STRESS!! It consumes, divides and doubles. You would think that a little quiet time would be welcome, but that’s not always the case. In fact, for many of us quiet time may invite the most intimidating minutes of our day.
A quiet awakening
I should have welcomed opportunity for more sleep, for my night had been nearly sleepless. Yet after awakening to near silence before dawn I turned off the alarm and remained awake.
What was on my mind? Everything. And I must confess that my first thought was not,
This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24
We arose as usual, beginning the necessary routines of each day. The dog stretched and hurried toward the door. Routine, but required, we set out on today’s event full journey. Charlie followed his nose along previously blazed paths oblivious to my attempt of a hurried pace along a cold continuous sidewalk.
Running from work
A jogger ran by, buds in her ears and pulse-monitoring watch on her wrist. She tracks more than time and steps. On warmer days I sensed her daily pace, caught in her mini-marathon between school drop-off and her gym or coffee shop. A man drove by in his loud pizza-logoed car, bobbing his head to a beat of some music inside.
Charlie walked further, but I was no different from these running to and from work. I could have been busy in some song or sense of life’s sprint, but this day all was quiet except multiplying messages of a mind caught up in my ‘what to do next’ and ‘why did I do that.”
Once I had driven miles between accounts with my mind also cruising well above the speed limit of a time-constrained goal list. I once listened to anything louder than my passing thoughts; nostalgic classics or current upbeat songs by young musicians full of life. Yet work always approached with the day’s music fleeting to where carefree sounds, singing and smiles fade into hope of a different journey.
As I thought ahead to work I considered a place filled with well-meaning souls, busy building barns most will never see. Eight or so hours without running to places where we have time to count the costs before the laying of foundations of futility.
An unexpected glimpse at quiet sleep
Unexplored paths led by tugs of long leash from long-wandered straight paths of purpose, we returned to a road taken by only a few headed to their cul-de-sac of journey’s end.
A sight behind an open blind of dawn-lit window imprints image of both past and future. The man lay sleeping peacefully in a hospital bed, between his room’s window and rising metal tree with clear bags of liquid extending long lines dripping life into failing flesh and relief into the delay of decay.
Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
A mere breath, vapour, a fleeting shadow are the lives of mankind. Souls caught in the image of God trapped in failing flesh. What question of man precedes such astute observation though the looking-glass of life?
In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him; 2 the Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.
3 The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.
Charlie had inadvertently led me to a path where in the near silence of our morning walk I had to remember our path toward a final rest. So many have passed this way before us, yet today in an unwelcome misstep I glanced briefly into my own future as well as a sudden step back into a memory of a deathbed before.
By the sweat of your face You shall eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”
It had been brought into my own living room. She had been sick for months and they couldn’t figure it out. Doctors were busy and work went on while family and life rushed about. A trip to the ER told more of the disruption of life to come.
After giving up on work and her parents moving in, trips from doctor to hospital and home again… to a bed not our own…
Once I sat by her inadvertently on her oxygen tube. It was that kind of sudden realization that the breath of life we take so granted becomes perilously cumbersome to draw in for just one more moment. She would live fully just two score and ten, one more month and one more night to say ‘Good-bye, I love you.’
The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labour and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger?
even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Charlie and I turned off into home, just a short way along our temporary path of these days. I remained lost in contemplative prayer and unexpectedly fond memory, for I knew just how temporary was this life for her and for me.
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…
“..and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
The following is an UPDATE of an early Talk of Jesus post about Roger, his Christian Social Witness & specifically being born again in the Lord Jesus Christ on a Good Friday ~30 years ago.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Isaiah 40:3 KJV
And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound…
Prepare to witness JESUS
You’ll recognize the Prophesy of Isaiah as an announcement fulfilled by John the Baptizer shouting a warning in his day: Prepare to meet Christ Jesus who IS God with us!
Those of you familiar with my writings and witness over the years know well that I have generally acknowledged the preparatory seasons of Christmas and Easter with appropriate writings during Advent and Lent. A brief glance at the 2014 calendar will reveal that the traditional 40 days of preparation for Easter liturgically known as Lent remain several wintry weeks away.
http://talkofJesus.com currently [A.D. 2014] posts daily 6 days/week & is searchable by topic or scripture
So as not to discourage any who might regularly read my exhortations of scripture without understanding the context, I thought to prepare your hearts by pointing even through the darkness of these days to the Light of Life in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our certain assurance of hope in His coming again to resurrect a new and fresh life out of the grave of these present days.
Just a bit of background about my faith experience.
I was raised in the Methodist Church, which had several set ‘methods‘ of worship.
Later, for many years I was a member of the Episcopal Church which generally followed a very catholic liturgical calendar typical of the Anglican communion.
I continue to have many dear brothers and sisters of the Roman Catholic faith.
I became an active member of a Southern Baptist church and have remained a faithful worshiper in Presbyterian and other Protestant churches as moves to other towns necessitated.
[At the time of the launch of Talk of Jesus .com in 2014]
I am now a member of the Mennonite Church, which like all other denominations of Christ reflects many facets of Christianity.
As always, I am first and foremost a servant of Christ Jesus as Lord and obligated to the full command of God through all scripture of the Bible.
Roger’s condensed Vitae
I have a Bachelor of Music degree; have taught instrumental music of all types; directed bands, orchestras, small ensembles and choirs, as well as performed as in instrumentalist and sung in many church choirs; and I have mixed and recorded sound for contemporary worship.
The Lord has given me teaching, preaching and writing gifts.
I love the exegesis of scripture and can never get enough. Whatever I do for Christ is not so important as what He might do through me for you and for others. This is why I generally provide dynamic links in my writing to some of my favorite resources.
Why Talk of JESUS?
The Lord has given me a passion not so much for evangelism (to which every Christian is called) as for teaching my fellow dear believers the necessity to grow up in our faith.
Prepare yourself for SOLID FOOD.
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.
Warning Against Apostasy 11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
For this reason I have sought to make it easy for you to read your Bible daily, even through posts from Scripture on talkofJesus.com
-Do you read scripture every day?
-Do you read your Bible every day?
-Do you pray to God (at least once) every day?
This is the milk of my posting scripture to this easy to SHARE, easy to COMMENT, and easy to read site of Christian Social Witness.
Post content on TalkofJESUS.com as the Spirit leads may not always be as easy to digest as milk.
Roger@TalkofJesus.com
I invite you to COMMENT & offer YOUR thoughts about God and Christ, as well as your personal convictions, repentance, applications and witness of Jesus Christ to chew on long and hard with the seriousness of your own salvation.
The Lord has pointed me toward this witness as a result of an upcoming book [*] of importance also about growing up in our faith. It is a contemporary retelling of a Christian serial story with 149 brief episodes.
[*] note: not pubically available at this time + TalkofJesus.com has published several serial stories with brief post episodes.
I have also written a much shorter serial story based on Genesis, which I would have published on this site by now, except for the lack of current interest by lack of any comments of yours expressing any interest in following a serial story here for five or six days a week over a month. If you are interested, just add a comment to this post.
from a liturgical 2014 calendar
in order to prepare our hearts for Lent & Easter
Observe (if you like) that I had intended to begin and continue in Genesis in January 2014, however the Spirit led me to Psalm 119, which concluded just recently.
Recent & upcoming posts are an intense call to repentance of professing christians.
(You CALL yourself a christian or CLAIM you ‘go to church.’)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7:21 ESV A caution of Jesus to believers who later cautioned [v.23] And then will Ideclare to them, ‘I never knew you
a traditional Repentance of Lent to prepare for Easter
These preparations from scripture, often from the Prophets of the Old Testament, are more typical to the liturgical requirements of repentance to dust and ashes from the time of Ash Wednesday (this year: March 5, A.D. 2014) through the Crucifixion of Lord celebrated on Good Friday in the year of our Lord 2014 on April 18.
about Roger receiving the Holy Spirit!
On a personal note:
I was born again in the Lord on a Good Friday during a contemporary ‘Stations of the Cross’ remembrance about twenty years ago [now ~30 years].
The little Episcopal church where we were members had a powerful moving of the Spirit for a time that could make a Pentecostal service look conservative!
(So much for tradition… for a brief unexpected time at that time.)
Roger’s ‘teaching’ style
I hesitate to say that the ‘easy grace’ message so attractive to bring in the crowds of marginal christians is all too prevalent and undeserving of the call of Christ Jesus to become like Him, obey Him, and be born again in Him.
You should find the Easter to Pentecost liturgy and probably my writing after Easter will reflect more of the importance of the love and grace and forgiveness that we have through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
If you need a nice encouragement of Jesus – the friendly, nice, lamb-holding, child-welcoming teacher; read the Gospel.
He IS the same Jesus who will return on the clouds (perhaps soon) with fire and vengeance and judgment.
NO, not everyone will be in heaven just because we mention Jesus or say we are christian or go to church once in a while or every week and don't let scripture convict and change us.
The upcoming months leading up to Easter, [A.D. 2014] for the most part are meant to convict each of us to:
a stronger faith, a weaker self, a humbler obedience, a truer witness
and a God-given, Christ-centered, Spirit-driven daily life
to do the Lord’s will on earth, as it is in heaven.
Please add your COMMENTS or questions to this or any post and share our Christian Social Witness liberally on your ‘other’ site where unbelievers watch what you do and say is important to you.
I pray for you, that the Lord may somehow use our witness through this. Pray also for me.
May our Lord, Christ Jesus, continue to grow you in your faith and knowledge of scripture in preparation for His return to reign as King of Glory and Lord of all over the earth and heavens and every soul of His creation.
