Made for Eternity

Here in my little place in Milwaukee, the first day of ’12 is coming to a close. It’s quiet – well, as quiet as life on a busyish city street can be. Besides the wind blowing and the trucks clattering past, the only noise I hear is the sound of my earthly life ticking away. Actually, it’s the raucous second hand on the kitchen clock, but on the day of the year we consider time the most, the steady click-click-click seems to hold more meaning.

Not-much-time.

Use-it-well.

The clock hands’ relentless march makes me think less of seconds, minutes, and hours, and more about the point where these measures cease to matter.

On the first day of the new year, eternity sneaks, no, saunters into my mind and won’t go away. Even if I live another 60 years, what is that in the scheme of forever? Not. a. thing. And yet it is everything, for the decisions I make now have consequences that stretch into the agelessness to come. That’s a mind bender.

In the end, these are my only two choices:

A. Dismiss forever and exist as if  my time on this dying planet is all there is.

B. Live the brief moments I have left in light of eternity by bringing glory to the Savior with whom I will spend it.

Huh. Sometimes simplicity is really good.

1 Corinthians 10:31 ”  . . .whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

The Accuser and the Advocate

I John 2:1

 

The Accuser of the Brethren looks on with evil glee

As I willfully, pridefully run to shameful misery

He leaps before the Righteous Judge and His only Son

A finger pointed at my sin: “I demand death for what she’s done!

She’s missed the mark and you who claim that you can never lie

Have stated in your Word, ‘the soul that sins must surely die’.

You have a duty to require payment for this wrongful deed.

Just look at her, she’s stained with guilt – all the evidence we need.”

 

Then the Son comes to his feet and stretches out his hands.

“My Father, the Accuser is correct, she’s broken your commands.

But look, I bear eternal scars from when I took her place

And died not only for her soul, but all the human race.

I paid the price of every sin, and since she trusted me

She’s clothed in my own righteousness, and forever will go free.”

I see the scars, the eyes of love, the Man who bore my guilt

And look upon my pure white robe, cleansed with the blood he spilt

My stain of guilt is wholly gone, the Accuser slinks away

I’m enfolded in my Savior’s arms, eternally to stay.

 

. . . and the living is easy.  . .” My dad used to sing that old Gershwin tune to us in a deep voice on hot sticky 1980s evenings in eastern Pennsylvania. I have the song on my iPod now, and whenever I hear it, I remember and smile. Even as an adult, there is something idyllic and relaxed about this time. I still go and play outside at night with my friends on occasion, fireflies and long summer sunsets lighting the way. Of course, I am blessed to have a job in which I’m off for several weeks during June and July, mimicking my childhood breaks,  but even during years when I worked the whole way through, summer still had that sense of “slow-n-easy”.

The Lord was so wise in his creation of seasons. Grateful as I am to have lived in Africa with it’s less dramatic season shifts, I relish living through winter, spring, summer, and fall in Wisconsin. To be sure, I tend to get cranky when the thermometer does its violent swings below zero and above ninety, and I’m not particularly a fan of driving in ice and snow, but there is much delight to be gained in the whiteness of winter, the new green and blooms of spring, the heat and sun and long days of summer, and the brilliant crispness of fall.

God was so wise and generous in giving us the seasons and rhythms of life.

Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Day 40

What? The above is one of the anagrams of my name (an anagram is a phrase made by rearranging the letters another phrase or word).

Courtesy of my brother Pete (aka Printer Morose), here’s the website where you can generate your very own anagrams:

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

Thank you for your support of Made for Eternity (aka Forearmed Entity). Isn’t language FUN??

Day 38

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

When I read that verse, I think tragedy. I think catastrophe. I think illness and death and pain. But what about sin? What about when we ignore the Spirit and do the wrong thing? What about when we step so far outside of God’s will that we end up in a mess of a situation that is all bad, humanly speaking? Can he work that together for our ultimate good?

Yes. Really. He never condones our sin, and there are always consequences, but he takes our bad choices and our “missings-of-the-mark” and graciously uses them for our good. They are part of all things.

He is so much bigger, his plan his so much greater, and his grace is so much stronger than anything we fumbling, stumbling sinners can do.

Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Day 36

I really really like hearing kids sing. “The Wheels on the Bus”, “Down by the Bay”, “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” – it’s all good.

Today while practicing for the Christmas program, the small Sunday School singers were incredibly enthusiastic, and it’s encouraging to hear them belting our the truth:

“Salvation! Salvation! The gift of life is free, for Jesus died for sinners, even you and me.”

Beats those other kids’ songs in every way.

Day 35

John 11:35 Jesus wept.

He wasn’t – isn’t – a robot. “His heart is touched with my grief”, as the old hymn says. To know he knows, feels, and cares – that in itself is a comfort.

Day 34

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Imagine living for over 30 years and never giving in to a single temptation to sin. Having been a lifelong transgressor with innumerable givings-in, I can’t fathom it.

This Jesus is truly amazing, to make a dramatic understatement.

Day 33

Consider this:

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Who among us would even think for a second about becoming a virus to save viruses? I know the analogy isn’t perfect, but the fact that the eternal Son of God became one of us, and actually lived with thoroughly sinful us for 33 years is stunningly unimaginable to our brains.

Only the mind of a infinitely loving God could come up with a plan like that.

Day 32

Ah, it’s evening, and I’m all showered and clean and cozy in my bed while something wintry is going on outside. Snow, sleet, rain. Here comes ol’ man winter.

Today was a Doing Good Things Day. I went to work. I talked to my kids (or made them talk). I went to a meeting. I discussed cases with my colleagues. I did paper work. I gave and got a few hugs. I read the news. I checked my email. I checked the weather. I read a few verses, did a little studying of the Bible. I prayed.

Still in spite of all the Good Things I considered today, I didn’t consider him. Not really. He crossed my mind several times. I even talked to him. But I haven’t yet stopped to meditate on my Savior.

Hebrews 12:3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another consideration at this time.

Day 31

A little Pearls Before Swine always keeps me from taking myself too seriously.



Day 30

that Jesus died, and that he died for me.”

I don’t need to add anything to that in order to be saved eternally. I can’t add anything.

I never have to worry about coming to God with my arms full of (useless) good works, asking breathlessly, “Is this enough?” because what I do will never be enough.

What Jesus did is, and I have simply rested my faith in him.

Day 29

To be called “beloved” is a precious thing. To be called “beloved” by God is indescribable. Believers are said to be accepted in the Beloved,  referring to Jesus. The fact that God’s Word uses the same term for us sinners that he does his Son is just jaw-droppingly amazing.

That’s why I love that verse from Psalm 127 so much.

He gives his beloved sleep.

When I read that verse, I think of a daddy holding his toddler gently in his arms, rocking her, singing to her, watching her eyelids droop. God could have said, “He gives his people sleep”, but the fact that he chose to call us “beloved” there demonstrates a tenderness and a gentleness that the giver of this particular gift has for us, his little ones.

His beloved.

Day 28

I like this verse a lot:

Psalm 127:2 Tis in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

There’s a lot I like in there, but I’ll save that for another day . . . right now I’m going to sleep.

Day 27

Variety is the spice of life, and I truly have a very spicy career. That’s because I deal with people and language, two extremely – nearly infinitely –  varied entities. Put the two together, and wow! The possibilities are wonderfully endless.

Recently, sessions have included the origin of the term “sideburns”, a discussion of how absolutely ancient I am (once my 4th grade boys figured out my age: “Twenty-nine! Woah!”), and why it is important to wear a seatbelt. (“‘Cause if you don’t, you might fly out the window and bust your head open.” Yes, indeed.) Then there’s the  incredulous quote of the day, inspired by a picture in a book of a yak wearing boxer shorts (it’s a long story): “Them wear drawers?”

Well, no, not usually.

I am so grateful to God for my job, my kids, and my language.

Day 26

Exodus 19:4 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

According to the  Bible Knowledge Commentary, mother eagles fly under their new-to-flying young with wings outspread to catch them if they fall. What a beautiful picture of God who is always there with his mighty everlasting arms, quick to rescue us whenever we stumble, fail, and faint.

Day 25

It’s been a snowy December 1st these last few years in Milwaukee, but not today. The sun shone brightly. The thermostat read 51. The kids in the hallway on their way in from recess proclaimed, “It’s hot out! It’s a miracle!”

It’s supposed to snow tomorrow, so we’ll be closer to reality, but I don’t mind this kind of “miracle” ahead of a Wisconsin winter.

Don’t mind it one smidgen.

Day 24

of baseball in Milwaukee. The first game here was played on 30 November 1859.  Sure, it was odd that they played in what amounts to winter weather in most of the country. Sure, the score was more football and basketball than baseball at 85-40 (wow – how’d that happen?!). Sure, they kept playing on into December (including a snow-shortened game on the 17th). Sure, there was probably little resemblance to the game we know and love today. Still, those “boys of winter” (as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel calls them) paved the way for the “boys of summer” here in Wisconsin.

So, hooray for baseball pioneers, and . . .  play ball!

Day 23

“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” – R. Bradbury

Yet here we are. Because our God is the God of the impossible.

Genesis 18:14a Is anything too hard for the LORD?

Day 22

Physical death is a curse. The day we are conceived, we begin the long slow march to the day we die.  As humans, we dread the day, we avoid it at all costs, consciously and unconsciously, we ignore it, we pretend it will not ever come. But since that day in the Garden when Adam & Eve sinned, died spiritually, and were destined to die physically, we have all been under the curse.

Still, grace was there that day.

Genesis 3:22-24 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

He kept them away from the tree of life so they would die, so they wouldn’t ever have a chance to live eternally with that crushing load of sin.

Thank you, Lord, for your grace on the first dark day in human history.