Don't Blame It on Science

I was thinking this morning that when an archeologist unearths the ruins of an ancient civilization, it would never occur to him to believe that it spontaneously grew there underground.  He careful digs and brushes back the layers of dirt and discovers tools, utensils, walls laid out in logical fashion, a way for water to be obtained by the village’s residents, artwork the occupants have created and much more.  He concludes that thinking human beings lived there.  He assesses their degree of sophistication and marvels at what they created.

How on earth can we look at the world around us, and specifically at the human body, and think that it arose spontaneously from a swirling cloud and an organic soup?  The earth is fine-tuned to support life.  The human body is the incredibly complex culmination of life.  In every cell and the way in which it relates to the whole, we see organization, function and artistry.  It screams, “This was planned by an intelligent being!”

Of course, the problem is that if we admit to an intelligent creator…that is, GOD, we might have to acknowledge that we are in some way responsible to him.  Ah…there is the rub.  It is NOT logic or science that prevents people from believing there is a God.  It is the unpleasantness of admitting that he may have something to say about our behavior.  People want to be self-determining.  They do not want limits placed on their conduct.  God may have some guidelines for us to follow.

Following those guidelines would be logical, because the creator might just have insight into what is best for his creation.  But this is where logic is abandoned.  For some ridiculous reason, humans persist in thinking they know better.  If you want to ignore God, declaring that he doesn’t exist makes it easier.

So if you want to be an atheist or even an agnostic, fine!  But don’t try to convince yourself and others that it has anything at all to do with logic or science.  Admit that it is because you don’t want God to meddle in your life and decisions.

Engraved on His Palms

“I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”   Isaiah 49:16

Carved deeply into flesh,

Written in blood,

Painfully etched,

My name.

Who made these wounds?

Punctured deep,

Penetrating beyond the surface

Into soul and spirit.

What caused the nails,

The rusty nails to be driven?

Was it the sin of the world?

Or was it mine?

His palm outstretched as promised,

Allowed the engraving,

Of my unworthy name

For my redemption.

Impending Doom

The evening before last I had a sensation of impending doom…that is, I had the sense that something awful was about to happen.  This has occurred to me on a handful of prior occasions.  I felt restless and anxious without any apparent reason.  Nothing I could identify had happened to trigger these feelings.  I just expected that something would happen.

Yesterday Notre Dame burned.  A tragedy impacting people around the world.

But also yesterday, somewhere…

*a sweet baby was aborted

*a child died because of abuse or neglect

*a young girl experienced genital mutilation

*a teen overdosed

*a young mother was killed by a drunk driver

*undignified, dehumanizing slavery was imposed on someone

*a loving heart was broken by infidelity

*gossip destroyed someone’s whole social support system

*a diagnosis of a terminal illness brought someone’s world crashing down

This is the week when Christ must have felt the weight of future horrors.  He knew he would die and how he would die.  He knew that he would bear the weight of the sins of all of us.  He also knew that after passing through this hell, he would be victorious over death itself.  He knew Notre Dame would be built and that it would one day burn.  He knew each of the awful things I have listed.  He knew.  He embraced death to redeem man.

Now he looks at the evil in our world and grieves.  Each and every person can, if they make the choice, come to him for salvation and mercy and strength to face each day.  Redemption is available.  If we turn our backs, we will one day burn.  All our accomplishments can be wiped out as easily as any human made structure, no matter how ornate and imposing, can be incinerated.

Today may be filled with agony, but the resurrection is coming. 

New life is coming. 

Dawn is breaking!

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Treasured Possession

You yourselves have seen what I did…how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.  Now if you obey me fully…you will be my treasured possession.  Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me…               from Exodus 19:4-6

Although these verses were spoken to the Israelites through Moses, I believe they apply equally to those who believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord.  I have snatched phrases out of the passage to increase the impact of this message for believers.

As I look back over 74 years of life, I have seen what he has done!  He has protected and preserved me.  He brought me to Himself.  At an early age, He spoke to my heart and mind, so that even as a child, I recognized that my need for Him was deep and undeniable.

Although I have at times struggled to obey Him, full obedience has always been my heart’s desire.  He recognizes my frailty…He remembers that we are dust and knows our hearts.  I am His treasured possession.  He purchased me at great price.  I am amazed that He would pay such a price, and that He values me.

Everything belongs to him.  Every life exists at His will.  Every breath of every person on earth is granted by Him.  He causes breath to cease on His timetable.  This applies to the most beautiful, the most talented, the most intelligent, the wealthiest, the most athletic, the most admired by others…and to the lowliest. 

I want to be for Him, and I believe that is what He has promised.

Making a Wastepaper Can

In the fall of 1964, I was a student at a hospital-based nursing program in a Chicago suburb.  It was my senior year.  One of the patients I cared for was a real character.  His diagnosis was “fever of unknown origin,” but there was clearly a secondary diagnosis of dementia.  He said and did things which made no sense at all.  I’m not sure the poor old guy had any idea where he was.  I never knew what they decided regarding the fever, and he was discharged.

A few weeks later, I was scheduled to spend six weeks at Cook County Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Hinsdale, Illinois, to learn about infectious disease as part of my nursing education. We all looked forward to that affiliation, because the sanitarium was in a lovely rural setting.  The grounds were beautiful, and the food served in the cafeteria was a cut above normal institutional food.    

One of my assignments was on a ward where things were pretty relaxed.  The patients did not have positive sputum cultures, and most were up and around their rooms and dressed in street clothes.  No isolation techniques were required, and there were no critically ill or surgical patients.  Lo and behold, my senile old friend was a patient there.  Apparently, they had determined that the unknown origin of his fever was tuberculosis.

In the room across the hall from senile Old Guy were two men in their 30s who had been partners in an undertaking business.  They had both contracted tuberculosis from a corpse with which they had not exercised proper precautions.  They were jokesters and a bit flirtatious with nurses.

One day I walked into the elderly man’s room and found him sitting in his chair.  He had the wastepaper can from his room between his knees, and he was carefully tearing small strips of newspaper and folding them over the edge of the can.  I asked him what he was doing.  He replied, “I’m making a wastepaper can.”

Next, I went in the room across the hall to check on the two guys over there.  They were craning their necks trying to see into Old Guy’s room and figure out what he was up to.

 “What is he doing?!” they asked.  

With a smile and a shrug, I explained that he said he was making a wastepaper can. 

They didn’t need anything, so I went on about my business with other patients.

Sometime later, I entered the room with the two careless undertakers again.  They were both sitting in their easy chairs with their wastebaskets between their knees, tearing strips of paper and folding them over the edge of the cans.

They looked at me gleefully.

I was speechless.  I hooted with laughter, spun around and left the room unable to say a word.

Raucous laughter from their room could be heard down the hall.

I guess when one is confined to a hospital for weeks or months, there are a variety of ways to amuse oneself and pass the time.

Provision

Here are the fire and the wood,

But where is the lamb?

I look to my father who tenderly speaks:

God Himself will provide the Lamb.

I carry the fire of guilt and the burden of sin,

Where is the sacrificial lamb of atonement?

I trudge upward with the heavy load,

Must I lose my life on the mountaintop altar?

It would not be an undeserved death,

My sin condemns me and demands payment.

I look to my father who tenderly speaks:

God Himself will provide.

Centuries pass with man heaping sin upon sin.

When will the crooked me made straight?

I look to my father who speaks through his tears:

I myself have provided.  My Son is the lamb.

God himself will provide the lamb.

God himself will provide.

God himself.

The Name of Jesus

What happens when you speak the name?  I suppose that depends on why you are speaking it, and the attitude of your heart. 

Several years ago, I stood between people speaking the name of Jesus for contrasting reasons. 

My husband’s family’s business, which manufactured drip irrigation, had begun in a converted greenhouse behind his parents’ home.  At a point where the business was moving to a new location, one machine was still in the structure behind his parents’ house, and one employee was working there alone with the shift foreman coming there to check on him during the evening.  The guy, for reasons beyond understanding, reach up under the guard meant to prevent entrapment and got his hand caught in the mechanism of the machine.  My mother-in-law was home alone and heard him crying out for help.  She called my husband, and as it happened, my mother was at our home that evening and could stay with our children, so that I could go with my husband. 

My husband called the factory manager who knew how to release the machine, but until he and the ambulance arrived, the man’s hand remain wedged in the machine.  I was standing behind him, and my mother-in-law was behind me.  The man repeatedly said, “Jesus, Jesus!”  He was NOT calling out for help from Jesus.  He was “using” the name.  My mother-in-law was whispering “Jesus, Jesus” prayerfully.  The contrast was striking.

I too have called out “the name” in such distress that I could not even pronounce it clearly.  Almost 20 years ago, I was awakened from a sound sleep having an allergic reaction to a prescribed medication I had taken at bedtime.  I had been on the medication for months without any difficulty.  But, this night my entire body turned bright red, and I had difficulty breathing.  I thought my mouth was dry and asked my husband to get me a drink of water.  Actually, my tongue had swollen and was filling my whole mouth.  Eventually it protruded from my mouth, and my husband and a first responder said it was blue.  

At some point, I realized just how much trouble I was in, and unable to speak clearly, I cried out, “Hep me. Theethus!”

An EMT arrived and prepared to put in an IV, but before the needle was in, I felt my tongue shrink back to its proper size.  At that point, I had been given some oxygen, but no other treatment.  My only explanation for the abrupt turn around in my condition is that Jesus understood my appeal even though I couldn’t speak his name clearly.

A Christian friend, who lived across the street from us at the time, happened to be up late and saw the ambulance at our house.  She called and asked my husband what was going on.  She told me later, that she got right down on the floor before the Lord and pleaded with him for my life.  My husband had awakened our son, who was a teen at the time, so that he could open the door for the emergency workers and direct them upstairs.  Our son later said that he had been praying as he waited and paced.

What happens when we speak the name of Jesus?

The name is sweet to the ear of a believer.

The name brings comfort.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in the believer’s ear.

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds. And drives away his fear.

What happens when we call upon the name of Jesus?

The name is powerful!

Philippians 2:10-11  That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.