Painful Silence

I have been in a season of prayer that results in lots of painful silence.  I have prayer warriors praying on my behalf and those prayers likewise have resulted in painful silence.  We are calling out to God to change my situation, to give me favor in the right places and to reunite me with family and my home on earth.  Painful silence.  

I cannot help but ask God “why” he is silent and I remain in this situation that is lonely and depressing.  There are moments I get a sense of what I am here for but I do not see things unfold in the way I had sensed.  I pray boldly.  I pray meekly.  I throw myself at God’s mercy.  I pray David’s prayers of lament.  I also give thanks for what he has done.  In the midst of what I hope for, I can see his hand at work in my life.  Having just come through the Easter season, it’s easier to remember what is most important is not what I want but what he has already done.  

As I pray through the painful silence I seek out others who can help remind me that I am not alone on this journey.  I walk the same path as many of my Biblical heroes, people who knew pain, who chose to live in faith and who saw their rewards in this realm and the next.  Thomas Merton is one of those people of faith who has shared his thoughts and his faith as another example to me.  One of his written prayers resonates with me in these days of silence.

My LORD God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.  - Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”

I do not know if the road I am on is the right road.  I want to hear God’s call and seek his direction over my own but when all I hear is silence, I cannot help but wonder if where I am is where I am supposed to be.  So, I rest in the idea that my desire to please God does please God and he will take me down the path to where I am supposed to be if this isn’t the one.  

More than anything, I want to be God’s instrument.  I want to be used by him to do his will.  Where there is silence, I will continue to hope I am doing what he wants.  And when I hear his call, I want to be ready and willing to fulfill his plan.  The pain of his silence is simply in my desire to know I am where he wants me to be doing what he wants me to do.  I hope I hear his voice soon.  Until then, I trust that my hope to please him does in fact please him.  

Jeff Jones
Decatur, Texas

Graveyard Truths

“...man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment…”     (Hebrews 9:27)

I have never thought much of “graveyard tales” – stories by preachers designed to overly stir the emotions of hearers.  Any response based primarily upon feelings, apart from  knowledge and conviction founded upon God’s inspired Word  will play out when such feelings subside.  First century evangelists called upon their hearers to hear, know, believe the truth about Jesus, and to respond in “the obedience that comes from faith.” (Acts 2:14-41;  Romans 1:5;  16:26. )

Nevertheless, there is need that we contemplate the realities of life and of death that we might live soberly in view of such.  The Psalmist prayed, “Show me, O Lord, my  life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.  You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you.” (Psalm 39:4, 5.)

               

Some time ago, while in a sm
all town preaching the good news of Jesus, I went alone to a graveyard located nearby.  The setting was well calculated to deepen reflection – removed from the rustle of the town, on a knoll overlooking a twisting creek, shaded by cedar trees aged and gnarled, the only sounds, the whispers of the cedar boughs and an occasional dirge by a mourning dove sitting in a dead tree across the creek.

As I slowly walked among the graves a number of things there suggested truths which the living need to consider.  The markers, some large and ornate, others but a moss covered rock turned on its edge, remind us of several things about death.  Death is the great leveler.  I saw old graves in which slaves were buried, and nearby reposed their former masters.  “The small and the great are there, and the slave is freed from his master.” (Job 3:19.)  Row upon row of tombstones reminded that death is as natural and certain for us as are birth and life, unless the Lord comes first. “…man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment…”(Hebrews 9:27.)  I further saw clear reminders that the time of our departure is unknown.  Death has no favorite age.  In the same family plot were placed the bodies of a grandmother called from life at 84 years of age, and, of two of her grandchildren who died the day they were born.  Therefore, Jesus would say, “…you must also be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”(Matthew 24:44.)

This little cemetery proclaimed the faith common to all mankind in the hour of death, that there must be something beyond this existence in which man is involved.  The very designation of this burying place, “cemetery”, reminds that we count it a place of sleep, not a depository of oblivion.  (fr Greek, koimeterion, ‘a sleeping chamber’…fr. koiman ‘to put to sleep’.)  The bodies in the tombs faced the east, a common practice growing out of man’s hope to see on the morning of the resurrection, Him Who is “…the Resurrection and the Life”. (John 11:25-26.)

Many signs could be seen reflecting man’s feeling after his Maker in the hour of sorrow – symbols on flower sprays, carved in stone, etched in bronze, of Bibles, crosses and similar thngs.  Over the grave of an acquaintance of mine stood an open Bible of styrofoam substance.  My friend had died of cirrhosis of the liver due to his heavy drinking.  How strange that the very Book which we neglect in life is the Book we crave in death!

A quiet graveyard is a good place to go to reassess the true values of this life.  One does not see shiny cars, flashing neon nor digital lights, rowdy revelry, immaculate mansions, or  the stock market quotations. One sees the brevity of this life, the certainty of death, the need to live for the Sovereign Savior and Judge before Whom we shall stand when called forth from the grave.  We are reminded of the folly of procrastination.  Not one person whose body then lay in the dust of death intended to die in his or her sins, in an unsaved condition.  Knowing that Jesus promised, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…”(Mark 16:16)), some truly intended to do so, but just waited too long.  Others were there who had really meant to repent of breaking their covenant with the Lord Jesus.  But death came before they got around to confessing the evil they had practiced after they once became Christians.  So, with all there, they wait for the judgment which  God’s Word promises they will face after death. (Hebrews 9:27.)  Graveyards remind us of sobering truths, and that we would do well now and then to ponder God’s truths in such a setting.

Ted Kell

Brownwood, Texas

SPIRITUAL REALITIES

.....God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."
I Corinthians 1:21

Difficult to understand and even more difficult to explain from a human vantage point is the spiritual plane God calls us to.   The message of the cross for so many at this time of year is Easter eggs, new clothes, a trip to church, and out quick to beat the long lines at the restaurant.  More bizarre in comparison is the real story.

A loving Father sends His Son and saves us from our greatest fears:  inadequacy, rejection, and dying.  He rescues us and covers for us taking into account our weakness and inability to win over the very real enemy in Satan.  Our worst fears in Satan and death are defeated.  Christ is given as the anti-toxin to Satan.  Even in the grips of death in the last second Christ offers the vile of forgiveness that when injected directly into the heart, reverses the poison and certain death of my sin.  He has saved us and rescued us before that moment is faced.  We have already won!   God has made a way for us through a sacrificed Son, not based on our doing.   Adopting us and changing us to be like him to live in His kingdom: royal sons and daughters safe, forgiven, valued, and loved forever. This sounds like foolishness and fairy tails to the majority who hear it.

Yet for the few willing to take the risk and buy into this journey, unimaginable, wonderful things are revealed. Though bodies weaken, skin sags, hair grays, vision blurs, and hearing fades our spirits are getting stronger. We learn to trust God's promises transitioning away from a physical emphasis to a Spirit-filled follower catching clearer glimpses of where we are going.    We grow in our love for God living holy, righteous lives demonstrating spiritual wisdom and deeper love for those around us.  The grandest step in our journey is that first moment, the first realization that being with Him is better than life itself, and we see Him for who He really is.  We begin to long more and more to be with Him.  This may not seem realistic and this spiritual reality may seem impossible to attain, yet God calls to us over and over again to believe it and embrace it.

Once we accept He'll do the rest.  It is a journey of faith rewarded in ways beyond comprehension for those crazy enough to leave the crowd and follow Him.

"Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day....We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.  No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words." (2 Corin- thians 4:16; 1 Corinthians 2:6,7,13)

Father in heaven the mystery of the cross makes no sense to this world.  We ask for Your Holy Spirit to grant us the wisdom and vision to understand this incredible gift of Jesus dying for us.  In Jesus name.

Scotty Elston
Shallowater, Texas