I got a cold. I don't have a cold, because I surely didn't want it. Having something in someway signifies that you have accepted it. I didn't choose it, it chose me. Much, if not all of life is based on that premise, including God's election to be His people. Life happens, and much of life's circumstances are beyond our control.
For my cold I take this ruby colored liquid I buy at Costco. There, you get two big bottles for the price of one little bottle at the drug store. This particular bottle was hidden in the back of my pantry for some time, but when I found it, I rejoiced as I put it into the medicine cabinet, because I knew some day in the not too distant future I would again need this concentrated liquor.
Anymore, I get about one cold a year. Just about this time. If I take my medicine, I feel better almost immediately, but it really takes about a week to get over it. If I don't take my medicine I feel better more slowly, but I really get over it in about a week.
Colds are one thing, life is another. All kinds of things can choose us. From our point of view, these can either make our life, or ruin it. The stuff, we get. How we handle the stuff, is the choice. Last week as we closed out the series on healing the land we talked about the call of God and the choice He gives to His children. The incomparable choice of forgiveness. From that point it is time to move on, cold or no cold.
While you are writing a long series, there are times when you would like to take a break and mention some incidents that are happening in the world. But for the sake of the higher goal you continue forward with the plan.
We all make plans. Just now, I remember at church camp when I was in the seventh or eighth grade the counselor made us write on a 3x5 card our life goal and put it in an envelop where we could periodically look at it. My goal was to be a professional football player. Thank God, He didn't give me that ability.
He did give me some ability to play basketball, and more of the natural equipment, so that soon replaced the football goal. But for some reason over the last few weeks I have seen clearly, how God shut that door, but still let me achieve my basketball potential (definitely not professional status) in a different way. God works in mysterious ways, but he still gives us the desires of our heart within His plan for our lives. It may just take us many years to gain the perspective needed to understand His perfection, or to achieve the goal.
What I am just beginning to see, is that the world tells you to play to your strengths and ignore your weakness. God on the other hand, teaches His ways through our weakness, knowing in due time the strengths will take care of themselves. The world's way demands life within the limits of human understanding, bringing bondage. The Lord's way manages our fear and turns it into faith, hope, and love.
When I played sports, I was a Christian. While, I assume there was some sort of Christian witness on campus, I was not aware of it having any impact on anyone. To say the least, it was significant to only a small minority.
Now at our church, we have two young women who play round ball for the Huskies. When they are not on the road, they are always in church sitting in the first few rows, Sundays and Wednesdays. I don't know about what their witness does to Husky women's basketball, but I do know that their presence in church, not their basketball skills, has helped me refocus on what really is important in life. Our lives are a gift from God, how we use them reflects more favorably on God than our words, or even our deeds can ever achieve.
A lot of stuff has happened in America since September 11th. Sunday during the Superbowl, probably in the greatest Superbowl game ever, the Patriots beat the Rams on a last second field goal. A tribute to patriotism and team work, over superior skill and talent?
The rest of the show, was not all that great. It seemed to me the American spectacle has become, nothing more than that. Flag waving without substance, is not all that different than Christianity without Christ. U2, the Irish rock band, with their avowed liberal leader sang songs with words that I couldn't understand, or didn't make any sense. Background noise, or just a march to a different drummer, it really was not relevant in a new complex world beyond our capacity to manipulate.
Even the famous commercials,
were bad. Except where the robot refrigerator with the Bud Light
inside hammered the fearful awesome opponent into little pieces,
the rest seemed to be more a tribute to computer graphics, or
graffiti.
Since I began the series on healing the land, I guess the greatest
change I have seen in America, is that the substance has gone
out of the American dream, or more appropriately demonstrated
that it was never really there at all. With the "unrelated"
collapse of ENRON, the precarious relationship between capital
markets and economic retirement security calls into question the
American nation's whole concept of future security.
President Bush has placed his "war on terrorism," as the country's focus, replacing the Clinton administration's community of the corporate free trading village. The utopian dream of feel good harmony and economic security are now meshed with blood and guts. Our dream, their profits, blood, and guts.
Long ago I gave up trying to follow the Christian prophesy teacher's vision of the "soon return of Christ." Lest I forget, I think it was about the time Juan Carlos of Spain was in line to be the Antichrist. Frankly, it just all got too boring and at the same time to confusing to keep everything straight.
But all was not lost, through the process I began to understand that the Bible and its God determined the course of events of the last days and not mortal others wishful and/or well reasoned thinking. Ezekiel 37 forecasts the restoration of the nation of Israel in these last days. But could it also forecast the restoration of spiritual Israel, the church, for the return of Messiah?
I guess I'm optimistic. Not by what I read on the internet, or see on TV news, but from a couple of young women, who in their busy lives of college athletics, make their priority to hear the word of God and to fellowship with His children.
This calls into question what really matters in a changed nation and a changed world. Retirement is not something you find in the Bible. Except for some restrictions on the age priests could serve in the temple, you are stretching the Bible's true vision of reality to think this relates to a 401k retirement account.
I heard the other day of Lincoln's words, that focus upon the transient nature of the immediate present. "This too shall pass," forecasts the nature of change, but is passive into future manifestation.
"God's word is truth." Everything else is transitory, whether that be football, basketball, sporting events, physical health, wealth, and retirement accounts. As President of the United States, neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush has the ability to restore the unity of purpose to humanity.
Again, early in chapter 37 in the valley of dry bones God ask Ezekiel about them coming to life. He answered, "O Lord God, you know." God then told Ezekiel to prophesy over the dry bones, to bring them together and to live. In this vision, Ezekiel did as God instructed him, the bones came together and lived. In verse 11 we find: Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, 'Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!'
At the end of the Chapter in verses 27 and 28 God speaks, "My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore."
Jesus Christ is the God who sanctifies the whole of Israel, the church is that sanctuary. As it was in the beginning, it is His breath that will bring life. The word of God spoke those words prophetically thousands of years ago, but those words are just now beginning to find their full witness. The nation of Israel was reborn into life in 1948 and will continue until the return of Christ. The rest of the "whole of Israel" is beginning to draw together from the dry bones of the valley of this worldly desert. What an opportunity it is to be part of that understanding: " The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore."
As we move on, the mission of the church is clear, the only question is who out of that free people will now choose to follow that great opportunity. From my vision in the valley of dry bones my guess, my hope, and my prayer is that this living people is larger and more diversified than we could ever imagine. This opportunity should beckon us all to live at a higher standard, as the Christian example of true freedom in God's love.
Ezekiel pronounced the prophetic word and it shall come true, what more needs to be said. Just watch and wonder, you see the first fruits in church on Sundays, and Wednesdays, in basketball and football teams, and soon in business and other enterprises around the world. We all have significant parts to play in this Superbowl of the ages, God's team will win with what the world considers inferior talent. Hey, it can happen, no it will happen. We all just need to be willing to move on.
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