hope – Hope Walking

The Father and His Sons Part 3

It took a long time for the son to walk back to the family farm. Remember, he had gone to a far country. (read Parts 1 and 2.) The rough road on his bare feet slowed him down. And he was hungry to the point of fainting . But getting home was his only hope of surviving, so he kept going.

He had lots of time to think about what he would say to his father when he got there. He knew his father had no obligation to help him – not after the way he had acted. By rights his father should turn him away, but he knew him to be a kind man, so he prepared this little speech:

“Father, I have sinned against Heaven and you. I am not worthy to be called your son. Will you allow me to work here as your hired servant?”

The son rehearsed his speech over and over on his slow walk home. And while he walked his father was still watching. Every morning his father looked down the road, hoping to see his son. At noon, and again before dark, he looked and prayed his boy would come home.

Then one afternoon the father looked and thought he saw far off a familiar figure on the road. His heart started to beat quickly, but then he thought, “That’s not my son. He is way too thin and he walks with his head down.”

But he kept watching.

“Wait,” he thought, “it looks like my son’s gait. But, no, this fellow is wearing nothing but rags. It’s not him.”

But he kept watching.

And as the figure drew nearer the father’s heart leapt with the joy of recognition.

“It’s my son!” Then he did what no dignified gentleman would do. Pulling up his robe he sprinted down the path to the gate shouting, “You’re home! You’re home!”

The son had barely made it through the gate when the impact of his father’s embrace almost knocked him over. He tried to start his speech, saying, “Father,I have sinned against Heaven and…..”

But his father wasn’t listening. He was kissing him and shouting instructions to the servants.

“Look, my son is home. Run to my closet and bring me my best robe. And bring some shoes with it.”

“And, you, go tell the cook to kill the fatted calf and make a big feast. We are going to celebrate!”

“And, you, go tell the neighbors my son is home and we are feasting. And then go hire that band we like.”

Finally the father took off his ring and put it on the finger of his son, which meant he was restored to the position of his father’s beloved child.

Together they walked back to the house, and the party began.

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Jesus told this story so we can know how God the Father feels about us. Whether you are on the road leaving, on the road heading back or safely home the Father loves you more than you guess, and your welcome party is waiting.

Scripture reference: Luke 15:11-24

Pray Like This……Expecting

We spend our days expecting things to happen. Most of the time we are not particularly conscious of our expectations, until they don’t happen.

One summer afternoon I had my car all packed up to go on a road trip. I had gas, snacks, music and everything I needed for a five hour trip. I sat down in the driver’s seat, turned the key and………………….nothing.

Think of how many things you expected to happen today, and they did. Your alarm went off on time. Your microwave heated up your soup. Your mail came. Your shower was hot. Hundreds of expectations!

What do you expect when you pray?

If we are honest we might say, “nothing,” or “not much.”

I hope you have decided to stay with me as we investigate what Jesus taught about prayer. In my blog on October 3, I suggested you read through Matthew 6 a few times and note any words or phrases that occur more than twice. Did you notice the word reward is there 5 times?

“And your father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Last week we followed a desperately ill woman who secretly approached Jesus looking for a reward. She believed if she just touched his clothes she would be healed. She didn’t think the clothing had power, she knew Jesus did. And when she touched his shawl, Jesus’s power healed her.

Since you are reading this I know you plugged some device into an electrical socket and expected the reward of your battery being charged. If we have faith our power company will reward us, we can have faith that the powerful Creator of the universe will also reward us when we approach him. Jesus said he will.

When my car wouldn’t start I had faith in the AAA membership card in my wallet and I called the number on the card. I was soon rewarded with a running motor.

Call your Father in Heaven: he promises to respond.

If you don’t have a prayer journal, try starting one now. Keep a running list of your prayers. My list has been running for decades. Soon you will be able to look back and count your rewards.

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Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

(Hebrews 11:6)

Pray Like This….secretly

She was sick. Really sick. She had been bleeding for 12 years.

Luke, the physician who recorded her story, doesn’t tell us the source of her problem, but we can guess it was from “the way of women.” She had no modern way to deal with this, just rags. Rags she had to wash and boil and wash again.

And she was tired. Any unchecked loss of blood leads to anemia. Sick, anemic and tired.

And she was poor. She used to have money, but she had spent it all going from doctor to doctor looking for help. But no one helped her. Sometimes the treatments made her worse. Sick, tired, poor.

And she was lonely. In her day there were laws – good laws to help stop the spread of disease- about not touching certain things. These rules labeled her “unclean,” and anyone who touched her became unclean. No one wanted to touch her. She lived without hugs, kisses, hand-holding and arms around her shoulder, and, of course, no intimacy with a husband. Her inability to have children brought her shame. If she did stay with family they would be sure not to touch her or anything she touched. Alone, sick, tired, poor.

Without hope.

Without hope until one day someone came to her village with stories about a rabbi who was a healer. Stories were carried by mouth from village to village. Slowly they began to arrive in her village. There was a rabbi named Jesus who was teaching in a new way, and he was doing astonishing things. Stories about useless legs walking, blind eyes seeing, leprosy leaving. Stories that amazed and puzzled everyone. Stories that started to raise the dead hope in her heart.

“Maybe,” she thought, “Maybe Jesus will heal me. If he comes here I will go ask him. Surely if he can cure blindness and leprosy he can cure me.”

But how would she go? Everyone in the village knew she was unclean They would see her coming. They would back away. They would yell at her and tell her to go home.

“Go home,” they would say. “Jesus is a holy man. If you touch him you will make him unclean! Go away. He is not here for you.”

Not here for her? She sighed to think about what might happen is she tried to get close to Jesus. But in the courage born of desperation, she decided she would do it.

“The messenger whom you long for is certainly coming.” She had heard that prophesy many times. “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”

Healing! She longed for healing. She would go and touch the wings of his shawl and be healed. She knew it. She planned for it. And then the day came.

One afternoon she heard children shouting in the street, “Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!” Her neighbors hurried out of their homes to see Jesus. But she couldn’t join them. No, she could not go with the crowd because they would tell her to go home.

Instead she grabbed her shawl, pulled it over her head, covering her face so no one would know her. Then, looking down, she walked quickly in the direction of the noisy crowd. No one noticed or stopped her; they were too busy trying to get a look at Jesus.

When she saw him coming she ducked her head and, trembling with excitement, pushed through the tightly packed crowd until she was almost near Jesus. Then bending down even more she watched his feet come closer and closer. Her heart raced.

“Now!” she thought and reached out her hand to touch the wing of his shawl. Immediately she felt something. She felt well! But as she turned to run home and share her good news, Jesus suddenly stopped and yelled, “Who touched me?”

Panic poured over her. She started to tremble and shake as she realized he knew what she had done. Was he mad at her? She had broken the law by touching Jesus. Now that Jesus knew, would he take her healing away? She froze and waited. Her eyes welling with tears.

“Oh, come on, Jesus,” his friends said, “Look at this crowd. Everyone is touching you. Why do you want to know who touched you?”

Everyone stopped as Jesus continued to look from face to face. “Someone touched me,” he said. “I know that power has gone out from me.” Finally his eyes met hers.

Now her trembling increased to the point she could barely walk, but somehow, as the crowd parted she made her way to him and fell to the ground.

“I had to touch you,” she told Jesus. “I’ve been so sick for so long. I just had to touch you. I knew if I touched you I would be healed, and I am healed!”

Not daring to look up she stared at the hem of his robe and waited.

“Daughter,” he said to her in the kindest voice she had ever heard.

“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

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In Matthew 6 Jesus tells us to pray “in secret.” Of necessity the woman in our story had to approach Jesus secretly. In the commotion of a moving crowd she made a hidden place. Many persons in that crowd touched Jesus, but his power only went out to her.

You may have read books and articles on how to have a great Quiet Time with God. Their advice can be very helpful. But let’s not focus on how-tos and miss our goal: meeting in secret with God. The most important thing is wanting to be alone with God and making our way through whatever obstacles we have to be with him.

Remember Jesus said, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

I hope you will read this woman’s story as Luke wrote it in chapter 8 of his Gospel, starting at verse 43.

“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”

Malachi 4:2,3

Just Hope

There is a voice deep in your heart that cries out for justice. It’s been there a long time, since the day you thought, “that’s not fair.”

And this voice made me board a bus in the morning dark on January 24 and ride for hours to the heart of our nation’s capital. There I joined 400,000 others to say, “That’s not fair when a baby in her mother’s womb is torn apart.”

You are probably not aware that so many pro-lifers did this. The main media chose to ignore this March for Life, and, while that is not fair, it is nothing compared to ignoring the tiny persons whose lives are taken unjustly.

As I walked the miles from the Mall to the Supreme Court I passed the Capitol building.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was inside that building, presiding in the Senate Chamber. But he was not there to judge; the Senators were judging. In this not often seen arrangement the innocence or guilt of the President was being decided by the opinions of 100 Senators. And no matter what they decide we will hear for years, “That’s not fair.”

So, who gets to make the final decision of what is fair and just?

If we work at it we can convince ourselves that fairness is for us, not them. History has a long list of “not thems.” Maybe you’ve been on that list. Right now children waiting to be born are on that list and can be killed up to the moment of birth at the choice of their mothers. Fair enough?

Deep down we long for a justice that is not decided by 100 senators or the mood of a mother. We want justice that cannot be moved. Can we find reason to hope for that?

When Jesus walked with humanity he was accused of many wrongs and executed for those accusations. Yet he claimed to have authority from God to judge rightly saying, “I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.”

The only rock-solid justice we can hope for has to come from the Creator of all who placed the voice of justice, the moral law, in each human heart. And when God raised Jesus from the dead he affirmed his power and intent to bring final justice to all.

Everyone who wants true justice will receive it, and with such justice comes mercy. Scripture says, “He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

But you have to want the just Judge.

The prophet Isaiah wrote, “For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!”

We don’t just hope; we hope in the One who is Just, a just hope.

scriptures quoted: John 8:25; Colossians 2:13-14; Isaiah 30:18

Light in the Darkness

silhouette photography of mountain — Photo by Tomáš Malčo Malík on Pexels.com

Yesterday afternoon, Saturday, my festive small town shopping district was jarred into darkness by gun fire. A local merchant died publicly from self-inflicted wounds. The street that a week ago welcomed Santa on the fire engine now was filled with police vehicles and the crime scene truck. This tragedy followed closely behind two others nearby: a church that burned to the ground from arson, and the Jersey City shootout that took the lives of a police detective and three others.

We know now that owners of a Kosher deli and the attached Jewish school were targets in the plot which led to the urban shootout. As the peaceful little town of Bethlehem was driven into agony by King Herod, so these terrorists were anxious to kill Jewish boys.

Matthew is the only Gospel writer who notes Herod’s atrocity. Perhaps Matthew’s little brother was among the toddlers slain so cruelly. We don’t know, but the memory of that day was Matthew’s to share.

We want so badly to expunge these dark stories from our Christmas. Yet, that is exactly where they belong.

The prophet Isaiah : The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

The prophet Micah : Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;…when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.

Jesus’ friend John: In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

THE DARKNESS CANNOT OVERCOME THAT LIGHT.

That is the Christmas story. Not even the darkness of killing God’s beloved son on a Roman cross can overpower his Light.

When Jesus said, “I am the light of the world,” he was talking to you. He was telling you that all the darkness around you, and all the darkness within you, cannot overpower the life he brings to you.

I hate being in the dark, which is why I carry flashlights everywhere. I want to be the one with the light when the electricity goes off. I want to have light when the sun sets and we are still in the woods. I want to have light in my heart when the world goes dark.

Do you want to carry such light everywhere? You need to ask Jesus to enter your heart. He made you a promise:
“I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”

Scriptures: Isaiah 9:2 (ESV) Micah 7:8 (ESV) John 1:4-5 (CSB) John 8:12

My Refuge

Recently, as hurricane Dorian traveled up the east coast, seeking refuge was very much in the news and on our minds. We all want to get out of harm’s way when threatening storms approach. But sometimes we can’t.

My grandmother left me a little cottage on a birch-lined road that leads to a sparkling lake in the Adirondack Mountains. It is so peaceful there. But not always…..

One July dawn we awoke to howling winds and havoc.

I was there with my 87 year old dad and two young sons. The day before had been still and hot with an eerie, yellow evening sky. At early dawn heavy rain pelted the windows and woke us. I hurried out on the porch to close windows as the rain came in sideways, driven by 60+ mph winds. Our flag was ripped from its holder and flew down the street. We heard branches in the surrounding woods snapping and falling, along with trees hitting the ground.

My dad, a WWII Navy veteran, got up and remarked, “This is like the typhoon I was in on the Pacific.”

We were in the path of a derecho, a fast-moving, massive wind storm. At any moment a large pine could crash through our metal roof. My sons looked to me for protection, but I was totally helpless.

Helpless on my own, but we were not on my own.

We had often read in God’s word:

The Lord has said, “I will never leave you and I will never abandon you.” So we can say with confidence, “ The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid.” (Hebrews 13:5-6)

So we prayed, “God, this is your wind and these are your trees, and we ask You to keep us safe.”

We took refuge in the hand of our Helper and watched the storm pass through. As the wind died down we went back to sleep.

Later the sound of my neighbor’s chainsaw woke us to a clear, bright day. Downed trees blocked the road and leaned on houses, but nothing had landed on our roof.

I often remember the peace that covered me after I prayed in that storm. Storms of life come unexpectedly, but the hand of the Lord my Helper is always with me, and He is my refuge.

Would you like safe refuge from the storm you are in right now? It doesn’t matter if the storm is a hurricane wind at your door or a churning sea of grief and fear in your heart. God is there with you. He knows why the wind is blowing; He made the wind. He knows why your heart is breaking; He made your heart and He loves you.

The prophet Isaiah tells it like this: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. (Isaiah 26:3,4)

“ But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”

“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”