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The Best Laid Plans . . .

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by Brian Waple

My family went back to Virginia this past weekend for my dad’s memorial service. We had been planning the service for friends and family for a while, as well as making preparations for a family graveside service. My dad was not a churchgoer, but he had been a long-time member of the local American Legion. So, the family thought this would be a suitable venue for the event. I made several calls and sent a number of emails to make sure the ballroom was available and set up. In addition, I made arrangements to put my dad’s date of death on a pre-existing headstone in the family plot at the local cemetery.

Both services were scheduled for Saturday. We decided to go by the Legion and cemetery on Friday morning to ensure everything was ready. We had no idea what would be waiting for us.

Arriving at the Legion, we found out it was closed for the next seven days because of a positive COVID test on one of the employees. My single point of contact at the Legion could not be reached. When we got to the cemetery, we found that my dad’s date of death had been placed under my mom’s name (she was with us … awkward). Between panicked calls to the headstone company (they were very distraught) and continued calls to my Legion contact (did I tell you he couldn’t be reached?), we were looking at the beginning of a train wreck and had no idea what we were going to do. So, we prayed.

In Genesis 32, we read of Jacob receiving news that his older brother Esau was coming to meet him with an army of 400 men. Remembering that little deception he and his mother had cooked up to steal his brother’s birthright, Jacob was certain Esau was coming to slaughter him and his family (he could see the wheels coming off the rails). Other than reorganizing his family and possessions, he had no clear assurance of how this was going to turn out. So, he prayed:

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” (Genesis 32:9–12, ESV)

After spending the night wrestling with God (and being blessed by God), in Genesis 33 Jacob meets Esau: “He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept” (Genesis 33:3–4, ESV). The encounter that had so terrified Jacob (now Israel) had instead become a blessing.

As we were preparing my dad’s service, I spent time in prayer, seeking God’s counsel. I wanted to make sure that what I was doing was honoring to Dad, as well as following God’s leading in the direction He wanted me to go. What was happening now was not making sense. I began to question our plan, thinking, “Is this because we weren’t meeting in a church?” But then, the majority of people coming would not feel comfortable in a church, and I wanted them to feel at ease. I wanted to honor God, but I also wanted to honor my dad. I realize that my situation was much smaller in magnitude than Jacob’s, but I had my own time of wrestling with what I needed to do. Slowly, I began to sense that my Father was telling me, “It’s going to be okay . . . stick with the plan.” And, we did.

So, how was the memorial service? It was a real blessing. We sang songs and told stories and remembered and laughed and cried—my Dad would have loved it! Only one employee who worked in the Legion bar tested positive (the bar, which was the only area closed, is on a separate floor from the ballroom we were meeting in). Out of caution, we called everyone we had invited to let them know the circumstances…a few opted not to come. And the headstone company assured me they would remove the headstone (after the graveside service) and would be able to correct the engraving. I learned (once again) that giving this all to God in prayer was all I could do.

Prayer. It is the foundation of our faith and our hope. When we pray, we enter into genuine relationship with our God and Father who sees all and knows all. We trust that although we can’t always see what’s coming, He can. God loves us. And when it seems like we are at our wit’s end and nothing seems to make sense, we can pray and know that our God hears us.

What do you need to pray for right now?

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Jesus: Our Great Hope!

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Jeff Foerster

Never

Never will I forsake you. Never will I leave you. Never.

That’s a long time. It’s longer than I can hold my breath, and it’s longer than I can stay awake. I can’t think of a calendar date, nor can I imagine any number of years, decades, or centuries that would nullify God’s promise. And no person, other than Jesus Christ, can make and fulfill this hope.

Friends and family make promises, often with good intention, but do not possess the ultimate power to ensure they are fulfilled. But Jesus lived a life overflowing with prayer-filled obedience to the Father, miracles, and teachings that astounded His hearers. He kept His Father’s word perfectly, even demonstrating power over life and death by raising Lazarus—and Himself—from the dead. There is no power, no authority, no circumstance, no tragedy, no plan that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

NEVER will I leave you.

Leave

Jesus left his perfect dwelling place in Heaven with the Father. He was in perfect union with Father. He gave up glory for mortality. He shed power for weakness.

Jesus set aside perfection. We cling to corruption. Jesus willingly and joyfully came down from Heaven and displayed His life for all to see, even unto death on the cross. We have trouble saying no to a video game, a cookie, or another diversion, and yes, when the Lord of Glory wants to spend time with us.

Jonah saw God’s lovingkindness and fled His presence. Paul saw God’s perfection and turned aside to find his own. But Jesus . . . He sees our brokenness and sin-soaked stature and, like the Prodigal Father, leaves all sense of decorum and dignity and RUNS to us!

You

And as you go, I will be with you. Even unto the end of the age.

As you go. As you do the gospel work of spreading the news of Jesus, introducing people to Jesus and training up disciples of Jesus. Where His work is being done, there we participate as friends and fellow workers with God.

I have family members in Heaven that I loved dearly while they were here on earth and miss greatly since they have departed. But it is Jesus that I want to see most. It is Jesus that I need. It is His presence alone that satisfies, that fulfills. Imagine a Heaven without Jesus. If you can, maybe it’s not heaven you’re imagining.

Jesus is my fulfillment, my hope, my joy. When you read those words, do they ring true? Did they at one time? Shout to the heavens, praise our God, mighty to save! Truly we don’t deserve this God of fierce power, undying love, and amazing grace—but surely, we have Him in Christ Jesus the Lord!

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Until We All Have Faces Again

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By Jason Comerford

Hey, fellow Elimites. How’s your fellowship with one another going? If you’re like me, it’s been a struggle.

I’ve grown weary of mainly seeing other humans through my computer screen. Zoom meetings are a handy tool, but they’re a poor substitute for seeing one another in person. And let’s not even get started on Facebook. Chatting with my folks from a thousand miles away can’t replace a good hug.

I think at this point, no one would disagree much about the value of seeing each other in person. It’s incredibly important, and we’re hurting from not having it. But as we move our church services from the parking lot back into the building and tackle the practical challenges of being indoors again, I worry about some of the habits we’ve developed in our extended isolation. I’d like to talk about some of the spiritual challenges in, once again, seeing each face to face.

Seeing Humanity

The first challenge is, I think, the more obvious of the two. We’ve lost sight of our brothers and sisters’ God-imaging humanity. That might sound a bit extreme, but I think that’s what interacting largely through social media and computer screens has been training us to do. As C. S. Lewis said in The Weight of Glory:

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

We’ve forgotten what it means to work with, play with, and live with beings made in the wonderful image of our creator God. These are the people we argue with, hurt, and dismiss so brazenly online. When we’re in community and facing one another regularly, it’s much harder to dehumanize the human who’s right in front of you. As we step back into community, we’re going to have to embrace the challenge of seeing and treating one another as image bearers of God and not merely as whatever category social media has trained us to see each other as.

Vulnerability

The second challenge is slightly more insidious—and for me, at least, probably the harder of the two. We’re going to have to let others see us again.

Now, that might sound very obvious and, honestly, pretty easy. Just show up, right? But the natural effect of us dehumanizing and judging one another is that we’ve learned to hide ourselves away to avoid that very same dehumanization and judgment. As we treat others, so we expect to be treated. Other people can’t hurt you if you don’t show up, don’t enter into relationship, and don’t embrace the vulnerability required to live in community. There’s risk in being known, and certainly some hurt. But I think, in this season, one clear act of taking up our cross and following after Christ is going to be in our earnest pursuit of relationship. No hiding ourselves away. We’re going to have to look at one another face to face.

Even as the world has tried to train us to view one another through a combative lens, we must  adhere to the teachings of Jesus when he says:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? (Matthew 5:44-46)

Fellow Elimites, we are not enemies. However, we do ourselves a disservice if we don’t recognize our drift towards viewing one another that way. It is easy to congregate and gather with those we agree with, but there’s nothing Christ-like about that. True Christlike love will gravitate towards and humbly, kindly serve those who would, according to the world, be our enemies. Even within the family of God, we must find a way to apply this teaching. It might even be harder here, but do it we must.

Think and pray about this. Even if you’re not ready to come to an in-person service, consider how you can creatively (and safely) enter back into relationship with your fellow Christians. Our courage in this season isn’t mainly about how we respond to the virus—it’s about how we respond to each other. Will we give grace and wait on it from our brothers and sisters? Or will we come ready to fight?

P.S.—Shout out to all you who are rightly appalled at the blatant theft of my title from C. S. Lewis’s brilliant book Till We Have Faces.

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Why I Do What I Do

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By Dan Amos

Saturday, I drove a 20-foot moving van to north of Bellingham. One of my sons and his wife moved there to start the next chapter in their life together. For her it will be graduate school, and for him it will be starting a new job. The truck was large and fully packed. It was wide enough to fill the lane of any road, and when you add the mirrors on either side, it stretched from line to line. Halfway there, I picked up one of my other sons. I was looking forward to the time together, and we were talking about jobs and technology and life. It was great, but about 30 or 40 minutes into that leg, the brake lights on the cars directly in front of me suddenly flashed. Smoke billowed from their tires from hard braking. Almost simultaneously, plastic parts filled the air and I think one of the cars was lifted into the air from its now-missing bumper.

On Sunday, Pastor Steve preached from Philippians 3, where Paul contrasts a life by works and a life by grace. Paul recounted his previous attempt to gain favor with God by what he (Paul) did. He was born one of God’s chosen people, followed the law, and persecuted those who chose Jesus. After his encounter with the resurrected Christ, he realized none of that mattered. Nothing he could do would be good enough, and Jesus had provided the only way to salvation. He did not deserve it, but it was given to him by God’s grace.

I’ll admit, I am a mass of insecurity and contradiction, but my bedrock faith is in Christ. The Bible shapes my worldview. In the good times, I understand the nature of sin and its effects. Bad things happen, sometimes without my having done anything wrong. I say “in the good times” to say that in the bad times, I already know that it is the result of a fallen world. God is sovereign, He is in control, and He is active in our lives. He knows the beginning and the end. He is grieved by sin and its consequences, but through Jesus we can be rescued, reconciled, and renewed. Still the consequences on this earth, at this time, remain. I’m treading into deep theological waters, and that’s not the point of where I’m heading.

Many of you know that nine years ago I was unemployed for 54 weeks. Gene Davies consistently prayed for me and would greet me each Sunday with “Do you have a job yet?” He was convinced God was going to give me a job. I will forever remember him and be thankful for him, but I did not share that same conviction. Instead, I was convinced that God would see me and my family through to whatever would achieve his purposes. God’s promise in Christ is true. The belief in promises of material blessing is made up and dangerous. I can find no other explanation for the real suffering of Christians whose faith is so much greater than mine.

Along with my view of God, sovereignty, and sin, the Bible gives wisdom. We can choose to do things that put us at risk, but we are taught to recognize danger and act accordingly. I honestly can’t say how the accident unfolded in front of me. I jumped on the brake and Fran, who was following behind me, says the truck tires smoked as they brought us to a stop. We stopped in a straight line a truck’s length or two from the four or five vehicles that collided. It happened so quickly, I don’t know if I reacted from the instant it started or further along. I think a half second or so divided us from being a part of that mess. If we had collided, the mass of that truck could have caused serious injury to those people.

The point is before setting out on the trip, I consciously thought about driving an unfamiliar, large vehicle and determined to stay in the right lane and keep an extra distance between me and the cars ahead. Sometimes that meant dropping below the speed limit, which is frustrating to me on a long trip. It was a prudent choice based on the conditions. I could have driven normally, and I would have been much closer and had less time to react. But again, it happened so fast, I can’t say if our safety was due to cautious actions or divine intervention or both. I do know that I expressed my gratitude to God for the outcome. No one appeared to be injured, though several vehicles were a total loss.

Right now, 2020 feels like an unfamiliar truck hurtling down an interstate on a variety of levels. I want to get to the other end of this journey as quickly as possible, but I have chosen a path of caution. I know some will agree this is prudent and others will disagree that it is unnecessary and needlessly disrupts our fellowship together. These are extra-grace-required situations. But I hope you will understand why I do what I do.

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