under a tree."

Some people do not and will not have their own place. Some of those people, on the street or under a tree somewhere, are believers in Christ. Some of them went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated--of whom the world was not worthy--wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth (Hebrews 12:37b-38).

This world is not our home, not really.

Our hope and longing are for our own place, designed and prepared by the One who loves us best and who waits there to welcome us, finally, home. 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.