This time of year I do a lot of just thinkin', about where I've been, where
I'm headed and the direction I believe the Lord is leading. There are a lot of
reasons for this, my birthday is March 31st, so every year for some reason I
get another year older. Also it is spring and when I see the new life emerge,
it helps me to think hopeful thoughts about what the rest of the year may hold.
With Easter being so late this year, it seems as this late season has also
given me more time to just contemplate a little more, just what a miraculous
gift we have been given from God. Our sins have been for given, I am justified
as holy and I shall live a blessed eternal life. How awesome!
It was just 19 years ago on April 27th, as best as my aging memory can
recall, that I went to the unemployment office in Lake City to file for
unemployment. I had just been laid off from a job that they told me was going
to be the last job I would have, if I wanted it to be such, until I retired. On
the first of February of that year I had started this great new position, with
over a 33% increase in pay, this promised security, a whole bunch of other
benefits, and a great relaxed atmosphere. A little over a month later, I walked
into my office after a meeting, closed the door and offered a silent prayer to
the Lord something like this:
"Lord I really don't know if you can hear
me or not, but I've always believed in you, and I guess I've seen you work in
my life, but this isn't going to work. They told me that I could retire from
here and you know that is something I have really never thought much about, but
right now, this instant, I'm asking you to get me out of here, no body will
understand, but I can't work here until I retire. In fact, I don't know how
long it will be before I will die of boredom! Get me out of here, please!"
About a month later my death from boredom had been alleviated, it was a
miracle! There I sat on the bench with a bunch of others, about to collect my
first unemployment check for a good reason. Since that time, it also seems as
if my great life changing events take place in late April with first fruits
becoming apparent in May.
This year after I finished writing "Bright
and Morning Star" two weeks ago, it was kind of like my life
changing experience almost two decades ago. This time the prayer was something
like, "Well, Lord as my Uncle Jerry used to
say, it don't get any better than this! With what gifts and talents you have
blessed me with, this is the best I can do. No brag, just fact! I thank you for
that wonderful gift. How few people on this earth have ever have had this
opportunity! To see and understand even though I've done the best I can do for
you, it don't mean nothin' compared to what you have given me!"
I was probably one of the last people I have ever known, who did not know
what they wanted to do with their life. I'm now thinking of John Johnson in
college, who always wanted to be a dentist. We took organic chemistry together
and he lived next door to me in the dorm. We were both sophomores, the only two
in the class. He got two D's and flunked out of school. I got two C's and was
on my way to bigger and better things. I also learned after that to scope out
the competition in class and the professors and make the appropriate changes. I
have always wondered what happened to John, what did he end up doing. How do
you cope with having your dreams of your youth shattered.
By the time I graduated, the best I could come up with was something like, I
wanted to teach biology and chemistry in some nice small town in eastern or
central Washington. To teach Sunday School at my local church and make wildlife
or nature movies in the summer. That was my scale of the good life.
None of that ever came close to coming into reality. The closest I came was
an interview in East Wenatchee when I got out of the service. But while they
liked me, they could get someone else to do the job for a whole lot less money,
because of my college credits and they had to pay me for my military
experience.
As I have reflected during this season, it kind of seems that I just
graduated again. This time from my Father's school. I really don't know how it
is all going to work out but, this time from God's perspective He has taken
that simple dream and enlarged it mega-fold. As we continue over these next few
weeks, months, or years, I will begin to lay out a business management system
based on creation that I put together over my last nineteen year desert
experience. I used to call it "Business
Ecology" but that now is a very dated term. The new term again with
some fresh insights I will get to in later weeks, is now called "Enterprise Symbiosis." It is still
based on biology and chemistry, and Sunday school teaching. But the Lord has
put it in His context and His scale of development. Instead of movies, it is
now video, but the whole concept is basically the same as I had all those many
years ago. But this time I know that this is not something I could do on my
own, or even want to do. As my friend Tom Westbay would say, "It's not me!"
Life as a Christian is not easy, there are continual crosses to bear. They
are all crosses of our own sinfulness. The best we can ever hope for is to see
our work in light of its eternal merit, knowing that what you can do, "It don't get any better than this!" But
still, and this is the miracle, it is accepted, with the pride and love of a
Father. "That's my son and that's my
daughter!"
We just celebrated Easter, or as in my quirky way, Resurrection Sunday. When
Jesus Christ became the Passover Lamb, sacrificed for our sin, and raised again
into life everlasting as a symbol of your justification. Just as the Father
said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased!" Through
those events we have just celebrated, that whole promise has now become part of
our birthright. It is the birthright of the born again. The word of Psalm 103
are among the many in His Word that summarize it:
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all his benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
Psalm 103:1-5
It is a good thing to read the whole Psalm.
As this Psalm implies, I feel that a new era of my life has begun, that my
youth is renewed like the eagles. At first, I wrote, "was renewed",
but it is written in the present, "is". Then so shall it be. Over the
next few weeks (or months) I will endeavor to illustrate that renewal or
restoration from examples taken from creation and put in the context of
"Enterprise Symbiosis." This is really descriptive science, therefore
it only carries with it the religious overtones that the individual carries. It
will work for anyone, except those who want to straddle the religious fence.
This, sad to say, is probably most evident in the American Evangelical
Protestant Church. We want the benefits of the Christian life and also the
benefits of the worldly system.
To begin the first step along this line there is a need for a new computer
system coupled with a pro video camera. That with supplies and the like, would
run about $4000. It goes back to making those nature or wildlife movies in the
summer and the summer is coming up. Please pray for that equipment and any
opportunities that having this capability might present.
Next week we will look at the present "tree
of the knowledge of good and evil", Quercus
trifecta, or, as it goes by the common name of the "Betting Oak." Climb the tree and
depending upon the branch you are on when your life is over, that branch
determines your eternal destiny. That is why so many people try to hedge their
bets. To win, to place or show. Pick a little of every branch for a super
winning purse.