to our Ropeholders

CYCLONE JASMINE AND THE CORIOLIS EFFECT

2012-02-08T14:34:00.002-06:00

As I wrote a couple of days ago, Vivian and I were scheduled to go to Vanuatu where I was to have a training seminar with a group of pastors. Unfortunately, it turned out that we were not the only ones scheduled to go to Vanuatu on that day. A cyclone named Jasmine also had set her sights on the islands. A man whom I respect once told me to never pick a fight with an angry woman, so in the end, Jasmine won out. She made her schedule but I did not.

Actually, what happened is that Air Vanuatu canceled the flight and rescheduled us to fly up there on Saturday. So, if there are no further changes, we will be leaving at that time. I am not sure how the training will work out once we get there, since I have not been able to contact anyone in Vanuatu. Nevertheless, I guess these are things that are, like the cyclones themselves, in the hands of God.

As I have been looking at the satellite photos of the cyclones (there are actually two right now in the southern Pacific), and with these three days of unscheduled hours that have suddenly come to me, it has caused my mind to wander once again to think about something that I have written about before: The Coriolis Effect. What is the Coriolis Effect? It is that combination of certain laws of physics and motion that causes the cyclones that form south of the equator to turn with a clockwise rotation and the hurricanes that form north of the equator to turn counterclockwise (or as they say here, and anti-clockwise rotation).

What are these laws of physics? I once tried to learn the mechanics of how this all takes place, but my trouble is that if something cannot be explained to me using stick-figure people diagrams, I usually cannot understand it.

But I like the Coriolis Effect. I especially like that it involves the word effect, because the effects are very interesting. It is simply intriguing to me that the hurricanes and cyclones rotate in this fashion, as well as high-pressure and low-pressure weather systems. People who know about physics more than me (my brother Daniel and his boys) tell me that the Coriolis Effect causes large weather systems to rotate in this way, but the effect is not pronounced enough to cause movements on a smaller scale, such as water in a sink or a flushing toilet.

But I, in my own way, have also studied this effect. When we lived in Venezuela (which is north of the equator) and when I traveled to countries such as Peru (which is south of the equator), I regularly made a mental note of which way the water went down when I flushed the toilets. In Venezuela – counterclockwise. In Peru – clockwise. I told my nephew that if it was not because of the Coriolis Effect, then they must make the toilets different in the southern hemisphere.

I have also flushed toilets here in New Zealand. I must say that the results are not what I would expect. The water in the toilets that I have flushed here seem to have very little discernable rotation at all. I don’t know why this is but I think it is what physicists call a “geographical anomaly.” If physicists do not have that term, then they should.

Speaking of water rotation, I think that I once mentioned a little museum that is located on the equator in the country that is even named after the equator – Ecuador. With GPS measurements, they have determined the exact location of the equator, and have a line running down the middle of the grounds of the outdoor museum to show the visitors where the northern hemisphere meets the southern.

At the museum they have various demonstrations of physical phenomena that they say is only possible right on the equator, and little experiments that you can do. For instance, on the equator it is possible to balance an egg on its end on the top of a nail that is partially driven into a board. It did it. Even right on the equator it is a little difficult, but it can be done. I must confess that I have not tried it in any other part of the world, but I assume it must be impossible since that is what they told me at the museum. They even gave me an official-looking and signed certificate that shows that I successfully balanced and egg on a nail, and someplace I have a photograph of the egg on top of the nail. I have always meant to have the certificate framed (with the photo), but so far have not done it.

Another experiment that they have involves water rotation running down a drain. They used a basin for this experiment and not a toilet, so perhaps this does skew the results somewhat, but the demonstration was impressive nevertheless. The lady at the museum had a movable basin which she placed about two meters north of the line that showed where the equator was. She then poured in a bucket of water, and when the water stopped sloshing around, placed a single leaf on the top of the water right in the middle. Then, with her hand, she pulled out the plug to let the water go down, which it did, rotating in a counterclockwise direction – just what we all expected would happen.

She then took the basin to a spot an equal distance south of the line. Again the water and again the leaf. However, this time when she pulled out the stopper, the water rotated in a clockwise direction. Some audible “Ooo’s” emanated from several of the visitors.

Then the basin was placed directly over the equatorial line. This time, when the plug came out, the water went straight down without any rotation at all. This time some, in the small crowd, gasped. I did not. I didn’t want to appear to be a stupid tourist.

Even though I did not admit it, I was impressed by this demonstration and wondered about it. Since that time, I have decided that the lady must have started the rotational spin of the water when she took out the plug. Even a slight movement of the hand can make the water rotate in any direction that you want. I always hoped that I would be called back to Ecuador so I could again go to that museum to watch more closely, and perhaps catch that lady with her tricks. Sadly, I never returned and I now think the days of me visiting Ecuador are probably over. I am sure she is continuing with her fraudulent demonstration.

So now I am watching Cyclone Jasmine rotate in a clockwise direction and waiting for her to move off to the east so that I can go up to Vanuatu and do my training. In the mean time, I will occupy my mind with more deep and profound thoughts. I hope this has helped you all understand the Coriolis Effect.

THE FOURTH LUNAR LANDING

2012-02-06T16:54:00.001-06:00

When I was home in Wisconsin this earlier this winter, an old high school friend of mine reminded me of a story that I told to him many years ago when I returned from living in India. I thought some of you might find it interesting. I also wrote this years ago.

Tomorrow Vivian and I leave for Vanuatu where I have a teacher training seminar. We appreciate your prayers. One more note, I just looked on the internet to see what weather we could expect, and I see that we are due to arrive in Port Vila, Vanuatu, about the same time as the Tropical Cyclone Jasmine. Hmmm...

THE FOURTH LUNAR LANDING

The only reason that I can remember the date is because of the event that was occurring at the time. It was July 31 of 1971. Two American astronauts had just landed on the moon and were walking on its surface. They even had with them a little “Lunar Rover Vehicle,” which they were driving around on the surface of the moon. It was the fourth-lunar landing and the first with the little car-like vehicle. At the time that all of this was happening, I was in an area of the world where a mountain climber could get as close to the moon as is possible on foot – the Himalayan Mountains. These mountains are called “the roof of the world” for good reason. But of course, despite their great height, the Himalayas cannot compare to a lunar landing, and while two of my countrymen were walking on the surface of the moon, my path was a more lowly one. I was walking on the surface of the earth in these mountains.

And even with that, I was far from the peak of any mountain. I am not a climber. I am merely a hiker. I stay away from scaling cliffs and do not listen to the call of mountain peaks. The call of the river valleys and tops of wooded ridges are enough for me.

It may be true that these mountains reach higher toward the moon than any other, but the technological development of the area where I was hiking was almost as far as one could get from the advanced technology represented by lunar landing crafts and space suits. I was sitting in a little tea stand in a tiny remote village in the mountains. There was an old bearded gentleman also sitting and drinking tea. His face was weather beaten and wrinkled from the harsh climate of the area and he was probably not as old as he appeared, but to me, he seemed like the original old man of the mountains. He and I exchanged a simple conversation. Our words were limited since I did not speak his language of Urdu and he only knew a few words of Hindi (I could only struggle my way with it myself).

Over our heads was the moon. It was waxing toward being a full moon, as I remember it. The old man of these mountains learned that I was an American and he had heard of the moon landings. I remember him asking me if it were really true that there were, at that moment, men walking on the moon.

I had been in high school for the first lunar landing. Of course, it captivated all of our attention. We watched every moment of it on TV and listened to all the scientific explanations (made understandable for the TV audience) for every movement of machine and man. The event was astonishing, but none of us had any doubts in believing that it was actually taking place. In our imagination, we could picture the American astronauts walking on the moon.

It was much different for me with this fourth landing. Sitting in that tea stand, where perhaps the most technological advanced piece of equipment was a tea strainer (there was not even electricity in that remote place) the image of men walking and driving on the moon did indeed seem difficult to imagine. There we sat, the old Himalayan gentleman and I, sipping our tea and gazing up at the moon. It became obvious to me that my companion did not really believe that at that moment, there were men walking on the moon. I must say that as I sat and viewed my surroundings, it was also very difficult for me to believe. In that place, the thought seemed a bit absurd. Nevertheless, I answered him that I supposed that it was true since I read about it in the newspaper, but I am sure that I did not sound very convincing.
We must have seemed an unlikely pair. He and I were almost as opposite as two men could be. A young (still teen-aged) American boy, and a very old Himalayan shepherd. We both looked up at the moon and then at each other. I do not know what my eyes revealed, but his had a look of skepticism and unbelief. I cannot say that I blamed him.

He finished his tea, and after asking his leave, rose to his feet and started up the trail. I supposed he was on his way home since it was late now, in the afternoon. I sat awhile longer and thought about this old man. I looked up at the moon and then at his back retreating up the mountain trail. His life would probably be affected very little by the lunar landings. Mine far more. Which of us, I wondered, were the more fortunate?

I drank the last swallow of my tea. Placing the glass on the table, I rose to my feet. I took one more long look up the mountain trail, and with some regret, turned and started down the same trail to where I was to stay for the night, before returning to the city the next day.

THE JOURNEY OF TOLO‘A‘I

2012-02-02T17:44:00.000-06:00

Many of you who have read other things that I have written or perhaps have heard me speak know that, ever since I came to the Pacific, I have been somewhat captivated by the thought of the plan of God in sending these Polynesian people far out of contact with the rest of the world at the very time when Jesus was walking on the roads of Galilee.

Central to this thought is what the Apostle Paul said to the people of Athens, “And He (God) made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26-27 NAS).

I greatly look forward to the time when we will be able to understand all of the historical movements of mankind over the face of the globe in the context of God’s plan for them.

By the way, we had a very good teacher training seminar in Samoa last week, and now look forward to another in Vanuatu next week.

THE JOURNEY OF TOLO‘A‘I

The young Polynesian traveler lifted his eyes

To the limitless ocean, the eternal skies.

People called him Tolo‘a‘i, “the seeking one.”

And his nature was formed by what his name implies.

He squinted into the blinding tropical sun,

If there were signs of other lands, he could see none.

But he was Tolo‘a‘i; his life was defined.

His family needed a home, and he must seek one.

He readied his canoe, the large double-hulled kind,

He had to take care to leave not one thing behind.

Water for drinking, they will also collect rain –

Full preparations, since they knew not what they’d find.

Foodstuffs for eating, and for planting, the seed grain,

Two pigs and four chickens in their cages of cane.

And also a dog, their dog of good behavior.

They thought everything through, lest their trip be in vain.

But never did their determination waver.

They only waited for a wind in their favor.

Two more families with two more boats joined in this quest

To find a new land they hoped would be their savior.

Then one morning they found, when they rose from their rest,

A steady gentle breeze had picked up from the west.

It was in this season when this westerly blew.

Of all chances to begin, this day looked the best.

They packed all their things, lashing them to the canoe,

The animals all in their cages of bamboo.

To those friends they left behind, they said their good-byes,

And pushed off from the beach, leaving all that they knew.

The first days were fine – gentle winds and sunny skies.

But on the sixth day out, the seas grew very high.

Black and angry clouds obliterated the sun.

For the first time on this trip they feared they would die.

So dark turned the day, and they all feeling undone,

They barely could tell when the night had begun.

All through the long night the storm continued to rage.

They cried for salvation, though they knew not the One.

By day-break the next the winds began to assuage

The storm lasted a day, though it seemed like an age.

In the end it was rather little that was lost,

Although two of the chickens had drowned in their cage.

The trip continued on, leagues of ocean were crossed.

Their canoe seemed so small, and so easily tossed

By the great waves of the ocean, throwing them high.

If they ever found land, they feared at what great cost.

In the seventh week their drinking water went dry

Not much rain had come, and they had no more supply.

They lay on their boats, at the mercy of the sea.

This time they truly felt that they failed in their try.

Again they cried for help, again voicing a plea;

When their dry eyes spotted, in some floating debris,

Something that would give to them a life saving drink –

Several sea-born fruit nuts from a coconut tree.

More times in their journey they stared over the brink

Of the chasm of death, when the sea looked like ink.

But they always were saved, the danger would recede,

And with each salvation, they continued to think

That someone, somewhere, wanted them all to succeed.

Someone, somewhere, was keeping watch over their need.

Then one day, they saw the seagoing pilot birds fly,

And they could follow their flight to where they would lead.

Finally they felt that land must surely be nearby,

And after three months at sea, their spirits grew high.

Pilot birds fly from land a hundred miles or more,

But the tired travelers felt that salvation was nigh.

At long last the day came when they heard the surf roar.

On that very day they placed their feet on the shore.

Finally they felt that they had found their new land.

And they felt that they would have to travel no more.

And as they stood looking, with their feet in the sand,

It was clear that this island was all they had planned.

They could see it was fertile, lush and green of leaf,

It would be a spacious home, prosperous and grand.

The Polynesian sighed a deep sigh of relief,

He could finally let go of all his past griefs.

But he thought of those times when they were saved at sea

And he had been challenged in some of his beliefs.

It was true that in many ways he now felt free,

But in other ways he felt there was more to see.

Not other lands. No – on this he would have his grave.

But he would search for the One who had heard his plea.

The sender of coconuts, the stiller of waves

The One who would calm him when inner voices raved.

And when he did wrong, and when no one else forgave

He knew there was One who could eternally save.

The man’s name was Tolo‘a‘i, “the seeking one,”

And in some ways his journey had only begun.

PAUL - THE RELUCTANT ADVENTURER

2012-01-25T15:42:00.003-06:00

Do you sometimes see what I do in the writings of the apostle Paul? Usually, Paul is characterized as a man of action – always moving on to a new adventure. We see him casting out demons, weathering the difficulties and dangers of the road and the sea, speaking to thousands; on a constant trek from country to country, adventure to adventure.

We often glamorize a lifestyle of adventure like that of Paul, and think of how exciting it must have been for him. Many travelers of our own day seem to be only on a constant quest for new adventures. Some may think that this also may have been a motivation for Paul because it seems that he could not stay long in one place. However, if we look closely at his writings, we see that there is something else. There is another side to Paul that we do not often realize, but that we can sometimes detect in his writings.

I think in some ways, Paul longed for some stability in his life. He told the people in the city of Corinth, “For I do not wish to see you now just in passing; for I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits” (1 Corinthians 16:7 NAS). He told them that he even wanted to spend the winter. I know it is not the same thing, but my mind returns to the pleasant winter that the Lord had recently allowed us to stay on our little farm in Wisconsin. Paul wanted to settle in for a little while and not be so constantly on the move.

I hope I do not read too much into what Paul says, but I sometimes think that he simply longed for a quiet life with a family. “Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife?” he asked (1 Corinthians 9:5 NAS). Many times previous to this, when I have traveled alone and have so greatly missed my lovely Vivian, I have thought of these words of Paul.

Paul, I think, had a strength that I do not. For me there has always been a homecoming, but Paul’s life was one of constant movement. It was not given to him to have a home. I do not know if I could last long without homecoming. Sometimes when I have been on the road with this ministry, I think I am just holding out until the day comes when I can go home for a while.

Instead, Paul found his stability in something else. We are mistaken if we think that we do not need a measure of stability in our lives. Endless adventure can never fulfill every inner need. In some manner, we need constancy – something upon which we can depend. A home somewhat fulfills that need. And, of course, the true Constant is God Himself. It is only through a living relationship with Him do we find stability in our life. But allow me, for a moment, to keep things at ground level.

I think we can learn a little of the priorities in the life of Paul by an event told to us in the book of Acts, chapters 19 and 20. Here Paul was on his third missionary journey, stopping in city after city, demonstrating from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. One of the cities in which he stopped was the city of Ephesus, which is on the west coast of Asia Minor. However, instead of just staying for a month or two in this city, Paul stayed there about three years – the longest time he stayed in any one place in his travels. There were extraordinary things that happened in Ephesus. We are told that people even carried handkerchiefs and aprons from Paul’s body to the sick with the result that the diseases left them and evil spirits went out of them.

However, there was something else of even more significance that happened in Ephesus. There was, in the city, a small group of men there who wanted to dedicate themselves to study. They wanted to go beyond the marvelous and miraculous. They wanted to grow in the truths and the knowledge of God. Faced with such spiritual hunger, Paul stayed to teach them. They met daily in the school of Tyrannus, as it was called (no, it had nothing to do with the dinosaur).

I think they must have been very interesting classes. From the words used to describe these classes, they were not simply lectures of Paul with the student taking notes in preparation for Friday’s exam. Instead, the classroom was filled with discussion and reasoning. They reached conclusions together with Paul as the teacher and the Scripture as their guide. The pastoral training classes with which I had been involved for many years in establishing in Latin America and now in the Pacific are designed to have much the same atmosphere. I cannot help to think that what we helped start in these classes is somewhat the same as the school of Tyrannus. I certainly hope that this is true.

After his years at Ephesus, Paul moved on to continue his journey. He made a wide swing throughout the region and then determined that he would return to Jerusalem. Paul was very goal-orientated and a little more driven than most. He felt that he could not spare the time to travel through Ephesus on his way. He wanted to be in Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost, if he could.

Nevertheless, neither could he pass by Ephesus without seeing his friends. He knew that if he went into the city that he would be too long delayed. Instead, he stayed at the coastal town of Miletus and called for his former students to come to see him. Paul loved these people. There was yet more that he wanted to establish in them that their faith would remain strong. It was a joyful reunion, but when the time came, it was a very difficult parting. They all thought that it may very well be the last time that they would see one another.

The account of their meeting at Miletus is recorded for us in Acts 20: 17-38. When they had all gathered together for this reunion, Paul begins by speaking to his friends and reminiscing with them about their time together:

You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials, which came upon me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:18-21 NAS).

Much that is hidden to us in the words of Paul was not hidden to those who knew Paul. His words brought many remembrances to the people present with him that day in that costal town. We know of some of their experiences together in Ephesus, some of the trials, some of the “plots” of the Jews, but we are like an in-law at the reunion of his spouse’s family. We may be able to identify a little with the “inside” family stories and jokes, but not having grown up with the family, much of it remains outside of our experience.

So it is with us in this reunion at Miletus. When Paul and the others present laughed at some experience they had, we may have laughed, but we may have only done so to be polite. When the people there felt tears welling up in their eyes over some trial that even at that time was very difficult, our eyes may very well have been dry. Had we been present at the actual reunion of Paul and his friends, we may have caught some more of the meaning in what was said, but this was mostly their private time. These were their memories.

After reminiscing for a few minutes, Paul goes on to tell his friends the purpose of the meeting:

And now, behold, bound in spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20: 23-24 NAS).

Paul knows that “bonds and afflictions” await him. A few days after this time at Miletus, Paul would be on his journey to Jerusalem. As he would pass through Caesarea, a prophet named Agabus would take Paul’s belt and bind his own hands and feet and say this, “In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles” (Acts 21:11 NAS).

This prophecy was no new revelation to Paul. He already knew what awaited him. As point of fact, he knew it from the beginning. When Paul was struck blind on the road to Damascus, the Lord sent a man named Ananias to heal him. The message that God gave to Ananias concerning Paul was that “He (Paul), is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My Name’s sake” (Acts 9:15-16 NAS).

Paul knew what his end would be and he knew that he was now at the threshold of that final chapter in his life. How much nicer it would be to stay with his friends in Ephesus! Certainly they also faced afflictions there, as they had just remembered. But they were together! They were there for one another to strengthen and uphold one another.

It is perhaps a dangerous thing to try to attribute thoughts to Paul at this time, but if I had been in Paul’s position, I would have longed to delay my farewell. I would long instead to say those happy words that Paul had told them as he left from his first visit to their city, “I will return to you again, if God wills” (Acts 18:21). This time, he knew it was not to be.

And now, behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, will see my face no more (Acts 20:25 NAS).

Paul then goes on to give advice and counsel to his friends. He warns them that after his departure “savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”

To those who were his students in the school of Tyrannus, he said,

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood... And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified... In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:28-35 NAS).

More was said. They talked further of their time together and remembered some lessons that they had learned. Then the moment came – the moment that they had all tried to keep out of their minds the whole time.

When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they began to weep aloud and embraced Paul, and repeatedly kissed him, grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they should see his face no more. And they were accompanying him to the ship (Acts 20:36-38 NAS).

So it was that Paul left his friends. He boarded his ship and ran a “strait course” to the island of Cos, then to Rhodes, and onwards toward Jerusalem. Only our imagination can put us into Paul’s thoughts as he stood on the deck of the ship as it sailed from Miletus – his friends on the dock and the shore waving and yelling their last good-byes – and he, waving and perhaps shouting some farewells. Who among us would choose adventure at a time like this? Would we not all, if the choice were completely ours to make, stay and settle down with our friends?

This, I think, was the inner tension of Paul. Yet, he continued on. He did not know exactly what would happen to him in Jerusalem, only that “bonds and afflictions” awaited him. But then again; he was already bound. He was bound in Spirit, as he said (v.22).

Later on his way to Jerusalem, in Caesarea, where the prophet Agabus gave his prediction of the binding, the local residents as well as Paul’s own traveling companions begged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

“What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart,” Paul said. “For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13 NAS).

Was Paul’s motivation, like many today, to live a life filled with adventures? I do not think so. One soon tires of adventure. Were Paul’s motivation adventure, I think he would have ceased after only one journey. Yet he said that he had been on “frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers in the wilderness, dangers in the sea, dangers among false brethren; [he had] been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure” (2 Corinthians 11:26-27 NAS).

What motivated Paul was that which he imparted to the people whom he got to know and call his friends. Even more so, what motivated Paul was the call of God.

This then, must also be the motivation for every servant of God. The opiate of adventure is romanticized by Hollywood films, yet truth be told, adventure for its own sake does not make for a life that is truly fulfilling. Like any obsession or addiction, it takes greater amounts to gain satisfaction, and the results are increasingly short-lived.

As enigmatic as it may sound and may seem, that which fulfills can only be a life bound in service. This was true in the life of Paul.

“But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me” – the Apostle Paul (Philippians 2: 17-18).

THE OLD SAWMILL

2012-01-20T06:13:00.003-06:00

My sweet wife Vivian did not like my poem about logging on a windy day. She said that she related too much to the thoughts of the wife at home and remembers many evenings when we were first married that she had felt the same way when I was in the woods working late.

Here is a happier story about the logging industry. This one is about an old sawmill here in our town of Spirit, Wisconsin. It is no longer in existence, but was until about 20 years ago. I was the last to work the carriage of the mill, and my cousin Gene was the last sawyer. The old sawyer in this story, however, is an older man who passed away many years ago. The photos are from some of the last logs that this old sawyer cut when we were cutting lumber one spring.
I have put up a few posts in the past days, but Vivian and I leave for New Zealand today and I am not sure when I will be able to again. I have training seminars to do in Samoa, Vanuatu, and Fiji. I appreciate your prayers.
We will be back for maple syrup season.

THE OLD SAWMILL

The old sawmill stood stooped over on the north bank of the Spirit River. She had ripped her way through many giant pine and hemlock logs from the great forests of Northern Wisconsin. It was these forests that built Chicago, and when the city burned late in the 19th century they built it again.

But that was when the sawmill was in her prime. It was when every metal part glistened from constant use and from care. It was when she watched as the logs came floating down the river next to where she sat, and she anticipated the fine lumber that would be made. Men would gather every day to discuss the happenings of the new community while they tended and cared for her, and then start up her snorting engine to begin the day’s sawing.

It was a different age. Today’s sawmills were of a new generation. They had computerized laser tracking and even x-ray scanners to get the most usable lumber out of each log. The old sawmill admired them. She once prided herself in her accuracy, but she knew that even at her best she would have been no match for the precision and speed of her younger sisters.

Now many of the sawmill’s parts were worn from years of use. Her once gleaming steel had been invaded by rust, like gray hair on a once youthful head. The track that her log carriage rode on was not quite level, as the frost from many winters had shifted the ground under her. The beams of the roof were sagging and the sawmill felt she had lost her girlish charm. The old sawmill stood abandoned for most of the year.

But every spring something happened. The old sawmill by the river dreamed about it all winter as she lay sleeping under her deep white blanket. When the sun began to find his strength again and draw the sawmill’s blanket back, and when the river that had also been lying, sleeping silently all winter, began to gurgle and spill over its banks, she remembered the days of her youth.

The old sawmill once again began to hear the voices of men. She would again feel their hands as they put grease into her creaking joints and shim up her track that had sagged a bit more this year. She felt like a young girl again as these suitors came to tend her. It was for these days she waited all year.

Although she had been sleeping, the men of the community had been busy all winter. Most of the men were farmers now instead of lumberjacks. There were some that were still loggers; others had employment in town. But all of these men who came to tend her had had some time during the winter to fell a few chosen trees from their own forest and bring the logs to her rollway. All the men needed lumber for some building project they had or for repairs around their farms. The sawmill was old but she was still needed and loved.

There was one these men who knew her best. He was the old head sawyer. His age did not match hers but he, too, had seen his days of prime melt away like the snow. He walked a bit hunched over and with careful and measured steps. Some of the old sawyer’s fingers were missing from an agony of the past. It still grieved the sawmill to remember the day. The haste of youth sometimes causes carelessness. The sawyer’s hand had come too close to her whirring teeth and a knot of wood had caused his hand to slip. The sawmill also had been too hasty. All she knew was to cut whatever was given to her, and when she felt his hand in her teeth it was already too late.

But the grievous deed seemed to have not diminished the sawyer’s love for her. There are some days of hurt that come from any love relationship, and the sawyer had forgiven the sawmill. After their many years together, it was the head sawyer who knew just where the old sawmill needed a shim to level up her track. It was he who knew exactly the right angle to run the file over her blade to bring the sharpness back to her teeth. He seemed to hold no bitterness as he stroked the very teeth that had cut him.

The other men followed the head sawyer’s instructions. They were younger and eager to get their lumber sawed so they could get on with their affairs, but she and the old sawyer could not be rushed. Both of them lacked the precision of their movements of past years. Now each motion had to be measured carefully. Each cut had to be performed with deliberate care. The old sawyer told the men how to prepare the sawmill for her task.

The old sawmill by the river felt like a queen as her subjects where tending to her every need. She felt like a lover as she sensed their caressing hands upon her. She felt like a young athlete whose trainers were getting her ready for a championship event. She felt needed.

She was needed. Perhaps not in the same way as she was in the past, but in many ways her role was even greater today. Certainly, these men who had put their logs on her roleway had a need for the lumber that she would saw in the spring. That need remained unchanged. But she noticed a deeper need.

The community had changed. Each of these men was busy all year with their own personal affairs. They each had many responsibilities that occupied their time. Each had, in many ways, become self-sufficient. They had their own employment and their own resources. Not all of these changes were for the bad, but she knew that one must never lose the sense of community. The old sawmill began to see that same community spirit come to life again each year as the men came together to work with one another to cooperate on their common objective.

The antiquated sawmill had none of the automation of the newer generation of sawmills. With her, the heavy logs had to be moved and positioned by hand. The men grunted and sweated side by side as they tried to put a burdensome log in just the right position onto the carriage that moved the log past her teeth. She giggled to herself as she saw their clumsy efforts. They were not used to this type of work. Sometimes what one man was doing on one end of the log was exactly countered by the man on the other end. Then there was always two or three of the men present who seemed to think they could best help out by watching and yelling instructions. The sawmill thought she heard the old sawyer chuckle, too.

Finally the log did come to rest in its place. The dog clamps of her carriage came down to hold the log firmly so that it could be sawed. Above the noise of her ripping blade the sawyer signaled instructions to each man, as each had a role in sawing this log into lumber. The men were unskilled at the tasks and tools that their fathers knew well, but working together they finally were able to saw good boards from the trees they had brought to the sawmill during the winter.

A deep satisfaction came over the old sawmill as she saw these men work together. She was more than a queen. She was more than an athlete. What she accomplished each spring was to remind each man that they needed one another. She could see something come to life in them as well. They could not exist contented, isolated from one another.

When the last log of the spring had been transformed into lumber the men shut off her engine and she lay there silent. She was tired! When she was younger, she felt she could work straight through the night. But no more. The men once again cared and tended her so she would sleep well. They put grease in her old joints so the rust would not steal more of her movement during the year. Then they loaded their fresh smelling boards onto their trucks and bid each other farewell. The old sawyer was always the last to leave. He made her as comfortable as he could before he left her to rest.

The muscles of the old sawmill were tired and she looked forward to a long sleep. She began to close her eyes and grow drowsy. She had relived her youth for a few short days and it was enough for another year.

The sawmill by the river knew she could not match the precision of her younger sisters with all of their advanced technology, but she felt as if they would never know the joy that she lives again every spring. The sawmill had relived her youth but she had also brought to the men a reliving of an age of yesteryear, and they were made the richer for it. She began to close her eyes until the following spring. May all rest well.

TORMENTED SOULS

2012-01-18T06:22:00.000-06:00

The Rescue of “Righteous Lot”

One of the verses in the Bible that has always confused me is found in the book of Second Peter. I am still somewhat perplexed by it, but not so much as before: Peter tells us that God “rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men.” Note that Peter calls Lot “righteous,” and to emphasize that point, he then adds, “For what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds” (2 Peter 2:7-8 NAS).

Is Peter talking about the same Lot about whom I have read in the Bible? Is this the Lot who “moved his tents as far as Sodom”? When Lot’s uncle Abraham, in order to keep peace between him and his nephew, suggested that they separate their flocks and then gave Lot first choice on where to go, Lot immediately chose the valley of Sodom, even though we read that “the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord” (Genesis 13:13). Not only did Lot settle in the same valley, however, but moved his tents very close to the city itself. From this action of Lot, we can see that he was trying to get as close to the world as he was able to. Indeed, Lot later became one of the city leaders of Sodom, which was one of the wickedest of cities in our history.

Is Peter, in calling Lot “righteous,” speaking of the same Lot who, when he was visited by angels from God, offered his two virgin daughters to the mob to rape and abuse in any way they chose rather than allowing these evil men to have their way with the angels? This is, after all, what Lot did. The angels had been sent to Sodom in order to destroy it. Lot saw them coming because he was sitting in the gate of the city, an indication that Lot was probably part of the ruling council of Sodom.

Lot saw the two angels approaching and recognized them as such. Lot invited the two to his home, perhaps not so much out of hospitality but out of fear of what might happen to the angels in that wicked city. The angels at first refused, but Lot was insistent, and the angels were finally persuaded to come to his home. However, that evening, the men of Sodom surrounded the house and demanded that Lot send out the two angels so that they could rape and molest them sexually.

Lot, instead of rebuking the men of Sodom, attempted to appease them. “Please my brothers,” Lot said to them, “do not act wickedly. Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you , and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof” (Genesis 19:7-8 NAS).

Can this be the same Lot to whom Peter was referring when he called him “Righteous Lot?” Perhaps surprisingly to us, it is the same Lot.

In his writing, Peter certainly seems to go out of his way to make the point that Lot was a righteous man. Three times in the same sentence, he calls him righteous. Why should Peter have gone to such great lengths to emphasize this point?

Despite Lot’s series of very bad choices; despite the fact that he had all but lost the light of God’s presence in his life, the Lord still considered Lot “righteous.” Do we see that our true righteousness does not depend upon our actions, as the very extreme example of Lot shows us, but upon whether or not we belong to God?

I know that immediately, there will be some that will say that then it does not matter how we live our lives. If one could live such an unrighteous lifestyle as Lot and still be considered righteous in God’s eyes, what is the point of trying? There are two things that I want to say to this topic:

First of all, we must recognize that Lot is an extreme case, but at the heart, this man is no different from the rest of us. We are all like Lot. We all pitch our tent as far as Sodom. We all, in some manner, try to get as close to the world as we can. We may not be so overt as was Lot, but that is only because we are sneakier. If God was going to eliminate all Lots, we would all be condemned.

Righteousness cannot depend upon our actions, because if it did, we would all fail. Is that not the whole point of the Cross of Christ? Did Christ not accept the penalty for our unrighteousness so that we could live in His righteousness?

The second thing that I would like to say is this: Note that Peter says that Lot’s “righteous soul was tormented day after day.” Lot thought, as many of us think, that if he befriended the world, he could benefit from the world, and at the same time benefit from the righteousness of God. He thought that he could live with two conflicting natures.

We notice that Lot wanted to have the angels in his home, but he also wanted to maintain his relationship with the men of Sodom by appeasing them. Lot was looking for benefits from both sides. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that the actions of Lot and our own actions may be different in degree, but they are the same in nature. We want the blessings of God but want to maintain our friendship with the world.

But Lot was wrong and we are wrong. It was because of this dichotomy in the life of Lot that “his soul was tormented day after day.” One who is called of God should never be comfortable in the midst of overt and extreme sin and rebellion. Actually, when one thinks about it, he cannot, because it is against his nature as a child of God. Does a fish benefit from a breath of air when you take it into the boat? It does not. The fish is not in his own nature and he is tormented. When a child of Christ tries to gain satisfaction from the world, he is out of his real nature, and instead of fulfillment, he finds torment.

One of the greatest problems in the church today is that we are trying to live our lives, as did Lot, trying to befriend the world. We try to reconcile the world’s standards to our life in Christ and we fail. We wonder why we live with a constant inner struggle, trying to follow our lives in Christ while at the same time hoping to benefit from the world. We live, as did Lot, with tormented souls and we do not even know it.

The New Testament writer James is unequivocal about this condition: “You adulteresses,” James says, “do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4 NAS).

The question is not if God is able to deliver the righteous; even those who live as did Lot. We see that God did, in the end, deliver Lot from the wickedness of the city of Sodom. God can and will deliver. The question is, instead, how are we to live at peace with ourselves in this world. If we are living with tormented souls, we are not at peace.

The Apostle John also gives this advice:

Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever (I John 2:15-17 NAS).

What John tells us makes perfect sense if we think about it for a moment, especially in the light of what we have read about the life of Lot. The child of God has been created to abide forever. His life is one of eternity. The things of the world, however, are not only wicked and debased, but they are passing away. How can a being that is made for eternity find fulfillment in the temporal? Lot did not. He tried to, but instead only found his soul in torment.

If our true citizenship is of heaven, it will only be there that we will know peace. Is not that what Jesus meant when he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give you”? (John 14:27 NAS).

“These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NAS)

LOGGING ON A WINDY DAY

2012-01-15T19:10:00.003-06:00

This is only a story. No deeper layers of meaning or anything like that, but only a story in the form of a poem. However, I think that this is the first poem that I have ever written that I would call a tragic story. The poem began to take shape in my mind on one windy day when I actually was out in the woods logging. Honestly, when I started writing it, I did not have in my mind the story below, but as the poem came, it took on a characteristic of its own. This is what happens in any creative work, a phenomenon that I describe in my book, Reaching for Eternal Truths when I talk about the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.

As tragic as the story in this poem is, it is a real danger. I have read that logging is the most dangerous of occupations; even more dangerous than mining. You will have to look it up to see if this is actually true. But whatever is the case, I have had at least three friends and high school chums that were killed in a manner that may not have been exactly like that described in this poem, but neither were they very dissimilar to this. May God be with them and their families.

The photo is of Levi, who worked with me while he was home on break this winter. I put him in here because I thought he struck a much more manly figure than me.

LOGGING ON A WINDY DAY

By Donald Rhody

The top limbs of the trees were whipping around

Like scandalous tongues when they are left unbound.

The tale they told was, “If you do not take care,

Danger is waiting for you high in the air.”

The wind had blown itself into a fury,

An impatient wind, a wind in a hurry.

If any tree had a weak branch or a top,

It would break in that wind and fatally drop.

The logger knew all that could happen that day,

But he had payments to make and bills to pay.

He kissed his young wife as he told her goodbye,

Trying hard to hide the concern in his eye.

************

He started his chainsaw, it was new that year.

With the noise of the saw he failed to hear

The roar of the wind and the snap of the limb;

But as it struck, he knew what happened to him.

He scarcely had time to make even a sound

Before his lifeless body fell to the ground.

The spot where he fell was his last earthly place –

The blowing snow melting on his still-warm face

************

Back at his home the supper was all prepared,

And the children all sat squirming in their chairs.

Their mom let them start, “Dad will soon be along.”

But her heart was telling her something was wrong.

As the children sat eating, she called his friend,

“He’s not home yet, and I’m afraid of this wind.”

The cold night was black and devoid of all light.

The friend feared the truth he would find in the night.

He drove his truck, and in the headlight’s dull glow,

He found his young friend lying still in the snow.

The flakes no longer melted on his friend’s face.

There was nothing now but depend on God’s grace.

“What will I ever tell his kids and his wife?”

“How will they bear this great tragedy of life?”

And there in the snow of his friend’s logging job,

He fell face down and uncontrollably sobbed.

************

Back home it was late; the kids were put to bed.

Though mom sensed the horrid truth, nothing was said.

She kissed their little heads and told them, “Sleep tight.”

Then waited the news coming later that night.

SUCCESS, THE CHURCH AND THE PASTORATE

2012-01-09T18:06:00.001-06:00

As Vivian and I near the end of the work that has brought us to many countries of the world and has allowed us to work with many dozens of churches, it has caused me to do a bit of reflection on what I have seen.

I have said many times that I have considered the opportunity to work with the church of Jesus Christ to be a great privilege. The church is, after all, the fullness of the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23), and in the book of Revelation, it is depicted as the bride of Christ.

For this reason, when we work with the church, we must realize that we are working with the beloved of Christ. If we should criticize the church, we must do so only with the highest motivations, so that our criticism brings healing instead of further division.

Therefore, when I make the following criticism, please know that I am doing so because I am concerned that, in many ways, we as a church have lost our direction. Instead of trying to pattern our individual churches based upon what we see in the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, we have looked to the success patterns of corporate America to try and build what will be perceived as “successful” churches in our society.

Success in our culture usually has to do with size and wealth. A successful company is one that has a large market share of their product, is a leader in innovation, and turns in a healthy return for their investors. It also helps the company’s image if they have a large and glitzy head office. Companies hire CEO’s that have proven that they are “company builders” and are able to turn a mediocre company into a market leader.

This, I am afraid, is often what we in our churches expect when we look to our pastors. We want a pastor who can take our church, which we see as struggling, and by using the world’s definition of success, transform it into a successful church. We are looking not so much for a pastor, but for a proven CEO for our church.

We have forgotten that the term pastor is really a shepherding term. The pastor is a shepherd. Of all of the images that Jesus used to depict His ministry, the most endearing is that of a shepherd.

This is the shepherd who knows His sheep (John 10:4); this is the shepherd who would risk his life to find the one sheep who is lost and in danger (Luke 15:4-7).

This is what Jesus was trying to impress upon Peter when He asked His disciple three times if Peter loved Him. Much has been said about the fact of the different Greek words for love that were used by Peter and by Jesus, but the greater lesson is that Jesus was teaching Peter that he was to tend and shepherd the sheep (meaning the early church, the followers of Jesus).

Many of our pastors in our churches today are expected to be great orators, great expositors of the Bible, and especially great entertainers. All of these can be positive things and some of them even necessary, but above all of this we must allow our pastors to tend the sheep and to care for those of his flock. I know that this is an old way of talking, but the truth of it has largely been lost.

Through these years of working with many churches in many countries, this has become one of my concerns. But I am also very optimistic, since I see many promises in the Bible concerning the church. I have written on all of these matters in my book, Portraits of the Church.

In some manner, we must regain the role of the pastor in our churches. I believe most pastors have felt called into the ministry because they have a genuine concern for people, but the pressures of expectations have caused many to instead focus on running a company called the local church, instead of being a shepherd of his flock.

Peter seems to have learned well the lesson that Jesus was teaching him. When writing to the elders of the churches, the word that he used to describe their task was to “shepherd the flock of God” (1 Peter 5:2). His concern was not that the church should meet the world’s standards of success, but that the people of the church should be nurtured.

THE COLORS OF WINTER

2012-01-03T09:04:00.004-06:00

Our thermometer said 15 below this morning. That's Fahrenheit. For those of you in the rest of the world, that is about -26 degrees Celsius. That's a little bit cold, but a nice winter morning.

THE COLORS OF WINTER

by Donald Rhody

I walked, with my son, down a forested road.

We tramped together, ankles deep in snow.

He in one tire track, I in the other,

Two lines of footprints, side by side in two rows.

The air was cold with that chill that seems to come

On an express wind, straight from the pole.

Our breath was puffing out like a frosty steam.

We looked like two train engines out for a stroll.

But the sun was out and tried to fight the cold.

(Between the two, the cold had the advantage).

I lifted my face toward the sky

To gain what little warmth the sun could manage.

I felt my face cleansed by air so pure,

My lungs refreshed with a breath so clean –

It is air that sparkles; it is air that shines

With the light of the sun’s most vivid beam.

A few clouds drifted overhead,

Each one a great storehouse of snow.

Each waiting to let their gift fall

On the fields and forest below.

A few crystal flakes filtered on down

Through holes in these great bags of jewels.

As the flakes fell, they frolicked and played

Like little children let out of school.

I watched the snow settle onto the trees –

Those great gray pillars with heads held high.

Each treetop, with snow-laden branches,

Stitched fine gilded lacework in the sky.

I saw the green limbs of balsams and pines,

Each weighed down with their own load of snow,

Like miserly merchants weighed down with riches,

But refusing to let any coin go.

The intense blue of the heavens

The snow, so dazzling white it could blind –

The gray of the trees linking earth with the sky,

And the wealth-laden green of the pines –

These are the colors of winter;

Each one exquisite and fine.

On that cold winter day, we drank in the scene,

Each a flavor of our north country wine.

Some men refuse life’s harsher side,

And look for more temperate places,

Where the snow does not fall and the sun gives its heat,

And the air does not sting on their faces.

But what of life is left unknown and unseen

When one only makes comfort his goal?

One can never know beauty, never know joy,

If he chooses only what he can control.

Is not our life journey the same?

We can choose security and ease.

Or, we can pull on our boots and venture on out

To see what beauty there is to see.

SURPRISED BY CHRISTMAS

2011-12-21T08:34:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know that one of my books is named Surprised by a Garden, but this is Surprised by Christmas - not the same thing. These are some thoughts that I had one day some years ago as I was driving through a small village in a dry, desert-like area of Venezuela.

I don’t know if I just get surprised easily, but I am also surprised by the large number of people who are reading these posts. It would be great if some of you would take time also to comment on what these writings have meant to you. My nephew Cameron did (thanks Cam!). I am not trying to get my ego built up, but as I look ahead at what I will do in the future, I want to do things that are some benefit to people. Let me know. You may also criticize, that’s ok. I learn from all of these things.

Also, please share the website with your friends www.donaldrhody.blogspot.com

And may all of you have a Merry Christmas!

SURPRISED BY CHRISTMAS

by Donald Rhody

The little village in Latin American through which I traveled one December day was swelteringly hot and dusty. The houses were mostly of adobe, and the people of the village were poor goat-herders whose daily task was to wring out a living from the dry and desolate soil of the desert plain. Everything around me spoke of struggle. Even the basic necessity of water had an alkali smell to it. To add to this, the water could only be obtained with much effort by walking to a village well, dropping a bucket into the deep round shaft dug into the ground, and pulling it up using a pulley system and a rope.

Even the air, which especially should be abundant and vitalizing equally to all, refused to be too charitable with its refreshment. Every breath only brought into one’s lungs air that felt too hot, and the constant dust that that was in the air made dirt form around my nostrils as they worked doubly hard to strain out the impurities before allowing the air to enter my lungs. It seemed that I could not get enough oxygen breathing in this way, but because the air was so dirty, I was very hesitant to draw in too deep a breath through my open mouth.

As I neared the plaza in the middle of the town, I saw something that seemed entirely out of place in what seemed to me to be a God forsaken place. There, in the middle of such a bleak and depressing area, the people of the town had set up a most elaborate nativity scene. The word they use there for this display is a pesebre. It covered much of the area of the plaza and had a great variety of animal figures (not just goats). Mary and Joseph were represented by finely carved figures, as were many angels and shepherds, and of course, the wise men – only three of them. They would not put the little figure of the baby Jesus in the manger until Christmas day.

I was surprised by the scene. “Oh, that’s right,” I heard myself say, “It’s almost Christmas.” To me, who grew up in the North Country with its snow and freezing temperatures at Christmas time, this nativity scene in the midst of the heat and the dust all took on a rather surrealistic appearance. It seemed out of place.

Then again, when one thinks about it, the whole concept of Christmas is a bit out of place. One could even say that Christmas itself is a little surrealistic. What is it that we are celebrating? To those of us who are audacious enough to believe that it is true, at Christmas we celebrate the birth, in human form, of the One who created the whole universe. Astounding as it may seem to some, we are celebrating the birth of One, born in the time of our own history, who Himself existed long before that world into which He was born! We celebrate infinity being born into the finite. It is all beyond our comprehension.

“How is it possible,” we might rightly ask, “that Mary could give birth to the One who created her in the first place?” It is no wonder that the prophet Isaiah asked rhetorically, “Who has believed our report?”

GOD’S DESIRE TO BE WITH HIS CREATION

I will not deny that on many levels, the concept of Christmas is surprising and even seems preposterous. Because of this, many people deny the reality of Christ’s birth. They may celebrate the holiday itself with no trouble, because, to most, Christmas has become largely a non-religious celebration of family and gifts. Perhaps it has become so because the concept of Christ’s birth is so far beyond our understanding that many people have become a little timid about its reality. Celebration really does need a purpose. For many, the point of celebrating something they do not understand and, if pressed to admit it, do not really believe, seems a little hollow.

Instead, they have made family the celebration. Christmas has become the grand occasion of the year to have the family all get together again. I agree that family is good and worthy of celebration, but it is not when it steals celebration from the King of kings.

I took several minutes to walk around and consider the pesebre in the little Latin plaza. The incarnation – God made flesh. The King of the universe born as a man-child in a corner of the world that perhaps was more forsaken than where I was. How could we dare to believe Christmas really to be true? It is surprising. But then, on the other hand, if one really knows this King of kings, it may not be so surprising to us that He would come to the world.

The God that we come to know in the Bible is One who creates out of a desire to express His love. Actually, we are able to understand a little of what it was like for God to have this desire to create. We, as humans, also possess some of this quality because we all have a spark of creativity in us. We cannot create something out of nothing as God did of course, but there is something within us that wants to create. That is why we carve sculptures and make music and write poetry. That is why we take great care in designing and building our homes. That is why we keep our gardens so neat. In each of these things, we are expressing ourselves. In some ways, we identify ourselves with what we create. We do not grow tired of working with the things that we really enjoy, but rather are refreshed by them. In many ways, the things that we do are expressions of who we are.

In much the same way, God, in His creation, expresses Himself. He identifies Himself with what He has created. And, more than any other part of His creation, God identifies Himself with man. “Let Us make man in Our image,” God said, “according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

If we think a bit more in this way about the motivation for creation, we may see more of the reason that God would choose to be born as a man. It is not only the act of creating that is enjoyable, but it is also the results of what He did. God also enjoys the fruits of His creation. In our own attempts at creating, when we are pleased with how our craftsmanship turned out, we take great pleasure in our work. If we are gardeners, it is not only the work of the garden that we enjoy, but we also like to sit in the shade of our favorite tree and enjoy some of the fresh fruits or vegetables from our garden. If we have written a piece of music we particularly like, we take pleasure in playing it from time to time. The fact is that we love to be with the things that we create. In much the same way, it has always been the desire of God to be with us. He has shown us that from the beginning. He used to come and walk in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve.

God desires fellowship with us. Even after Adam and Eve broke that fellowship when they allowed the evil thought, God’s desire to be with them remained constant. The embodiment of the evil thought of Adam and Eve was that they, as creatures, could be complete in themselves without the fellowship of their Creator. However, the Creator knew that it was not so. No matter how independent people may convince themselves that they have become, they will never be complete without a relationship with He who made them.

REESTABLISHING A RELATIONSHIP

After that fateful day in the Garden of Eden, God immediately set about reestablishing the relationship that He had enjoyed with the man and the woman. It was not such a simple task. From the very beginning, it was evident that this undertaking would require the death of a substitute. With their innocence now lost, Adam and Eve had tried to utilize the simple leaves of the fig tree as a covering for themselves, but God later made for them garments of the skin of an animal. This was not the final solution, but it was the beginning.

Throughout the generations and the centuries, God progressed in His plan to reestablish the harmony of His creation and Himself. At one point, God began to teach us to what degree He would eventually have to go in His goal to achieve the perfect redemption of His creation. God chose for this purpose a man by the named of Abraham. To this man, God gave the dreadful task of offering Abraham’s own son upon an altar as a means of worshiping God.

As it turned out, in the end, after Abraham’s heart had been tested and proved to be righteous, God did not require the death of Abraham’s son. Nevertheless, we should note that even though the son was not sacrificed at this time, there still was a death of one in sacrifice. God provided a ram, which had become caught by its horns in some brush. The sacrifice of Abraham’s son had been averted, but we had been left with a question that was not answered completely. What are we to make of the fact that Abraham had been required to offer up his own son to death? Was God introducing us to a new aspect in His redemptive plan?

The prominence of sacrifices and substitutionary death continued throughout the long history of God’s people. Lest our attention in the scheme of the plan of God become diverted, He repeated it throughout the writings of Scripture. God introduced the system of sacrificing animals to act as a means of atonement for the sins of the people. The sacrificial deaths that the Lord required were not because God somehow delighted in death. The entire sacrificial system was meant to demonstrate to us that the rebellion of man was so heinous, that it was only by the death of one who had no part in the rebellion that the price could be paid. Why this is so, we do not know. We must remember that we are but creatures; we are of the creation. We are not He who creates and we cannot know the deep things of God.

Nevertheless, we do know the final and eternal purpose of God, for He has told us. “My dwelling place will be with them;” He has said, “and I will be their God and they shall be my people” (Ezekiel 37:27 and other passages). It is God’s intention to reestablish what was lost in Eden. It is His purpose to have uninhibited fellowship with us once again. This can only come about when He dwells with us and when we recognize that He is our God and that we are His people.

TO THE LEAST OF THEM

In the little village in Latin America, as I stood before the nativity scene in the plaza of the village, a gust of wind came and blew dirt all over the figures standing and kneeling there. “Even if all this is true,” I thought, “why did the Christ feel that He needed to come to earth into such humble circumstances? If a king, why not come as king?”

The truth is; that day too will come. We ask that question now because we do not completely understand the creative heart of God. Nevertheless, the prophet Isaiah gives us some insight into why Christ came to live among the poor. To understand this is to understand the heart of God:

For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15 emphasis added).

Although He is the Holy One, He came to associate Himself with the least of us. This fact is more important than we sometimes understand. The message of Christmas was not only to those who lived in positions of privilege, but it was also and even especially so to the most humble of the earth. He came for these goat herders in this little Latin American town. He came for me.

GOD CONTINUES TO WORK IN HIS CREATION

We sometimes think of the creative work of God as being completed. God has been compared by some people to a sort of galactic clockmaker, who had created His immense creation, wound it up, and stepped back to let it run itself. However, this comparison is far from adequate. God is still intimately involved with His creation and it might even be said that God’s work of creation is not really finished. God still works within His creation to bring it to perfection.

As I watched the dust blow all over the figures in the pesebre, I remembered that we also are susceptible to the dust and grime of our daily existence in this world. We live in an existence where true peace seems only like a distant and hazy dream. To us, who still are looking for the perfection of the creation, God says this of those of us who wait:

“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners, creating the praise of the lips. Peace, peace to him who is far and to him who is near. I will heal him” (Isaiah 57:18-19).

SURPRISED BY CHRISTMAS

I am still surprised by Christmas. I am surprised that the God of the universe at one time could be found, having just been born out of the womb of a poor, humble teenage girl and laying in a feeding manger of donkeys and sheep. But at the same time, I think I can understand a little why, in that very moment, all of creation was rejoicing. The Creator had come!

Suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:13-14).

JOSEPH'S STORY - A MONOLOGUE

2011-12-08T18:40:00.009-06:00

When Jesus was twelve years old, Mary and Joseph took Him to Jerusalem to worship at the feast. Below is an imagined monologue that took place in Joseph’s carpentry shop in Nazareth sometime after they had made that trip:

JOSEPH’S STORY – A MONOLOGUE by Donald Rhody

“As you can see by the sign above the door there, my work is that of a carpenter. Carpentry is a good work. To me it is the ideal art form. It combines usefulness with beauty – function with design. There is a satisfaction that is gained by forming a chair that is both beautiful to behold and comfortable to sit in. Sometimes when I am working on an item, such as this chair, I imagine that, generations from now, some great grandchild will have it in his home and it will still have a place of honor, appreciated and used.

“There is another thing that I like about being a carpenter. While my hands are occupied in shaping the wood, my mind is free to consider and to contemplate – to think about what has happened or is happening. Even to consider what may happen in the future. If you have a few moments, take a seat on that sawhorse there and let me put down my tools so that I can tell you some things that have been occupying my mind as of late.

“My family and I just returned from Jerusalem not more than a few days ago. No doubt you were also there for the feast of the Passover. You know how it is on the return trip back to Nazareth. It’s a long journey at the end of a seven-day festival with many people traveling together. It is a big crowd of people all walking down the road together.

“Well, when we were already some distance from Jerusalem on our return trip, my wife and I noticed that our oldest son was not with us. His name is Jesus. We thought not too much of it at the time. He is twelve years old and a very dependable lad. We simply thought that surely he was with friends.

“But after some time we began to make inquiries among the families of his friends and discovered that no one knew of his whereabouts. We became concerned and decided that we must return to Jerusalem to find him. We were a little worried. Unfortunately, not everyone goes to Jerusalem to worship, and we were concerned that Jesus might be in danger.

“After we returned to Jerusalem, we searched for Jesus for three days. We looked in the streets and asked many questions. No one had seen him. Then, out of desperation as much as anything else, we went to the temple to look. There was our son! He was sitting in the midst of all the teachers and listening to what they were saying and asking them questions. One of the Rabbis told us that they were all amazed at his understanding of spiritual things and they were astounded at the depth of the answers Jesus was giving concerning the Holy Scriptures.

“My wife, Mary, was very relieved to see her son - as you can imagine. As was I! But after days of searching for her son her emotions were all spent and she could not help give a mild rebuke. ‘Son, why have you treated us this way? Do you not know that your father and I have been looking for you all this time?’ I understood how she was feeling.

“Then our son Jesus looked at us and here is what he said, ‘Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?’

“It was what Jesus said that has been occupying my mind as of late. I thought about it all the way back to Nazareth and I am still thinking about it. ‘Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?’

“Surely you know that as God’s chosen people, we Jews all consider God to be our Father, and yet when Jesus used the word ‘Father,’ he did not use it as you and I do. He used it in a sense of a very special relationship. ‘My Father’s house.’ He was speaking of something far greater.

“I would like to share something with you that I do not share with many people, precious few, in fact. I am always afraid that they will misunderstand - that they will take it the wrong way. Indeed, I cannot blame them. Even knowing the truth it is difficult to understand.

“The truth is, is that Jesus is not really my son at all. Oh, I know that I call him “son” and everyone considers him the eldest son of my wife, Mary, and I. But let me tell you about some events of thirteen years ago, and you will see why I have turned into such a contemplative man.

“We were engaged to be married, Mary and I. As all young couples, our thoughts and conversations centered around our future: Where we would live – what our house would be like – hopes for a family. I already could see myself holding our first child and anticipating the satisfaction of teaching his small hands and young mind how to shape and work with wood. I dreamed of having him work with me in the woodshop. Mary’s and my lives were full of anticipation.

“Then one day, right in the midst of all this planning, Mary came to me. To say she was troubled does not describe her demeanor. Certainly, I could see something had happened, but I could not tell if she was greatly upset or greatly overjoyed. Maybe it was both. She looked at me and then dropped her eyes. ‘Joseph,’ she said, ‘I am with child.’

“Perhaps my response should have been anger. Any man’s would have been. But there was something – something about Mary’s manner that would not allow that. I did not understand.

“She told me what had happened. An angel came to her, she said. The angel addressed her as the ‘favored one.’ This troubled her and she did not understand it. Why would the angel call her ‘favored one?’

“But when she was still contemplating this, the angel continued. He told her that she would conceive and bear a son, and she would call His name Jesus. He would be great and be called the Son of the Most High. He would reign on the throne of His father David in a kingdom that would have no end.

“All this was too much for Mary to understand. Even to think about at the time. Her question simply was this: ‘How can I have a child when I have never had relations with any man?’

“The angel then told her that she would conceive by a miraculous act of the Holy Spirit and in this manner the Child will really be the Son of God.

“Well, that is the story that Mary told me. I believed her. I knew her and I believed her. But it was a very difficult time for me. I loved her, but something had happened. I did not understand what and did not know what to do. However, in the end I fell back on the fact that I am a practical man. I am a rational man. I work all day with my hands and measure to the sixteenth of an inch. Even though I did not understand all that had happened, one thing I did know: the woman with whom I was engaged was pregnant, and I was not the father.

“I have always tried to be righteous in my conduct. From all external appearances something very scandalous had occurred. I still loved Mary and had no desire to make a public display out of the whole affair. Nevertheless, neither could I marry her. That was clear. I decided to break off quietly our relationship. It was not my intention to hurt her.

“Then, that very night, I had a dream. In the dream and angel appeared to me! Could an angel appear to me – Mr. Practical? The angel told me to not be afraid to take Mary as my wife, because the Child was the Child of the Holy Spirit. And that it would be this Child that would save the people from their sins.

“When I awoke I went immediately to the house of Mary. I could not wait to tell her. I did not want to leave her wondering one second longer and as soon as we could make the arrangements, we were married.

“You may find what I tell you now little difficult to understand, but after we were married I kept her a virgin until the Promised Child was born. I just thought that I should. If it were true what the angel had said; that this was the child of the Most High God, then I wanted there to be no confusion – confusion for myself as much as anyone else.

“So we waited. It soon became very obvious that Mary was pregnant. Everyone congratulated me and I mostly just remained silent. Then, just about the time when Mary was to give birth, Caesar Augustus ordered the census. You remember that time. All of us had to return to the home of our ancestors to be registered in that place. For me, from the tribe of Judah, it meant that we had to return to Bethlehem. It is not an easy journey for a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy.

“I was very concerned that the trip would hasten the birth prematurely, but we had no choice. I thought that if I could find somewhat suitable lodging, then if the baby came we would make the best of it.

“When we were approaching Bethlehem and saw the throngs of people, I could hardly believe it. Every available place was already filled. People had come from all over. Certainly, I thought, when someone saw the condition of my wife they would make room. Again I was surprised and disheartened. ‘Everybody has their own difficulties and everyone has a story,’ they told me at all the inns.

“By now I was very concerned for Mary. Finally, we found one innkeeper that said that we could go and sleep in his stable. He was sorry, he said, but that was all he had. I thought that it would be better than being out in the street. It may have been a bit better, but not much. It was a cave in the side of a hill, really. It was dirty and smelly and hardly the conditions for giving birth to a child, especially the first child when everything is new – and especially this child. But it was there that the Child was born.

“You do not know my relief when I saw the Child was fine and that Mary was fine. As I held the Child for the first time I thought of all that had transpired. I could not take it all in. ‘Can I be holding the God and Creator of the universe?’

“Shepherds appeared at the entrance of the cave. They told us that a multitude of angels had appeared to them and told them that the Christ child had been born in this very place and they had come to worship Him. Then, when Jesus was eight days old, we took him to the temple in Jerusalem to dedicate Him to the Lord. An old man named Simeon approached us and asked us if he could take the Baby in his arms. He then said this: “Now Lord, You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to Your people Israel.’

“Then an old lady named Ana came and did much the same. She gave thanks to the Lord for the Child and explained to the people that it was this Child that would bring salvation. We decided to settle in Bethlehem. It was the home of our fathers.

“After we were there for a couple of years, we received some visitors from the lands to the east. They were kings! They came to our humble little home and told us that they had come to worship the King of kings. They explained to us how they had seen a star and through their knowledge of the heavenlies, they knew that this was the star that was given as an indication that the King had been born.

“After they departed another angel appeared to me in a dream and told me that I should take the Child and His mother to Egypt. Herod had heard of the birth of the King and had become suspicious and jealous; and was going to seek out the Child to destroy Him. He evidently had heard some things from the kings from the east when they came to him. Naturally, the first place they had looked for the King of kings was in the palace. Herod had asked them to report to him when they found the King, but they were warned in a dream not to go back to him. Because of this, returned to their own land by another route.

“This made Herod so angry that he slew all the male children two years and younger in that area. This was so grievous for us to hear, but because of my dream, the Child, Mary and I were no longer in our home, but we were on our way to Egypt.

“We stayed there for some years. One night, an angel again appeared to me (this was starting to be a pattern for me) and told me that Herod was dead and that we should return to the land of Israel. Herod’s son was sitting on the throne in Judea, so I did not want to return there. I decided to come back to Galilee, and that is how it came about that we returned to Nazareth.

“Since then, I have worked here in my carpenter shop and have watched my son Jesus. Well…as you now know he is not really my son. And yet, there is a certain responsibility that I take for him. Sometimes, when I don’t think he will notice, I just look at him. I have noticed Mary doing the same. Mary and I talk often about him. We listen to what the prophets have written about the Messiah and marvel. The Messiah is our little boy.

“Other things that the prophets have written are not so easy to hear. The life of our little Jesus will be a difficult life. Oh, I know He is God that has been born to us. I have no doubts about that. But it is hard for me as a father not to want to protect him from some of the things that will come.

“I don’t know. There is so much, so much to understand. And so much that I do not understand. I worry, too, about Mary. She loves her little child so. How will she bear up when some of the evil things that the prophets talk about begin to happen?

“So you see, as I carve away and shape the wood, there is much on my mind. I think I am storing up some of these moments of peace because I know there are turbulent days ahead. But I have faith too. Faith that in the end, our son – not as our son but as the Messiah, will bring in a perfect and everlasting peace. Not just political peace that the zealots talk about, but the perfect peace that can only come when our family relationship is restored with Jehovah God.

“Well… I know you want to move on about your business and I will not detain you longer. I must also get back to my task. Thank you for listening to some of the things that occupy my mind. As I said, I think perhaps you can see why I have become a contemplative and pensive man as I have watched Jesus. I do think they are good things to contemplate.

*******************************

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14

2011-12-01T06:23:00.001-06:00

It is December. We had a little dusting of snow on the ground at our farm last night. The ground is cold now, so maybe this snow will stay. And now our thoughts turn toward Christmas. As you can see, I wrote this poem a couple of years ago. It is another poetic version of Mary’s song as she sang it in the gospel of Luke.

Mary’s Song

(from Luke 1: 46-55)

By Donald Rhody, Written on Christmas Day 2009

**********************

From Mary to me:

There are no words that I can speak

In any language of man,

That can express my thoughts unique

And say what no tongue can.

It is only my soul that can give voice –

My spirit must express my mind.

It is through these I will rejoice

And sing my song to all mankind.

God has remembered me – me His maid,

Though in humility I dwell.

To God I looked, I saw, I prayed,

And now His majesty I tell.

Great and holy is His name.

His arm does mighty deeds.

To our fathers He also came,

And the hungry ones He feeds.

And those, like me, the lowly ones,

He has chosen to exalt.

All human rule becomes undone,

Stuck down by their prideful faults.

Generations will call me blessed,

For truly blessed I am.

But it is God’s works that I confess

With the faith of Abraham.

**********************

To Mary from me:

Sweet virgin mother Mary,

This one of whom you sing,

That little one you carry,

He is my Lord and King!

He may seem small and meek,

His tired little head will nod.

But when you kiss that chubby cheek,

You kiss the face of God!

He is the stalwart Lion.

He is the Paschal Lamb.

The mighty God of Zion,

He is the great I AM!

THE OLD OAK TREE

2011-11-21T14:51:00.001-06:00

Today I cut up an old, fallen oak tree for firewood. This tree had been dead for many years and was somewhat decomposed, but surprisingly to me, much of the wood was still quite sound. The wood fibers in oak have strong cell walls, making the wood resilient to decay. Besides this fact, much of this tree consisted of large branches with heavy knots, which remain firm even longer.

My Dad and I worked in those same woods together almost thirty years ago, and that same oak tree had already fallen at that time. However, it was in quite an inaccessible place, and it was such a crooked and bent up tree, that we never did bother to go down where it had fallen to get it.

In the past years, however, when I have been home in Wisconsin, I have been cleaning up that woods and making trails to get to places that we could not before easily go. This year, in my gathering of firewood for the winter to come, I found myself looking once again at that old tree.

As I stood there looking at the tree, it brought back some memories from when I worked in those woods with my Dad. Many of you know that my Dad passed away a little less than a year ago. I was in New Zealand and the time and unable to come home for the funeral. Because of this, if you would like to think of the poem below as a form of delayed mourning for my Dad, I think that your thoughts might be quite appropriate.

THE FUNERAL PYRE

Old, dried and knotty, nearly forgotten oak.

Old, never forgotten, but now departed folk.

I stopped in the woods to look at the tree,

Lying on the ground in front of me.

I paused to remember some days gone by,

When we logged there together, my Dad and I.

That same old oak was lying there then,

Broken from its stump by a strong west wind.

We left it lie; it had no wood we could sell.

But now thirty years later, it had a story to tell.

It spoke of the old days. It told me about my Dad.

It said he did the very best with all that he had.

His ways may not have been my ways,

Each generation must live in its own days.

But with what he was given, my Dad did his best.

He accomplished his work before he lay down to rest.

And Dad still speaks to me, maybe not with words I can hear,

But mostly in memories, some really quite clear.

My old Dad has also fallen – now almost a year ago,

And I still am learning some things a son aught to know.

I bent to inspect the knots of the wood.

Though dead thirty years, some were really quite good.

For a fireplace fire, the best wood often is old.

It still contains power to drive out the cold.

I sawed up some of the sticks, some of the knots,

Into lengths that would fit in my fireplace box.

Some cold night this winter, when the wind howls bad,

I will burn that old oak, and remember my Dad.

2011-11-17T12:01:00.002-06:00

THE HELIXICAL VIEW OF HISTORY

Much of our difficulty in comprehending the events of the last days upon the present earth is that we are unable to come to an adequate
understanding of the concept of time. And it is not only this. In the last days especially, we see an interaction of time with eternity, which even further complicates our understanding. Eternity is, after all, a concept that is completely outside of our intellectual ability to understand. What we see in the book of Revelation is a melding together of the temporal with the eternal, or perhaps a transformation from one into the other, and this is completely outside of our experience.

Because there is a sense in which time is related to eternity, it is at least partially because of the fact that we are unequipped to grasp the fullness of eternity that we cannot even completely understand the movement of time. It is also because of this condition of our inadequate understanding that we do well not to be excessively inflexible when forming opinions about the predicted events of the last days.

However, there is value in trying to come to an understanding of the events contained in time and in history. As I mentioned in my book, Watching for the Day, the most fundamental teaching of Jesus concerning the last days is that we remain watchful. It is the very act of trying to understand how future events unfold that will keep us watchful.

Something that will help us in this task of understanding is to come to a realistic view of history. Through the ages, men and women have endeavored to come to a grasp of history and the progression of time in several ways. Of these several ways, most of them fit somewhat into two basic patterns: those that view history as a cyclical repetition of events, and those who view time as progressing in a linear fashion. While this appendix to the book is not intended to be a complete explanation of these two concepts of history, they can be summarized as below.

THE CYCLICAL AND THE LINEAL VIEWS OF HISTORY
In general, the people who have understood time as being cyclical have been those of the most ancient as well as most eastern cultures. These perspectives of history in these places possibly have all been formed primarily by the Hindus, which is perhaps the oldest of the eastern religions. There are variations on the teaching of the cyclical view of history, but basically, it can be said that, according to this view, time progresses in a circular and repeating pattern. The
events of today are events that have happened before in another life or another age previous to this one.

The linear concept of time is more of a western understanding, and is often said to have arisen from Judaism. According to this view, time and history do not move in a cyclical fashion, but had a definite beginning, progresses through the ages, and will come to a definite conclusion. Rather than being represented by a circle with repeating events on the circumference, the linear understanding is represented by a straight line with no repetitions of events, although there may be similarities between events of different ages.

Concerning the cyclical view of history, it is quite easy to see how it seems to fit the pattern of creation. God, in fact, has woven systems of cycles into almost every fabric of creation. We see cycles of the size and dimension of the entire universe, in which the planets and stars are in a constant state of rotation. Indeed, even the great galaxies seem to have this rotational movement. We also see cycles on the level of our own daily observation. We observe the seasons
of the year as they cycle through time, year after year. We also learn about the water cycle and see a host of other events and properties that fit into this pattern. God has even introduced this understanding of cycles to us as He established the arrangement of the seven-day week, the months, and the years.

THE BEGINNING OF CYCLES AND THE CONCLUSION
However, God also shows us that time progresses and does not simply move along endlessly without conclusion. The very first words in the Scriptures are, “In the beginning,” indicating that our existence is not some continuation of an earlier life. Likewise, we learn that all of history is progressing to a conclusion, which, put simply is the “summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10, NASB).

With the history that is given to us in the Bible concerning God’s dealings with man, we sometimes see events occurring with a cyclical fashion, but which nevertheless may seem best explained as a linear progression of events. Perhaps the most obvious examples of social cycles are in the time when the Israelites lived under the reign of the various kings. The pattern was one of a Godly nation that, in the passage of time, gradually descended into moral negligence, and then received judgment for their actions before reviving their relationship to God. This cycle is repeated numerous times. However, it was not an endless cycle. God eventually brought the Israelites beyond that era and introduced them to another series of events. Time moved on.
It also progressed as if in a lineal fashion.

As we study the prophecies of the Bible, we also see both aspects of understanding. Jesus spoke of this when He said, See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains (Matthew 24:3–8, ESV).

What Jesus is saying in this is that there are events in history that reoccur with some frequency. However, what may seem to us as only cyclical, actually are events that will lead to a conclusion. Since I have elaborated on this in the book, I will not repeat the reasoning here, but will only point out that Jesus likened these events of history to the birth pains of a pregnant woman in labor. These labor pains are also cyclical. At the first labor pain, the mother-to-be understands
that the process of birth has begun, but the actual birth is probably still some time off. There is still time to get to the hospital. However, she does not know for certain each of the phases leading up to the birth, and she must remain vigilant and watchful.

Events in history are also cyclical, but like a mother about to give birth to a child, neither can we be certain at exactly what point we are; we must also remain watchful. However, we can know that the historical events in which we find ourselves are indications to us that these will bring us to a conclusion of history. We cannot deny that there are cycles in our history, but although we see cycles, the Scriptures also clearly tell us that there was a beginning and that there will
be a conclusion.

THE HELIX
Because we see both circular and linear aspects of both past and future events, neither the cyclical understanding of history nor the lineal time line alone is an adequate graphic in illustrating how historical and eschatological events occur. Perhaps no simple graphic can do
this properly, but I believe we get closer to an accurate understanding if we view history as an ascending and tightening helix. Here we see the cyclical patterns of history, but they are not endless cycles, as we would see in eastern religions and cultures. This is not reincarnation.

We see that this helix has a beginning, and it cycles around to a definite conclusion. What is more, we see that, as we get nearer to the conclusion of history, these cycles become tighter and more
intense. Indeed, this is what we see in the book of Revelation. Many of the events that we read about in Revelation are things that have happened throughout history, but in the last days, they come around more quickly and become more forceful.

THE HELIXICAL TIMELINE GRAPHIC
In the Helixical view of history, we see that many events of history seem to repeat themselves, giving time and history an appearance of a repetition of cycles. However, this is only half of the story, since history had a definite beginning and will come to a definite conclusion.

In the graphics on this post, we see some of the cycles referred to in the Bible that have happened and will continue to happen until the end. Some of these events are not specific in their timing, since they happen with relative frequency. These are those incidents, such as wars, earthquakes, and famines, that Jesus tells us are not good indicators of where we are historically in relation to the end of time, but only that we can expect them to increase as we get closer to the last days (Matthew 24:4–8).

Then there are other events that happen less often, but which also fall into a repeating pattern. These are things such as the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which has occurred twice in history, but which also has some reference to the future. Also, there are the appearances of antichrists, which John tells us are many (1 John 2:18).

Although there have been many antichrists, relative to this prophecy are also appearances of the “abomination of desolation,” of whom Daniel spoke and who Jesus said would be an indicator of the very last days (Matthew 24:15–22). Daniel also had some very instructive visions that seemed to refer both to world kingdoms of his own time period, but which also will have complete fulfillment in the last days.

There are still other types of events that are recorded in the Bible that are so difficult to understand that we cannot see how they fit into a relationship of time. One example of this is when Satan was cast out of heaven, which we see referred to in Revelation (12:7–9), but
which Jesus also said He witnessed during His time upon the earth (Luke 10:18).

Finally, there are other events that refer particularly to the last days only. These are things such as the series of the seals of Revelation, the trumpets and the bowls. Although they specifically refer to the time of the tribulation, they also have links to past history, in that we have seen some of the events associated with these signs in the past. This is especially evident in the plagues of the last days, which are very reminiscent of the plagues brought on the Egyptians before the time of the exodus. Some of the celestial events that we read about in the book of Revelation also fall under this category.

WATCHING FOR THE DAY

2011-10-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

Watching for the Day is my latest book. It has grown out of what I have seen as inconsistencies in many of the prevalent interpretations of Biblical prophecies regarding the last days upon the earth.

In my years of studying Scripture, I have noticed that when many theologians and Bible students read the Biblical prophecies regarding the last days, they often already have their minds made up as to how the last days will unfold. Thus, when they read the prophecies, they read into the Bible their own interpretations instead of letting the Bible teach them.

I decided to instead take the view of the first disciples of Jesus, when they asked Him, “What is the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” These disciples did not have any predetermined mindset of what they already thought that they knew. Theirs was an honest question in search of an answer. This book is also asks honest questions and seeks the answers that the Bible gives. The answers that I find may surprise you. They will definitely make you think.

PORTRAITS OF THE CHURCH

2011-10-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

Vivian and I have long served the church. The Apostle Paul often referred to the church as “the body of Christ.” In fact, he even makes the astounding statement that the church represents “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23)

We know that Paul is not talking about the institutional church, but the church of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, Vivian and I have lived our lives with the goal to strengthen the local church. In many ways, we have seen this as the nearest thing that we could do to also serve Jesus Christ Himself.

In these present days, many have become so accustomed to pointing out all of the failures and deficiencies in the church that they fail to see that God has invested His whole work in it. We serve the church not because of any loyalties to denomination or creed, but because Jesus Christ Himself has called us to serve His body. If we should concentrate on only criticizing, we fail to see the great promises and future that Jesus has in mind for His church. In Portraits of the Church, I do not ignore deficiencies, but I also explore some of these promises.

SURPRISED BY A GARDEN

2011-10-24T21:28:00.000-05:00

Surprised by a Garden is a book of short and practical Biblical examples in living. For many years, I have seen Biblical lessons in the things that I have seen and experienced. These have become the devotionals in this book. They have come from the experiences that I have had while living and working in various countries of the world. I have learned that if we take time to look, there are evidences of God’s love all around us.

This situation is exactly what gave rise to the title of this book. Once, when traveling on an old wreck of a bus over a bumpy and dusty road in India, I finally was able to get off for a few minutes to stretch my legs. Angry at the bus and the road and my whole situation at the time, I decided to take a short walk before I had to get on the bus again. As I walked only a short way off of the dusty road, I happened upon a beautiful garden that someone had planted next to their house. The presence of such beauty in the midst of such filth was revolutionary to me. It helped me to see that there is always encouragement in whatever difficult circumstance we may find ourselves.

REACHING FOR ETERNAL TRUTHS

2011-10-24T21:23:00.000-05:00

It has always been astounding to me how firmly many people take unreasonable positions on eternal matters that they do not and cannot understand.

The Bible is a book that gives us a glimpse into eternal perspectives and truths. In its pages we can learn much about these truths, but if we are honest with ourselves, we know that in this age, we will never come to a full understanding of them. After all, if our minds cannot even conceive of the concept of eternity, why would we delude ourselves into thinking that we can fully understand the particulars of eternity?

In Reaching for Eternal Truths, I tackle some of the more difficult passages of the Bible; passages such as the relationship between the free will of man and the sovereignty of God and the relationship between grace and works. There are about twenty topics in all. I explore what the Bible teaches about each of these issues, keeping as a focus the authority of the Scriptures to lead us into truth.

Polynesian Discovery- Part 20 (Fiji #6)

2010-07-18T17:37:00.000-05:00

Cakobau (pronounced Thakombau) was a prominent Fijian warlord in the mid part of the nineteenth century. As we mentioned in the last letter, he was also known “the centipede,” since as a warrior, it was said that he “moved silently and struck painfully.” Although his home was on the relatively small island of Bau, off of the east coast of one of the two main Fijian islands, he would later in his life become known as the man who would manage to unite the many competing tribes of Fiji into a unified nation…but we are getting ahead of ourselves in this story.

Cakobau, in the early part of his life, was known as a ferocious warrior – a great killer and eater of his enemies. It was said that his cannibalistic feasts were so frequent, that the ovens in which his defeated foes were cooked never completely cooled.

A little north of the small island of Bau was another island, named Viwa. On this island lived an ally of Cakobau’s, a warrior named Virani. Virani was not his real name but one that was bestowed upon him when he led the looting of a French ship that had come within striking distance of his island. He killed the captain and the crew of the ship. The name Virani is a French family name, and in some way that I was not able to discover, the Fijians more widely applied the name to anything having to do with the French. As a commemoration of the taking of that French vessel, this warrior
Virani took that name. Virani was also the nephew of the high chief of the island of Viwa.
These two men, Cakobau and Virani, made a formidable and feared pair. It was into this atmosphere that the Wesleyan missionary, John Hunt arrived. Hunt, as you may remember from the last letter, was a ploughboy from the midlands of England, whom the Lord had called into service to the Pacific islanders.

One day, as Hunt was reading from the Gospel of Matthew in the newly translated New Testament, Virani was among those who were listening. Much to the surprise of Hunt, when he read about the crucifixion of Jesus, Virani became visibly uncomfortable. I would very much like to know what was going on within the heart and mind of this ferocious killer and eater of men that would make him so upset when he heard this account of the death of Jesus. The cruelty of these kinds of things, it seems to me, would have become commonplace to him. Whatever else it was that moved him, the Holy Spirit worked in his heart. It was not at that meeting that he gave his life and heart to Christ, but it was not long after.

In fact, before he even made the final commitment to his new belief, he first told his friend and ally Cakobau that he was going to become a Christian. Cakobau was indignant. “If you become a Christian,” he told his friend, “I will kill you and eat you!” Virani responded that he would pray for Cakobau. Hunt had also told Cakobau that he was praying for him.

Despite these warnings from someone who would ordinarily carry them out, on Good Friday in the year 1845, Virani became a Christian. His conversion was especially gratifying to John Hunt, for he saw sweeping changes in Virani’s lifestyle and values. Often, Hunt had heard Fijians profess a faith in Christ, but there were few accompanying changes in their lives. With Virani, the changes were vast and deep. With it also came a great turning to Christ among the people of his island of Viwa. As for Cakobau’s threats – they were never carried out.

In 1848, some three years after Virani’s conversion, the missionary John Hunt died from dysentery on the island of Viwa. He was 36 years old. Virani prayed at his funeral. In 1853, Virani also was killed while trying to reconcile two warring tribes on another island.

Cakobau, in the mean time, had not been so receptive to the Christian message. He had been the son of the chief ruler of Bau, and when his father died in the year 1852, six of his father’s widows were blindfolded and strangled to death. When another missionary named Watsford objected, Cakobau oppose him for coming and interfering with the local customs. “I only come out of love for you and the victims,” the missionary told Cokobau.

“Love?” Cakobau answered, “Oh we love them. That is why we are strangling them. They are so happy that one would think that they were going to a dance.”

In 1853, Cakobau was installed as the warrior-ruler of Bau. He continued to resist the Christian message, and at the ceremony of his own acceptance as ruler, eighteen people were eaten in his honor. However, Cakobau could not forget that John Hunt had prayed for him. Also, at Hunt’s funeral, when he stood opposite from his friend Virani at Hunt’s casket, they looked at one another for some time, and Cakobau knew also that Virani had long prayed for him. Now these two men both were dead.

The next year, in 1854, Cakobau received a visit from the king of Tonga. If you remember from our earlier letters, Fiji and Tonga had a long history of trade and commerce. The Tongan king was a very dedicated Christian, and spoke to Cakobau about his faith. Later, the Tongan king continued his journey and went on to Australia, but before he left he said that when he returned to Fiji, he would continue to talk to Cakobau about the matter of his faith.
However, even before the Tongan king returned, another missionary by the name Waterhouse had what he called “an unusually long interview in private” with Cakobau, explaining to him the way of Christ and entreating him to put away his old life.

The following Sunday Cakobau appeared at the church in Bau, accompanied by his own high priest and more than forty wives, and gave his heart to Christ. Voluntarily, he remained married to his “main wife” and gave all the rest their freedom. This is what his friend Virani had done when he became a Christian.
The history of Cakobau continues. As we mentioned in the last letter, his influence grew to extend over the large area of the islands of Fiji. Interestingly, his conversion to Christ did not automatically lead to a large movement of conversion to Christianity among the Fijians. This was actually unusual in the culture, for the lesser chiefs and the people would generally follow the leadership of the ruler. However, they looked upon this decision as a deep and personal one - that of changing from worship of thier ancestral spirits to the new teachings of Christ. Although there was a definite beginning with Cakobau, the teachings of Christ gradually came to have an effect in the lives of the people.

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On another but somewhat related topic, Vivian and I are traveling to our home in Wisconsin this week. We are looking forward to seeing our boys, Lisa and grandsons. I will be home for about three weeks and Vivian for about five.
On my trip back to New Zealand in the second week of August, I will be stopping at Fiji where I have been asked to make a presentation at a pastor’s conference, with pastors from several islands of the Pacific. I ask you to please pray for this time in Fiji. I still am mostly in the listening, learning, and waiting stages in seeing how to proceed with our work. Thank you so much for your continued prayers.

Polynesian Discovery- Part 19

2010-06-21T21:15:00.000-05:00

The man in the photo on the right was named Seru Epenisa Cakobau. We will just call him Cakobau. This man lived between 1815 and 1883. He was a warlord of Fiji that managed to unite many competing Fijian tribes under his leadership to become more or less a unified nation. He also was called “Cikinovu.” That is a Fijian word meaning centipede, because as a warrior, it was said that he “moved silently and struck painfully.”

The man on the photo on the left was named John Hunt. Hunt was a Wesleyan (Methodist) missionary from Lincolnshire, in the Midlands of the U.K. Hunt was about the same age as Cakobau, but Hunt’s life was much shorter. He was born in 1812, but died in 1848. Hunt’s first occupation in Lincolnshire was as a ploughboy, but he was also a lay preacher. Through a series of events that we shall not explore at the moment, the Lord prompted him to go to seminary and then as a missionary to the Fiji Islands. When Hunt went to Fiji, he was a young man of twenty-seven years old.

The lives of these two men were to come together in a way that would shape the history of Fiji for many generations to come.

John Hunt was well respected by the Fijians, which was in contrast to some other of the missionaries of the time. Hunt was a keen judge of personality and was able to see the quality of a man that went beyond any outward status that they may have had in the communities. He was honest and frank with the people, not coming to them in an attitude of superiority, but neither was he obsequious toward them.

Hunt never “went native,” as sometimes missionaries do. Although he himself remained very much an Englishman, his message to the Fijians was not clothing, punctuality and an English lifestyle. He instead spoke of Jesus Christ. Even before the Fijians began to believe in this Christ, they respected John Hunt as a “man of God.” Hunt claimed that the reason that he was not killed and eaten by the cannibalistic Fijians was because they credited him with the “tapu (taboo) of holiness,” as they did their own holy men.

Even the very practice of cannibalism, to which most missionaries simply reacted in shock and horror (and understandably so), Hunt decided that he must try to calmly consider the reason for this atrocious custom. The Fijians, after all, were not devoid of any religious beliefs. The Christian missionary felt that if he were to come to them telling them of what they would see as an alternative to their own religion, he would do well to at least know something about the reasons that the Fijians did the things that they did.

Hunt wrote in his journal, “We requested permission to go into the temple, which was granted, and we took our seat near the High Priest and the old King.” Hunt went on to describe the prayers of the chief, the presentation of the whale’s teeth, which they considered tapu, and the coconuts.

His attitude in all of this reminds me very much of what we read about the Apostle Paul in the city of Athens. As he walked around the city, he said that his spirit was “greatly distressed” within him. However, he did not preach abusively against the Athenians for their superstition and paganism, but calmly presented to them a truth that they did not know.

We should return to tell the story of Cakobau, but we will leave it for next time. His life is also similar to the Apostle Paul in at least one way: he began his adult life fighting against the followers of Christ, but later himself became a Christian and did much for the spread of Christianity in Fiji.

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I need to stop now because I want to tell you that I got a letter from my publisher last week to tell me that all of the editing and layout stages are done for the next of my books that they are publishing. The cover is done and all that is left is to send me a proof book for final approval.

The title of this book is Surprised by a Garden.This book is not like the last one. This is more of a light reading devotional book, having to do with what the Lord has shown me while living and traveling overseas.

In telling about it, here is how part of the back cover reads:

Many travelers never learn the art of enjoying the journey of life. In the same way that some people rush through a road trip and never really notice pleasant things along the way, many people also live such a stressed lifestyle that they miss out on experiences that are enjoyable and refreshing.

Sharing experiences from his travels, Donald Rhody thoughtfully relates personal interactions to the touch of God. In Surprised by a Garden, he describes being on a dusty and hot bus ride in India when he suddenly finds himself in the midst of a beautiful garden at the side of the road. The presence of the garden in the midst of an otherwise dust-choked day so transformed an otherwise arduous trip that it also transformed Rhody’s manner of looking at life. He has learned to enjoy the journey of life, finding gardens of many types: people, places, experiences, and thoughts.

Take a journey with Rhody through several countries of the world to see the gardens that he has experienced and discover the heart of a God who intimately cares for you. Be Surprised by a Garden along the pathway of your life.

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The release date will be in late August or September.

Polynesian Discovery- Part 18

2010-05-23T00:26:00.001-05:00

As you may remember from the letter of a couple of weeks ago, we left the story of the first missionaries in Fiji with three men from the Society Islands in Tahiti who had been studying and preparing to serve the Lord. Then, through a series of unlikely scenarios, there was a Fijian named man Takai and his friend Langi, also both Christians, that had left Australia and were sailing to Tahiti, although they did not want to go there. This was in the year 1825. I continue the story now, although I have shortened and simplified it quite a lot. There are quite a lot of characters in this short piece, so try and hang with me.

The two travellers, Takai and Langi, only intended to stay in Tahiti long enough until they could find passage to Fiji, but while there, they made their acquaintance with a missionary from the London Missionary Society (LMS), about which I wrote in the last letter. This missionary, an Englishman named John Davies, had some knowledge of Fiji. In 1809, when Davies was sailing to Sydney, his ship had struck a reef off a northern Fijian Island, and he was stranded there until they could repair the vessel.

As a result of this friendship between Davies and the two travelers, Takai and Langi began attending a Bible School in Tahiti. While there, they also came to be friends with a Tahitian named Taharaa. After a time, Takai requested from the LMS to give him a native missionary to go with him back to Fiji to teach the Fijian the word of life. Remember, Takai had originally been sent from Fiji by a local chief giving Takai the task of “instruction concerning Christianity.”

The LMS had actually before attempted to send some Tahitians to Fiji, but when these first men arrived as far as Tonga (these were two completely other men), a chief in those islands learned of their mission and obliged them to stay in Tonga. The chief considered Tonga to be much more important than Fiji, and said that “if this be the true Word of God, it should not go to the tail first (Fiji) but to the head (Tonga).”
The two Tahitians thus stayed in Tonga, built a chapel, opened a school and began a worshiping congregation in that place.

However, one of the things that had been accomplished with this first effort was that these men, with the help of the LMS, began work of producing the first Fijian spelling book. Nevertheless, when these first missionaries stopped in Tonga and began working there, the Fijian chief was very disappointed. He called for someone to come to tell them the word of God. The chief also gave the LMS the assurances that the missionaries would be treated kindly (translation – we will not eat them).

It was with this that the Fijian Takai and his friend Langi, along with the Tahitian Taharaa were to be sent by the LMS to Fiji. Before they left, they were also joined by two other men from the Society Islands, Hatai and Arue. These men reached Fiji July 9, 1830, stayed the rest of their lives, teaching the Fijians the Word of God.

I am going to leap over some years of Fijian history (which I may address in the next letter) to the year 1874. This was the year that Fiji officially became a colony of the British Empire. These were the heady years for the English, as they solidified their reign over many parts of the world. In Fiji, the English were planting large sugarcane fields, but needed labourers for the fieldwork. There were not sufficient workers in Fiji, so the Brits began bringing indentured labourers from India, which also was a colony during these years of the British Raj of India.

Although India gained its independence from England in 1947, Fiji did not do so until 1970. In these early years of the 20th century, the sugar plantations continued in Fiji, mostly worked by the Indian labourers. The English managers discouraged missionary work among the people, since as they had experienced in India and other places, that many of the Christian teachings (such as equality of races) were not helpful to their empire building efforts. It was difficult for missionaries to gain visas for these places.

However, one Australian sensed God was calling him to go to Fiji. He could not get a missionary visa, but he gained a business visa to go there. While there, he befriended a young Indian man who was studying to be a pharmacist. That young Indian, once a Hindu, became a believer in Jesus Christ. Very early in his Christian life, God called him to begin a training institute to train pastors for the churches of the Pacific islands. This he has been doing for the past thirty-five years. Some time ago, the Lord had put in his heart and in his plans to begin an extension work in many of the islands where he has had students. His idea is to “train the trainers” of the word of God in these islands.

Concurrent with this, here in New Zealand lives a medical doctor who came here as a young man from England. This man and his wife have lived here for years and hearts that want to serve God. They have been a big help and encouragement to Vivian and I ever since we arrived in New Zealand. He called me one day and told me there was someone who had arrived in Auckland whom he thought that I would like to meet. I went and met with the Indian man from Fiji.

Almost as a side note but one that is of interest to me, in 1970, I myself a young man, went to India to serve in the Peace Corps. While in India for more than two years, I came to have a great love for the Indian people, and for their culture and ways. I also came to respect them as very capable people. Thus, when I met with the Fijian Indian, we immediately had a commonality between us.

In the last letter I asked (no, I required) you to pray for a trip that Vivian and I were going to make to Fiji to see if we could coordinate our efforts. As a result of that trip and as a result of your prayers, the Bible College that was started by this Indian man in Fiji is going to begin phasing in our curriculum into their studies, and when they enroll new students, begin their studies by having them use our curriculum for their entire first year. We have also had discussions about possibilities for other islands of the Pacific. Thanks for your prayers. Please continue.

I don’t know if this is interesting to you, but it is extremely interesting to me. God is the Lord not only of the present and the future, but he is the God of history. One of the things that I most look forward to in eternity is to see how God has worked in history to bring people to an understanding of who He is.

From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:26-28 NIV)

NEW BOOK

2009-07-24T14:50:00.000-05:00

I would like to tell you about a book that I have written. The book is called Reaching for Eternal Truths and has grown out of my own endeavor and studies to seek to understand some of the difficult concepts and doctrines of the Bible. One of the main difficulties in understanding many Biblical truths is the simple fact that our minds do not have the capacity to understand eternity. Some people may say that they have a “limited” understanding, but eternity, by definition, is without limits. To say that one has a limited understanding of eternity really demonstrates that one has no understanding.

If our minds are unable to grasp even the concept of eternity, how can we possibly understand the many biblical truths written from the perspective of eternity? When we misunderstand each other using the written and spoken word, why does God use these means to communicate with us? A book that I have written, entitled, Reaching for Eternal Truths, begins with the understanding that definitive answers to these questions are elusive for finite minds, yet insists that there is merit in seeking to understand.

Reaching for Eternal Truths is now being published and will be available in bookstores in September, but if you like, I can send you a copy at a special prerelease price. In the book, I examine such difficult questions as:
» How is it possible for the sovereignty of God and the free will of man to coexist?
» If we are saved by grace, what is the role of good works?
» When God desired to give the early Israelites a covenant sign, why did he choose circumcision?
» What is our relationship to creation?

Reaching for Eternal Truths will guide you as you begin your own explorations into these questions. It provides a scriptural foundation, not the entire structure; beginnings of discovery, not complete answers. The goal is to bring us closer to understanding God and our place in his world. Whatever you finally discover, you will emerge from your quest spiritually stronger, intellectually more alert, and with a new realization that there is much more to learn in the continual search for truth.

The release date by the publisher will be in September. At that time, the price from the publisher and in book stores will be $21.99, but if you would like to order directly from me, I can send you a copy, postage paid, for $19.50 within the U.S. Or, if you see me from time to time, you can save the postage cost and buy one directly from me or Vivian for $16.50. That’s 25% off of the retail price. I am sure that you will find this book intriguing and a resource for years to come. It is paperback, about 282 pages. If you would like a copy, please send a check for $19.50 made out to Donald Rhody, W1055 Wildwood Ave, Ogema, WI 54459

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter 1- Eternity in our Hearts, or Finding Eternity Within

This first chapter essentially defines the subject matter of the entire book. In this chapter, we look at the somewhat bewildering fact that, even though we cannot understand the concept of eternity, God has place within us an awareness of the eternal. It is an observable fact that man everywhere, in every corner of the globe and of every religion, almost instinctively believes in some type of eternal existence.

This almost universal belief is interesting because even though we not have the capacity to comprehend eternity, we accept an eternal existence as being true. What becomes even more startling about our religious beliefs, however, even beyond accepting the existence of something of which we do not know and cannot comprehend, is that we make it the goal of our lives to obtain entrance into this unknown existence.

This chapter examines why it is that this belief is universal with man, and how the Christian perspective is different than what other belief systems teach. The Psalmist speaks much of eternity. We explore some very enigmatic verses of Ecclesiastes, as the writer explores the significance of eternity, and Peter and Paul have some very stern warnings for those who would choose to ignore the reality of the eternal.

Chapter 2- Paradox

We know that the Bible is replete with paradoxes. There are things about God Himself that seem a paradox, such as one God, manifested to us in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are also many paradoxes in the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles, whereby they told us that to truly live, we must first die, or, if we wish to be wise, we must first become fools. Of course, there are many others as well.

This chapter of the book explores what I call “earthly paradoxes,” and compares them to “heavenly paradoxes.” Some of the paradoxes of the Bible are confusing to us because we do not understand eternity, but many of them are confusing simply because we are looking at them from an earthly culture and not a heavenly one. Just as we see differences between different cultures of the world, and these differences cause some practices of other lands to appear strange, there are great differences between the culture of earth and what the culture will be like in heaven. However, it is the heavenly paradoxes that will lead us into life.

Chapter 3- The Creativity of God and the Free Will of Man

In the Christian church, we have often entered into the discussion of seeking to reconcile two seemingly contradictory facts that are set forth in the Scriptures; that is, that God is completely sovereign in the affairs of the world and man, and, at the same time, man acts, based on his own free will. In this chapter I offer an explanation how to reconcile these two perspectives. I make a distinction between the creativity of God, and His inventiveness, and how this distinction gives latitude for man to truly have the ability to act out of his free will without there being a compromise of the sovereignty of God. This is perhaps the greatest of all questions of the Bible.

To our minds, these two concepts are mutually exclusive. In our thinking, if God is sovereign and has decided and predetermined all things, we cannot really have a will that is completely free. In this chapter we attempt to demonstrate how both the sovereignty of God and the free will of man can and do co-exist.

Chapter 4- Of Grace and Works

In my work and ministry, I have worked with many different denominations of evangelical churches. In every church, there are also different ways in which the relationship between the grace of God and the importance of our own works is taught.

I have thought it interesting that in many churches that stress heavily the need for the grace of God, there seems to also be a strong unwritten etiquette of behavior, so much so that the members often feel as if they are under a watchful and judgmental eye at all times. Conversely, in many churches that rely more upon their own actions as far as the rites and rituals of the church, the members often do not feel this same oppression and constant load of guilt.
One would not expect this to be so. Indeed, in this chapter I explore the proper meaning of grace, and how, if the grace of God and of man is understood correctly, it truly does lead to freedom in our daily lives.

Chapter 5- Words

When speaking and writing, using words of human language, misunderstanding and miscommunication are not uncommon. Why is it then, that when God seeks to communicate His eternal words to us, does he use the vehicle of human speech to convey this most important message? Did He not fear that we would misunderstand? Certainly God could have used means though which His message would be clear and incapable of misinterpretation, yet He chose words of the human tongue.

Through a personal experience that I had in helping a young Spanish-speaking man to learn English, I discovered some things about human speech that suggests why God communicates with us in this way. It is true that we do sometimes misunderstand God’s words, but astoundingly, God may also even have a reason for this.

Chapter 6- Thinking about our Kinship with Creation

When you think about it, we should expect that man would feel more at peace within a busy city than he would in a natural setting. The city is, after all, the creation of man and it seems that we should feel the most comfortable within that which we created. However, that is not generally the case. When a man wants to find a peaceful place, he retreats into nature.

Our kinship with creation speaks of our inborn love of nature and makes a distinction between the pantheistic perspective and the Christian perspective. Most would agree that the Christian should be a good steward of the earth, but is the relationship even closer? In this chapter we explore the reason such a kinship exists, but also addresses the fact that our own failure in the Garden of Eden has lead to a natural order that is, as the Apostle Paul put it, “subjected to futility.” What is our responsibility in all of this and how is it meant to be put right?

Chapter 7- Preaching to Creation

The great commission as recorded by Mark, quotes Jesus as saying, “Go into the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15). Here we again see the effects of the fall of man upon all of creation and discuss what Jesus could have meant by “preaching to creation.” Also, as the gospel makes advances among the peoples of the world, should we expect there to be evidences of this in other aspects of creation?

Chapter 8- Reductionism/Sowing Seeds

In these days of the human genome project, we sometimes feel like the definition of our lives has been reduced to what is written on our genes. Or, even more disheartening, the quality of our lives is often defined by marketers, who use bar codes and credit card records to track our every purchase and to determine what our personal profile is, in order to target their marketing more effectively.

Can our lives indeed be reduced to such basic elements, or indeed are we really beings of more depth than that? Using one of Jesus parables, I show that our lives can never be understood in such base terms. This is especially true in the work of God, which will always retain the wonder of God.

Chapter 9- The Tree of Knowledge

This chapter asks the questions, “Why did God place the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden?” “Would it not have been better to have no such tree, no test that God knew that we could not pass?” In addition to these two common questions about the Tree of Knowledge, there are yet others involving this tree; “Why is it that a tree that represents knowledge should bring death?” “Is the desire to acquire knowledge a bad thing?”

In this chapter we demonstrate what God means to accomplish through all of this, and how we can be willing participants in the positive outcome. It also explains how it has always been God’s intention to lead us into knowledge.

Chapter 10- The Pursuit of Knowledge

Our age has become one of excessive consumerism. Much of our energy is expended on attaining things that appeal to our outer man. In our present age, do we still desire to know? Do we still thirst for knowledge or do we even care what true knowledge is.

This chapter gives a brief overview of the pursuits for knowledge of some of the ancient philosophers and how that pursuit has a unique application for the follower of Christ. Knowledge, true knowledge, can only be obtained in one way, and this way is one that is not commonly used in the world.

Chapter 11- The Mystery of Submission

The Apostle Paul spoke some words on the subject of women in the church that seem very extreme to our modern ears. Is it fair to dismiss these words of Paul simply by saying that he was addressing one particular situation or the culture of his day? I do not think that we are free to do that and retain the integrity of the text.

Moving very slowly through the verses of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, I explore the words of Paul and find that there is a treasure in submission of which we do not often speak. Likewise, there are also dangers that are inherent to every role in the church and in society, and here Paul is speaking of some of the dangers that we perhaps have not been very adept at avoiding in recent years.

Chapter 12- Of Faith and Authority

When the disciples specifically asked Jesus to increase their faith (Luke 17:5), Jesus instead gave them an illustration that showed the importance of servanthood. Later, when a Roman centurion sent for Jesus so that Jesus might heal his servant, and in the communication between this man and Jesus, the centurion demonstrated his deep understanding of the meaning of authority, Jesus commented on the centurion’s great faith!

The responses of Jesus seem like they are reversed. When asked about faith, He taught on servanthood. Then, when confronted with an understanding of authority and servanthood, he commented on faith. This chapter examines why that is so, and the very close relationship between faith and authority.

Chapter 13- Almost Cursed

The book of Hebrews contains some very difficult statements concerning the eternal security of the believer (principally Hebrews 6:4-6, but also 3:12-14; 4:1-3; and 10:26-31). Indeed, these passages have been long discussed and dissected by the church. We examine them again, but in a way in which has not been normally done.

This chapter is a fair treatment of these verses, not simply picking the text out of the writer’s developing logic in the book. We instead consider the meaning of these passages in light of the flow of the teaching in the whole letter to the Hebrews. We also consider other Scriptures on the same topic and show how all of these passages bring harmony to one another.

Chapter 14- The Lord’s Sabbath—America’s Day to Play

This is a serious look at the North American treatment of the Lord’s Day. Should we consider earnestly the words of Isaiah, when he says, “If... you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day...and shall honor it...then you will take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth” (Isaiah 58:13-14)?

This chapter traces the treatment (and mistreatment) of the Sabbath of the Old Testament, through the Bible and up to modern times. It explores our inadequate understanding of the concept of the need for rest and in this chapter I make a distinction between the need for physical rest and what I have termed a “creative rest.”

Chapter 15- Fatherhood

Much of my work and ministry has been in Latin American countries. The Latin culture has what I think is a predisposition for the misunderstanding of the Fatherhood of God. This chapter uses a conversation that I had with a young man about his own experience as a child to explore the true meaning of the Fatherhood of God.

Chapter 16- Pentecost

It is unfortunate for the church that, because of controversies over the speaking in tongues, the past few decades has largely caused us to look at Pentecost with a tendency that brings controversy. Because we have become so used to using the events of Pentecost to strengthen whatever side of the debate we are on, we have sometimes missed entirely the true importance of Pentecost.

Why did God use the speaking in tongues to manifest the presence of the Holy Spirit? As we saw in the chapter on the Words of God, also this manifestation of tongues was indeed misunderstood by the people present, who thought the disciples were drunk! The reason God used this means of manifesting His Holy Spirit, quite apart from the actual speaking in tongues, is the true meaning of the Day of Pentecost. This chapter explains what that reason was and examines God’s use of this reason for Pentecost even in this day.

Chapter 17- The Whip of Fear

The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus delivers “those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:15). This statement at first seems to be counterintuitive, for one would think that if a person really did fear death, he would quickly run from the slavery of sin. The fear of death, it would seem, would keep people from sinning.

However, this is not the case. And, just as every slave owner has a whip to keep his slaves under his subjection, Satan stands over the people of the world with a whip (as it were). That whip is the fear of death. What exactly is the fear of death, and why is it sufficient to cause people to willingly remain subject to their own slavery to Satan? Paradoxically, the way to true freedom is indeed to die! But that death may not be exactly what we expect.

Chapter 18- Multitude Mentality

On Palm Sunday, the multitudes were welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem, shouting “Hosanna!” Barely one week later, many of this same multitude were shouting “Crucify Him!” How could these shouts have changed so quickly?

This chapter examines the dangers of following present trends and compares the attitude of the Jerusalem crowd to sports fans, simply looking for a hero to follow and wanting to back a “winner.” It is not necessarily a danger only to the multitude of the world, but we in the church also often demonstrate this same mentality.

Chapter 19- Circumcision

Circumcision is another of those illustrations of the Bible that simply seems (pardon the expression) strange. Could God not have used another sign for His covenant with His people? In the covenant of marriage, for instance, we have the sign of a ring. The ring is a good illustration and we can speak and teach clearly on many of its meanings and how it represents marriage.

But, as I mention in the preface of the book, when is the last time we heard a thoughtful sermon on circumcision? It is just too difficult to preach on this subject in a meaningful way. I do not know if it is that we are too prudish; or is it that we really do not see how circumcision can illustrate the covenant that God has with His people?

In this chapter we examine this practice of circumcision in a thoughtful way and historically explore the reason why God indeed chose this as a sign of His covenant. The discussion is done in a sensitive way, but at the same time we frankly ask the questions that are necessary in order to come to a meaningful answer. The answer also helps us to understand better what Jeremiah and Paul really meant by referring to the “circumcision of the heart.”

Chapter 20- Measuring our Worship

When God gave the instructions for the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness, his specifications were very detailed. Many Bible students who are fascinated with typology find all kinds of spiritual applications to each of these details, but do we really understand why the sockets for the wall boards were to be made of silver and the sockets for the pillars were to be bronze? However, what is clear to us is that God considered these things very important.

It was not only the tabernacle that had such specific instructions, but also the temples that were later built by Solomon and Zerubbabel. It is also especially true of the temple which the prophet Ezekiel describes, and Ezekiel tells in great detail how he and a guide explored the whole temple area, measuring every aspect.

Why was such precision necessary? The martyr Stephen seemed to think that there was a relationship to how the Jews valued that which was entrusted to them by God with their own spiritual well-being. In this chapter, I compare this great attention to detail in these temples to, what Paul calls, “the temple of the Holy Spirit,” which is the body of the Christian himself. Are we like the Jews of Stephen’s day, who by our disregard for our temples show that we are in a poor spiritual state?

THE POLYNESIAN DISCOVERY LETTERS - INTRODUCTION THROUGH PART 5

2009-05-15T14:33:00.001-05:00

Some time ago, I began a series of letters that have to do with a personal exploration of the Polynesian Islands. I am doing this in preparation of my wife and I moving there and working among the people of several of the Pacific islands. Below are parts 1-5. I will post others at some point in the future.

2009-05-08T20:52:00.000-05:00

POLYNESIAN DISCOVERY- INTRODUCTION

One of the most intriguing passages of the Bible to me has always been something that Paul said to the people of Athens. In speaking to the Athenians about the ways that God had been involved with the existence of the ancient peoples in history, Paul told them that God had “Determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”

Most of the migrations and the movements of the ancient people are lost to us in obscurity. What we do know of these movements, we usually put down as occurring because, for instance, the people were experiencing a famine in their own country so they set out to search for a new place to live. Or perhaps because of warfare or some other man-made situation.

No doubt many of the movements of the ancient peoples were a response to these events, but Paul told the people in Athens on that day that there was also another reason. “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26-27 NIV).

Most of you know that Vivian and I have recently been called to work in a part of the world that neither of us had ever thought that we might someday go, nor, quite frankly, really had any great desire to go. After working in pastoral and church leadership for fifteen years in Latin America, God has now called us to Polynesia to develop the same kind of training centers there.

We both loved living in the mountains of South and Central America and working with the peoples of those lands. Honestly, I am inclined to visit and live in hilly and mountainous places. I am not really a person of the sea or the beach. When Jesse and Matthew were very young and several years before Nathanael and Levi were even a thought in our lives, our young family lived for a year on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, working in a Bible camp there. It was nice, but I thought that was enough of the ocean and sand for me. I was glad to return back to the land of woods, lakes and streams. But now, much to our surprise, God has called us back to the lands of the ocean. This is not the relatively small Caribbean Sea, but the mightiest of the oceans: the Pacific.

Speaking about the movements of the ancient peoples, as I look back on my own life, I also find myself marveling about how God has moved me from place to place. It has sometimes been to places that I did not want to go, but through the experience, I have fallen in love with people that I never before had even any thought. As a very young man, God moved me to India. I think that the main reason that He did this was, like the ancients of whom Paul spoke, was that I would “seek Him and reach out for Him and eventually find Him,” for that is what happened. It was in that land that I re-dedicated my life to serve the God of the Bible. What also happened, however, is that I got to know and love a people of a land where I before had no desire to visit.

Since that time, Vivian and I and our boys have lived and worked in several areas of the world, some for shorter times and some for longer. It is largely because of this that I not only feel a special affinity with the people of India, but also of Ireland, Mexico, Venezuela, and Guatemala, and also with the people of several other countries with whom I have worked as I traveled to their lands.

So now Vivian and I are to work in Polynesia. I admittedly know almost nothing about who they are as a people. I feel somewhat like Captain James Cook must have felt when he first set out for the “Great South Sea” as they called it in those days. I think of myself that I am also traveling into what is for me a great unknown. However, I am not a captain but only a deck hand. But I am under the command of a captain. He is the Captain of the Lord of Hosts.

I have been recently been reading about the Polynesians. It has been for me an unfolding discovery as I have read about these people and their ways. Interestingly for me, as I have began to discover some of the things about these people that I before had not known, their own voyages have led me to think of some of my own travels, as you could perhaps tell when I began talking about India. So far, I have not studied too deeply into the history and people of Polynesia, but I have delved deeply enough that I am beginning to wonder if this voyage will not also be one of self-discovery. It seems to have begun that way. But one can never tell what he will encounter on a journey.

The thought has come to me that, through the magic of e-mail, perhaps you would like to accompany me on this journey. For some reason that may or may not be of your own choosing, your e-mail address has found its way into my address book. That is why you have received this letter. If you think that you would like to accompany me as I read of these lands and the people, I will just keep sending them. If you are just content to stay home and do not want to hear more, just write a return e-mail letter that says “No Thanks” on the subject line. There is no shame in being content at home.

However, if you do choose to come with me, I really do not know what to tell you what to expect, for this also is my first journey into these worlds. However, I know from experiences on other journeys that this one also might become quite long and maybe even sometimes a little boring. All journeys sometimes are. However, you have at least two advantages. One is the “delete” button. If the passage that we are making between two islands become long and somewhat monotonous, with a simple pressing of this button you can extradite yourself from the situation and do something else on your computer, like maybe play a game of Spider Solitaire. Or better yet, surf the web (Sorry about that, I could not resist.)

The other advantage that you have is that you can at any time jump ship. If you find that there are just too many monotonies and the journey is becoming much too tedious, you may always write that return letter that says “No Thanks” on the subject line, and I will stop sending them to you. If you wish to express your extreme dissatisfaction with the voyage, you can follow that No Thanks with a series of exclamation points – the more points meaning the more extreme the dissatisfaction. For instance, “No Thanks !!!!!!!!!!!!!” (I hope there will be no more than that).

In this jumping of the ship, there is no danger of shark attacks or of being marooned on a deserted island, but only the comfortable world of your Lane Recliner and TV remote. So, what can you lose? You may as well at least begin the journey with me. Who knows? You might even discover some unknown lands in your own life.

POLYNESIAN DISCOVERY- PART 1

2009-05-08T20:50:00.001-05:00

POLYNESIAN DISCOVERY- PART 1

In the Introduction that I sent out last week I mentioned that, as I think of taking on this work in the South Pacific region, it is like entering into a great unknown for me. I said that I feel a bit like Captain James Cook perhaps felt as he sailed out to explore the “South Seas.” However, as we know, it was not Captain Cook who was the first to arrive to these remote islands of the Pacific. Wherever he or any of the European explorers went, they found the majority of the many thousands of islands in the Pacific already inhabited. These island-dwellers were the Polynesians – the people of the South Pacific.

Of Captain Cook’s travels in the Pacific, we have extensive written records, for the captain very meticulously recorded every detail into his ship’s log. The situation is quite different with the arrival of the Polynesian people, however. These people had no written form for their language, so all that we know are the oral traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation. We should say that it is not as if oral traditions do not have the capacity to transmit history very accurately, but it is just that these means of preserving history are often open to wide interpretations. In the case of the Polynesians, for instance, these traditions take the form of myths and legends – folklore.

We of mostly European or Asian ancestry, who are so accustomed to having our history in written form, often look upon folklore merely as fanciful stories, superstitions, or tales of pagan gods. Of course, they were all of these things, but they also often served as a way in which the history of their people could be transmitted across the generations. We all know that it is much easier to remember a story than it is to remember a list of facts and dates. Be that as it may, it is difficult if not impossible for us today to reconstruct the movements of the early Polynesian people from the folklore that remains, and the origins of the Polynesians have been one of the great mysteries of people migrations.

The principle difficulty in understanding this is that we almost cannot fathom the possibility that early man could set out into a body of water that covers a third of the earth’s surface, broken only by relative pinprick-sized islands, and then to reach and colonize those islands. It is difficult for us to get a true picture of the scope of this. When we look at a map on the wall of the Pacific, the expanses of water appear overwhelming enough, but it still is not the same as actually setting out into this immense and vast ocean to seek to arrive at a tiny island thousands miles away.

To get an idea of what it must have been like, I made some quick calculations in comparing one of these Pacific journeys with a trip from the earth to the moon. From New Zealand, which is at one extreme of Polynesia, to Easter Island (the other extreme), the distance is about 4,500 miles (give or take a couple hundred miles). Considering the relative size of the moon to Easter Island, and the accuracy involved with hitting the moon from the earth with hitting Easter Island from New Zealand, the moon would have to be four times further from earth than it is (from 239,000 miles to almost a million miles away) to make the trips comparable in their difficulty. Of course, there are obvious difficulties in traveling through space that there is not in sea travel, but traveling by sea is also setting out into a hostile environment, and at least in journeying to the moon, the traveler can see his destination!

As I also said in the Introduction of last week, I do not really consider myself a man of the ocean or the beach. I much prefer the forests and the hills. I feel more in my element in the woods and think that should I ever become stranded or lost in the wilderness, I at least know a few skills that I could use to survive some difficulties. I do not feel this same reassurance when it comes to the ocean.

Many years ago, when Vivian and I worked for a year at Porvenir Bible Camp on a Yucatan Peninsula beach, we went swimming almost every day. Sometimes, I would take an inner tube and paddle out into the Caribbean so that I was quite far from land. There, lying in that inner tube with nothing but water around me, I would sometimes try to imagine what it would be like to actually be stranded in the ocean. It is different than on land. On the land, one can look around and use whatever resources might be available, no matter how meager they might be. On the sea, there is nothing. There is only your inner tube and there is salt water, nothing more…oh, there is the blazing sun. Even though I was not out of sight of land, and my thoughts of being marooned were only an imaginary game I was playing with myself, I remember starting to have thoughts of panic. I thought of the depths of the water under my insufficient little watercraft and what sharks or other monsters might be swimming underneath me. I never played my little mind game long, but soon, in order to calm my growing fears, began paddling back toward the safety of the sandy beach.

So it is that when I think of the ancient Polynesians setting out in their double-hulled canoes over long distances of seemingly endless ocean, I cannot help but admire their bravery. But it is more than just a blind bravery, for they must have possessed extraordinary skills to navigate between islands. Among the things that have become intriguing to me about these people is their seemingly fearless ability to cast themselves into the endless and tormentuous oceans of the Pacific in small canoe-like crafts, and, once they had explored an area of the ocean, to be able to navigate from island to island over grand expanses of open sea.

This took not only and astounding ability to calculate their relative position, but an understanding of the how the winds would blow and the currents of the ocean. They did not have GPS devices or diesel-powered watercraft, but theirs was a system that was a more diverse and environmental approach. They learned to navigate using the stars and even the moon. They knew the migration patterns of the birds and the whales. Even the sea itself gave them signs to read as to their position in the ocean. What kind of watercraft could they have used? How were they able to plot a course without navigational instruments? How did they even know that there were islands across such great expanses of ocean?

The sailing skills and navigational abilities of the early Polynesians are astounding indeed, but because I am limiting myself to the length of each of these letters, we will have to wait to look at these methods of navigation and travel in the next letter.

There is something else that I would like to consider next time in connection with the Polynesian people: It is thought that the first of these sea explorers started to inhabit the islands of the western Pacific as early as 1500 BC. For all practical purposes, these people were isolated from the rest of the world between that time until the years that the early European explorers began searching the South Seas in the 1600’s AD. That is more than 3,000 years of isolation! Even if one does not accept the earlier date, it almost becomes irrelevant, for this an astounding amount of time.

In that more that three thousand years, a lot had occurred in the rest of the world, including the events of most of the Bible. God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans about in the year 2090 BC, and as we know, in the thousands of years following that time, God had many dealings with the people of the earth. God’s involvement in the world lead up to the most important occurrence in history: the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Polynesians missed all of this.

Knowing this, what then are we to say about the words of the Apostle Peter? Speaking of Jesus Christ, the apostle said this: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12 NIV).

If this be the case, our immediate question must be, “What about the ancient Polynesians?” Of course, the question is much wider than that because it applies to many of the peoples of the world. Most of you know that I am a fundamentalist (not in the way that the word is used in these days, but in the classical sense of the word) when it comes to what is written in the Bible. How then, can we reconcile the love that the Bible says that God possesses with this isolation that the Polynesians had from His Word?

Well, I have already exceeded my self-imposed restriction for the length of these letters and I am also afraid that I may have set my ambitions too high for the next. I do not have these letters written beforehand (they are in real-time), so we will see how far I can get on this subject. Also, I do not want you to expect that every one of your questions on this deep subject will be answered, but we will do what we can. Neither do I want to dwell on it too long, or I will lose too many of my travel companions. It is not on a Carnival Cruise ship that we are sailing, but I am trying to guard against the trip being overly tedious.