Looking at What You Cannot See

How do you look at what you cannot see?

I was taking a walk late Sunday afternoon, clear up the hill to where I could get a good look at this windmill.

And of course, I was looking.

And I was seeing.

And taking pictures of everything from windmill to weed. 

I was celebrating having a camera again after being without one for a week.

My old one gave up the ghost and died. 

Paul writes in I Corinthians 4:18, "We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen."

What did he mean?

He said this right in the middle of talking about suffering and afflictions,

and about not losing heart.

It is easy to lose heart--when things go wrong,

when our dreams evaporate,

when our plans and hopes are in ashes, 

when we are gossiped about and criticized wrongfully or rightfully,

when storms howl in and physical problems hit us,

when disaster happens,

when the car lands in the ditch. 

(I got this snap just before we whizzed by on the road coming home from church.)

I read a quote from John Piper about looking at what we cannot see.

It meant so much to me. He wrote, in not the greatest English but it was too good to not pass on:

"That is the unseen you got to look at.

One more thing, so relevant for so many suffering people and so precious to me. This word in verse 17 “preparing.” Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there, but all of it is totally meaningful.

 Now that is a very controversial statement because of how much insane suffering there is in the world.
Every time something horrific happens an interviewer will say: Meaningless. And that is what it looks like. It is everywhere. Now we have got the Internet, we have no excuse for not crying every day. Weep with those who weep, right?

This text says: Our light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight. It doesn’t say “will be followed by” an eternal weight of glory. That would be good enough... That is not what it says. The Greek word means produce, prepare, cause to bring about.
I will venture this. Every millisecond of your pain from the fallen nature or fallen man, every millisecond of your misery, in the path of obedience, is producing a peculiar glory [italics mine]you will get because of that.

 

John Piper goes on: "That is a very controversial statement and I will believe it. So that if anybody says to me that a believer’s suffering was meaningless, I will be quiet, probably, because they are probably hurting really bad right now. I am going to wait and see when the right time is, but I am going to come back eventually and say: It wasn’t meaningless. I don’t care if it was cancer or criticism. I don’t care if it was slander or sickness. It wasn’t meaningless, because verse 17 says: My light, momentary, life long, total affliction is doing something. It is doing something. It is not meaningless.

Of course you can’t see what it is doing.

This is the main unseen thing verse 18 is talking about. What is the unseen you are supposed to look at? You are supposed to look at the promise of God [italics mine] in verse 17 that says: Your pain is doing something for you. You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. Either you see it with the eyes of faith, believe it, because the text says it, or you lose heart."

"Every millisecond of your misery, in the path of obedience, is producing a peculiar glory."

And there is the secret. "In the path of obedience."

As a friend said once, "We cannot control outcomes."

We can only choose obedience.

And we have to leave the outcomes, and the things we cannot see, to God, trusting in what else we cannot see: His promises!

 

"The Joyful Sanity of Trusting the Lord"

The other day I went out to take pictures of the ice skaters at our pond--only to have them decide to come home just as I headed out!

 And so I ended up just taking a walk--with the dogs following me.

Some days you forget that you are almost 50 years old.

 You are grateful for energy and brisk, cold air, and a new camera.
To the east a long shadow is cast, with the puppy standing at the end of it.
 
And as you go, you meditate and talk to the Lord.
Here are some thoughts once again from John Bloom, from Desiring God.
I pored over a bunch of his articles one day when I ran across them.
My heart was so famished for thoughts like these:


..." It is not the one who trusts in the Lord that is irrational, but the one who leans on his or her own understanding. It is insane to trust such pitifully limited understanding when one can trust the unlimited understanding of God.

The Joyful Sanity of Trusting the Lord

"So many of the things that cause us the most difficulty and heartache in life, the source of so much of our anxiety, fear, doubt, and anger with others and with God, is the result of leaning on our own understanding.

"God does not want us to be miserable, even in this fallen, futility-infected evil age. He wants to relieve our anxiety (Luke 12:12; Philippians 4:6–7), fear (Psalm 118:6; 1 Peter 3:6), doubt (Matthew 21:21; Luke 24:38), and sinful anger (Ephesians 4:31). And so he gives us Proverbs 3:5–6 as a priceless gift.
In exercising faith — trusting fully in the Lord and not leaning on our own understanding — we’re not setting aside our intellect. We’re resting our intellect upon the intellect of God. Nothing is wiser or saner. To do so is to allow him to direct our paths, which not only lead to ultimate joy, but also make the journey itself, even when laden with sorrow, joyful (2 Corinthians 6:10). And it preserves for us all the pleasures God provides us in the world. To not do this is the height of foolishness and the path to misery.

So let us choose joy today by not leaning on our own understanding but in sweet, childlike trust on the sure foundation of our loving Creator’s omniscience."

So Many Friends Greet Our New Year!

We've felt so happy and blessed the last few weeks over Christmas and New Years.

Of course, there were our new aunt and her friends from California, pictured here with Grandma and pa Lucas at Kissing Camels, near the Garden of the Gods, with Pikes Peak and Red Rocks Canyon in the background. 

Amelia, the tall young lady in the white jacket in this photo forwarded me this photo along with others of Uncle George's wedding.

And then there was my sister Iva, who came up for New Years Eve. I got a quick snap of her and Kenn here.

They stayed overnight, and we let them have the use of our room. It was a great excuse to do some deep cleaning, dusting, and arranging for company.

Sunday after New Years Day, Crystal, Sam and Danny traveled up to Federal Heights to keep in touch with Crystal's friends, (L-R) Joy Johnston and Emily and Elisabeth Albertson. 

We are grateful for all our friends.

In the evening at our church, Ned and Judy (Hunt) Sherman with their new little baby were sharing about their mission work in Detroit. 

They were also in the morning service where Bro. Hunt preached, but I ended up minding some restless new children downstairs so the dad could stay and listen to the message, and missed hearing it. I really felt bad to miss it.  Then in the evening, I was disappointed to miss hearing Ned and Judy speak because I had a flareup of a physical issue that sent me home somewhat incapacitated. We were glad we'd been able to eat with Judy and Ned at the potluck, discuss what work needs to be done at their mission in relation to what Mission Helps construction crews might be able to help with, and then get this photo. 

Thankfully we had more than one vehicle there that day because of splitting up in the morning, and so Jonathan and I could head home but leave the children for the missionary service.

I praise the Lord that I feel he touched me that evening later. 

I felt sure it was partly an attack of the enemy because God has been helping us with reaching out to folk around us, and I was exhausted with picking up new folk, minding very antsy kids and all that Sunday.

I told the Lord I didn't want to give the devil more attention than was due him,

but I felt this was an attack,

and aren't You, Lord, stronger than the enemy?

Within a short time of home remedies, the pain was gone and I felt completely comfortable again.

God deserves to be praised!

Then later the next week, Jonathan's brother Dave and wife Ruth surprised the family by coming for New Years Eve and Day. The day after, Dave and Ruth and Jonathan and I got together for a meal

at a Mexican restaurant in town.

I ordered a "molcagete" which arrived in this huge castiron dish!

That is one of my favorite Mexican dishes.
And then we came home, and were greeted by this sloppy kiss from a steer who was grandly out and about
out of the pasture.

It's past time to put him in the freezer.

Here's a fun meal we had recently, baked potatoes with cheese and bacon on top.

Here are the lovely hot mitts the girls sewed for me for Christmas, and one of the pretty dishclothes they knitted. The other was already being used!

Timmy has been learning to use a scroll saw to cut out figures.

He made something special for several of us for Christmas--lighthouses for Grandpa and ma Lucas,

a cardinal for his mother who misses Pennsylvania cardinals so badly,

an eagle for his daddy, a violin for Carrie, a train for Danny,

and a whole cowboy scene--cowboy on a horse, mama cow and little calf.

He prints figures off of the computer,  cuts the figures out with his scroll saw, and then woodburns the details onto them.

And of course, a little family of baby bunnies was born a week and a half or so before Christmas, 

the best Christmas gift of all! The children spent so much time holding and playing with the six baby bunnies. They had them all over the house until mom had to put her foot down!

Sunday morning hug before leaving for church!

Fear not, I Will Help You--Even When Your Trash Bag Splits Wide Open!

It's the time of year when family gathers and celebrates, whether around Christmas or New Years.

This year Kenn and Iva were here for New Years Eve.

Here Jonathan is reading a couple New Year's poems before we have family prayer,

after which we played hilarious games, including one Crystal learned at Penn View, till bedtime.

(We prefer to wake up rested on the first day of the new year.)

 

We had a simple New Years Eve supper with ham left over from the night before when we had Jonathan's parents out with Uncle George and Aunt Irina and her friend's son-in-law from California. Lawrence Liberty (what a nice last name!) had kept us royally entertained with talk about his very intercultural family of six siblings, three of whom had married either a Russian, a practicing Jew, or a Muslim.

Used to all sorts of people, he seemed to have a very good time with us and our family of seven.

That night I had served tea after dinner, with my pretty Ukrainian tea set brought all the way from Ukraine. 

It had been such a privilege getting more acquainted with Aunt Irina, and our whole family just loves her already! 

But anyway, this is the time of year when you spend New Years Day with cousins, aunt and uncle, taking down the Christmas tree and putting away Christmas decorations

and emptying the kitchen wastebasket an extra time or two!

Unfortunately, when Danny took the bag out of the waste basket the night Kenn and Iva were here,

the bottom of the bag split wide open.

Danny burst into tears.

And that is when I heard something I don't hear often enough around here.

A kind voice saying, 

"I'll help you!"

Yeah, when company is here, it's embarrassing when your kid bursts into tears just over something spilled,

and it's embarrassing when your kid makes a mess.

I think often we parents are afraid such things reflect on us as parents,

and it is too easy to scold for carelessness or clumsiness or for being too quick to cry,

all of which seem to reflect on either our genes or our parenting skills. 

But before we had time to react in any way,  all of a sudden, another child's parent was saying to my kid,

"Here, I'll help you," and stooping over to help the distressed child clean up the mess.

And yes, my child's mom snatched up her camera because she could just feel a blog post coming on.

That picture up there, it is priceless.

An uncle, with plenty of messes in his life, gently helping my kid who has just made a mess,

and by his kindness and gentleness lifting a load off the heart of a mom with plenty of messes in her life. 

So after stooping down and scraping up a pile of mess,

uncle gets a new bag ready for the trash.

 And yes, we all have trash bags that split open somewhere along the way--

right when you'd like to keep it all hidden away.

Just when you think your life might be a bit more together than it used to be,

just when you think you've managed to forgive and perhaps even forget,  

just when you think you might be safe and sound again,

some duncy kid or parent or other relative or--help us!--your own self does some duncy thing

and out comes a whole bunch of your past trash 

or your family's past trash

or some significant other's trash

 that you wanted to keep from everyone else's view.  

There it is!

And you feel, like Isaiah wrote,  "you worm, Jacob!"

Maybe it's about teaching us a lesson about humility.

Why go around like we have everything all together

when there is a split wide open

 in our soul?

Why hide the hidden tears that spring sometimes?

"Fear not, I will help you!" 

It's a blessed promise for the new year.

There will most definitely be times when our bags of trash will split wide open

and we will want to burst into tears all over again. 

But if we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our children,

and can stoop over to help them even when we have our own messes to contend with,

how much more will our heavenly Father

come to our aid this new year when He sees us in our next predicament and humiliation

saying, "Fear not! I will help you!"

Thoughts About the Heavenly Father for the New Year

A few days ago in my devotions, I copied down words of Jesus about the heavenly Father, 

found in the Sermon on the Mount.

As we face a new year, these are precious truths to remember. 

First, how "your Father in heaven...makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."  (Mat. 5:45)

 "Your Father in heaven is perfect." (5:48)

"When you pray......pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." (Mat. 6:6)
This tells us that when we go to pray, our Father is already there. 
And it also tells us that He sees every secret thing--not just the bad, but also the good.
He sees the secret tears, the secret burdens, the secret self-denial, the secret obedience.

"Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." (Mat. 6: 8).
That is why, Jesus said, you don't need to vainly repeat yourself like the heathen do, who think they will be heard in proportion to how long or how many times they pray.

 We need only simple prayers in order to be heard,
but let us not merely whisk hasty prayers in order to get about our own things
when we ought not to neglect the spiritual duty and discipline of prayer--
prayer everywhere,
prayer at all times and without ceasing,
secret prayer,
prayer for all men--and it need not be repetitious, but it does need to be prayed.

 I read recently that we don't need to analyze while we pray,
and that had come to me shortly before that, how I tend to get off track when I start to pray for somebody and then go off analyzing the problem or the person.
Let us pray simply and with love and leave the judgments and figuring it all out
to our heavenly Father.

"Your heavenly Father will forgive you," if you forgive.
And conversely, if you do not forgive men their trespasses, "neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."


"Your heavenly Father feeds...the birds of the air."
"Are you not of more value than they?"

  "God clothes the grass of the field, "

and will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"

 "If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
(Mat. 7:11)
And especially, will He not give His Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?
Those are just simple thoughts mostly straight from the Bible,
but what precious thoughts to begin the New Year with!