An Early Benediction

You never know when God is going to move in on you. Sometimes his benediction comes earlier than one might expect, programmed as we are to hear it proclaimed at the end of worship.

I know that of course, and should have thought of it as we near the end of a marvelous two-month leave of absence from our home and ministry in Minnesota. To wait to the end of anything for God is to forget that he always waits first on us.

It is Saturday morning as I write, and in two brief days we head home. But God's benediction on our stay here at our cabin in Wisconsin came already two evenings ago in a stellar sunset that so evidenced his handiwork as to leave us speechless.

The picture I took from our deck on the hill does not do it justice, given the fact that it was taken through the trees immediately in front of me. But even that became a parable on his grace. The trees in the foreground represents all the days we have been here and the few that remain. And the cascading glow in the sky beyond is a perpetual reminder of his presence in all that is yet to be.

It will be no struggle to go home. For his benediction on our time away, just as the pronouncing of it in a service of worship, is never meant to signal an end to faith and ministry. It is meant rather to so stir our hearts by the sense of his glory that we yearn all the more, leaving rest or worship, to share his benediction with others.

Lord, Teach Me How to Pray!

Centuries ago, John Montgomery (1771-1854) gifted the church with a hymn on prayer (The Covenant Hymnal, 1973, No. 345), whose images came back to me on awakening this morning.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, unuttered or expressed,
the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.

Sincere desire and hidden fire ... that trembles in the breast. How true of prayer in my life, not so much the assembling of words as the giving of wings to my hung'ring spirit. Often, in fact, I have no words to offer, which Montgomery goes on to describe. Sometimes prayer is only the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, the upward glancing of an eye when none but God is near.

More images abound. Prayer is the simplest form of speech ... the contrite sinner's voice, returning from his ways ... the Christian's vital breath and native air, his watchword at the gates of death, he enters heav'n with prayer.

I could well in my own life parody the words of one in Scripture who once cried out to Jesus, "I believe, Lord; help my unbelief," by saying here and now, "I pray, Lord; help my lack of prayer." And so, with James Montgomery, I begin this day as he ended his hymn: O thou by whom we come to God, the life, the truth, the way; the path of prayer thyself hast trod, Lord, teach [me] how to pray.

Light a Candle!

“I’ll light a candle,” my brother often said
whenever life seemed to tumble in on someone.
It was his way of standing by, expressing sympathy.
It may also have involved his distaste for disruption,
especially threatening and unwelcome change.

Early morning this day I’ve lit a candle too,
perhaps and even likely for the same reasons.
It burns in sympathy for life at a distance,
so many imponderables people are facing,
as well as my own distaste for disruption.

Could it be that the lighting itself of a single wick
posts a faith supplied by a steadier Light
that remains beyond my life and that of others,
Sovereign over all human change and disruption?
I believe that, and God invades my unbelief!

Noise and the Rest God Offers

Years ago, in Seminary, Dr. Fredrick Pamp gave us in a class on pastoral orientation a word from Isaiah for use in hospital visitation. For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength (30:15).

How true that has been in my life, not only as a minister but as a human being. All the noise around me competes daily for my attention--not to mention devotion. And it is often enticing. But what it promises is short-lived and I am left no better than I was when it first engaged me.

Life is full of noise these days and it is easy to lose the kind of reliable perspective that only God supplies. One never turns to or rests in him without being saved. Nor does quietness and confidence in him ever fail ever to render strength and consolation.

In Psalm 73, one of my favorites, the point is driven home. Tempted away from purity of heart by envy over the prosperity of the wicked--not to mention the high regard in which they are regarded by others, he confesses that his own feet had almost stumbled and his steps had almost slipped. Even his attempts to understand all this seemed to him a wearisome thing. It led him in fact to wonder if trying to keep his heart clean and his hands washed in innocence was really in vain.

All this anger and confusion "until I went into the sanctuary of God," he confesses. "Then I perceived their end." The wicked have set themselves in slippery places and God makes them sooner or later to fall to ruin. They are in fact "like a dream when one awakes; on awaking you despise their phantoms."

I'm tired this morning of chasing phantoms, as well as all the noise of those who entice me to do so. And I thank God that in returning and rest I have been time and again saved from their grip. If now in quietness and confidence I keep finding God's strength, and honor his sanctuary, then with Isaiah and the psalmist I will leave behind me a witness as helpful to others as theirs has been and is to me.