Day 79

 

A Remembrance Book

 

Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.

Malachi 3:16

 

I write my son's birthday letter every February. It is a birthday tradition. Every year since he could read  (4 years old) I have written him a letter for his birthday. They are simple letters, never much more than a page. I tell him how proud I am of him, that I love him and encourage him to live the Christian life. I don't know how much it means to him now but I do know it will mean a lot more in the future. Now that he is in his twenties and grown I have thought about stopping but I haven't yet. They are all saved and placed in his remembrance book.

 

His remembrance book is not a scrap book, though it may appear to be that to others. I started it after his mother died. It contains pictures of his mom when she was a child and samples of her school work. It explains who Cathy was and what was important to her. There are pictures from her battle with cancer, from when we were dating and of our marriage. It tells him of our life together. There are pictures of him being held by her when he was a baby and also newspaper articles announcing the birth of the "miracle boy." It tells him of her courage in facing death and has letters sent to me that are testimonials to the remarkable person that she was. And it has all those birthday letters.

 

It was good therapy for me to put it together but it was meant for him. I can remember Cathy but he was only a 1 year old when she was died and it is the only way he can remember his mom. He is a fortunate young man to have a mom who loved him so much that she risked her life so that he might be born and also have another mom who has loved and sacrificed so much to see that he has grown to be the fine Christian young man that he is. These are things he needs to know and remember.

 

Malachi tells us about another remembrance book - God's remembrance book. In a day when people were claiming it was pointless to serve God, a few faithful people gathered together to encourage one another to keep the faith. God looked down on them and heard them and had a remembrance book written down for them. It wasn't so God would remember them because he memory is infallible. The book is for them. It is a testimonial to them. I like to picture them up in heaven right now, sitting at the feet of God as together they go through that book, look at the pictures and remember.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Malachi 3:13-18

• What harsh things had some said against God?
• Besides the remembrance book what else is in store for the faithful?
• Who does God compare the faithful to? 



Day 78

 

Imitation

 

You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

 

1 Thessalonians 1:6

 

Ethan and I had to kill a large rat. When I say it was large I mean it was the Godzilla of rats. He was carrying a Chihuahua in his mouth. I'll spare you the gory details of the killing but I was in the back yard when I saw the malicious beast and managed to pin him to the side of the house with a stick and hollered for Ethan to come out and help me finish him off.

Ethan came to my aid brandishing a pitch fork in a menacing fashion and said something I found very amusing. He said, "I feel like an angry villager."

I appreciated the wit. It is not the first time he had displayed his ability to make insightful and humorous remarks. There was a teenage girl who went to Peru with us on a mission trip and she got altitude sickness which is easy to do when you go from sea level in Lima, Peru to a mile and a half high in Cajamarca, Peru. Later that summer on another mission trip in Tupelo, Mississippi the same girl got sick again. Ethan commented that this time she had low altitude sickness.

Where does this sense of humor come from? Well, from the time he could talk I taught him to tell jokes. On one vacation we were in the hills of North Carolina with some friends and we were in this empty barn arena. We sat in the stands and a then 5 year old Ethan took the stage and did his stand up comic routine. He told jokes like: "Where did Napoleon keep his armies? In his sleevies, of course."

So, some of his sense of humor was taught but most of it was caught. He got it from me. He is like me in so many ways yet he is different than me in some ways too (for which we can all be thankful). It is not just Ethan, a whole lot of kids grow up to be like their parents. Some consciously imitate their parents and some do it sub-consciously. I have even known a few that did not want to be like their parents but never the less wound up a lot like them.

Paul says the Thessalonians became imitators of him and the Lord. Several times Paul encourages people to either imitate him or Christ. You have to be real certain you are living the right way if you are telling people to imitate you. And you better be real certain you are living the right way in front of your children because most likely they will imitate you.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Ephesians 5:1-2

• Whom should we imitate and what relationship is it based on?
• What kind of life should we live?
• Who is our example in living this life? 



Day 77

 

God's Timing

 

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that the Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick he stayed where he was two more days.

 

                                     John 11:4-6

 



We were supposed to go on our mission trip to Honduras in July but the political situation there made it impossible. The airport in Tegucigalpa was closed and our flight was cancelled. We rescheduled for early September and things worked out this time, just the way God planned it.

We did medical clinics in the village of Lapairique. We saw 2,700 patients in 3 1/2 days. There were 161 professions of faith in Christ. It was a great week. We could sense the hand of God in bringing things together to accomplish what he wanted to do.

A woman came to the medical clinic with 2 small children. Both of the children were very sick. The youngest, just a baby, was only a few days away from death the doctors said. The children had impetigo, a skin disease that is treatable but if left untreated can lead to death. The children got the treatment they needed and their lifes were saved. If we had not been there the baby, without treatment, would have died in a few days and the older sibling might have lived for another week.

We had been disappointed when our trip had been postponed from July to September. It meant some of our team would be unable to go. God's timing was at work though. If we were there in July we would have not been in the village when the children were sick. By coming in September we were there at just the right time.

In John 11 Jesus was on the eastern side of the Jordan river with his disciples when he received a message that his friend Lazarus was sick and needed his help. Lazarus and his sisters lived on the western side of the Jordan river and a couple of days journey from where Jesus was at. From the details of the story and the distance between Bethany and where Jesus was we know that Lazarus must have died shortly after the messenger left Bethany to find Jesus. Jesus couldn't have possibly arrived before Lazarus' death. It was okay the message arrived "too late" because it was all in God's timing. God had something bigger in mind than healing a sick Lazarus. God wanted Jesus to raise a dead Lazarus back to life! The outcome of all this, Jesus tells us, was to bring God glory.

Where we saw the delay of the mission trip as a problem, God was at work. It was his timing to bring us to that village at just the right time. The end result: lives saved to the glory of God.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read John 11:1-16

• Where the disciples receptive to the visit to Judea and to God's timing?
• How can we reconcile the statement that, "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus" with his waiting two days before leaving?
• Did Jesus know something the rest of them didn't know? And if so, what?

Day 76

 

My Feet

 

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

 

Isaiah 52:7

 

I have beautiful feet. In fact my feet are my best feature. With my face I'm not going to win any beauty contest or be a male model. With my physique I will not be confused with a certain former governor of California. I've never won a popularity contest so I know my personality rubs some people the wrong way. What I have is beautiful feet.

 

I am not making this claim based on pride but upon years of experience in viewing feet. I worked my way through college and Seminary being a life guard and a shoe salesman. In both jobs I got to see a lot of feet. My feet are not too big or too small, a moderate size 9 1/2. My toes are not too stubby or too long and skinny. They are perfectly shaped.

 

I am really pleased that my toenails are well colored and healthy. When I was young I was afraid that as I grew older I would have toenails like my dad's. When I was a kid my dad's toenails were yellow and thick and scary. They looked like the toenails of Neanderthal man. What I didn't know was that his toenails were a sort of occupational hazard. He was a coach and constantly battled athlete's foot. It has been years since my dad coached and his toenails are fine now. He can go barefoot and not scare the grand kids. And I am grateful and proud that I had a dad who would sacrifice his feet's beauty to put food on the table for us.

 

I know that vanity is a sin and not an attractive character trait. One of the guys I sold shoes with was so vain his best friend was a mirror. In fact he would stand in front of the mirror at the shoe store every day and say, "I can't wait for tomorrow. I get better looking every day." I never spend time looking at my feet in the mirror.

 

The only flaw on my feet is that I have a small scar on one of them. When I was about 12 I jumped over a barb wire fence somewhat unsuccessfully. I hooked my ankle on a barb and had a big gash down on to my foot that was about 9 inches long. I went home and showed it to my dad. My dad believed in tough love. I didn't get a tetanus shot or stitches. He put this red medicine on the cut that really burned. It was probably picante sauce. The he put 12 regular old band aids across the cut. When it healed I had a 9 inch scar that stood up about 1/4 of an inch off my foot. Over the years the scar shrunk to where it is no longer raised up and only about an inch long. I think it gives my foot a rugged, manly quality. 

 

The Bible talks about beautiful feet. In Isaiah 52:7 it says, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'" Now that is the kind of feet I want.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Isaiah 52:7-12

• What are the watchmen to do?
• What are the "ruins of Jerusalem" going to do?
• What are those "who carry the vessels of the LORD" supposed to do?