COMMUNITY!

On the front it said “University of Aberdeen.” On the back, “Will Preach for Food”! That’s the T-shirt that these dear folks gave me last Christmas. (In addition to JIF, that is!). I loved it!

(I can imagine wearing that whimsical garment to one of my meetings with Prof. Watson. He probably wouldn’t say anything; at most, a single scandalized eyebrow might raise itself in typical British disdain!)

That epigram on that piece of apparel was the brainchild of the people of Lake Pointe Church, in Rockwall, TX, specifically the Saturday evening Adult Bible Fellowship (pictured), led by Timothy Warren (my teacher, colleague, friend, and brother in Christ).

This weekend, it was a delight and a privilege to see this group and the Sunday morning ABF as well (both under Dr. Warren’s leadership).

Faithful in prayer, generous in support, diligent in emailing, solicitous in concern, affectionate in heart, … this particular community of God’s people has been a blessing to me the last several years—both when I’ve been in town and now when I’m not.

Indeed, God’s people that I’ve had the privilege to know and love in the past couple of decades have always been faithful, generous, diligent, solicitous, affectionate ….

Allow me to name them individually:

• Faith Bible E-Free Church (TX)
• Houston Int'l Christian Fellowship (TX)
• Watertown Evangelical Church (MA)
• Plano Bible Chapel (TX)
• Sherman Bible Church (TX) and
• Lake Pointe Church (TX)
  

I have been richly blessed by God through these saints in communities where 1 John 4:12 is fleshed out daily.

If we love one another,
God abides in us,
And His love is perfected in us.

No wonder the letter to the Hebrews exhorts believers not to forsake assembling together, for this is where love is seen, felt, touched, and demonstrated.

Let us consider
how to stimulate one another
to love and good deeds,
not forsaking
our own assembling together ….

Hebrews 10:24–25

There can be no Christianity without Christian community. Indeed, a “solitary Christian” is a concept foreign to the Scriptures, perhaps even an oxymoron. On a personal note, I remind myself often that the kind of singleness that I “espouse” is not the ascetic, eremitic sort—secluded and insular. I want to be “single in community,” embedded in, working for, and sustained by the people along with whom I call God, Father. Where would I be without the body of Christ? What would I do without the gifts of the Spirit that minister to me?

The call of God to love one another in community is serious business, displaying as it does, God’s own love for us. Self-negating love. Other-centering love. A ready-to-die kind of love. And He requires that of us as well ….

We know love by this,
that He laid down His life for us;
and we ought to lay down
our lives for the brethren.

1 John 3:16

May God give us the grace to do so. To work hard at loving. To love with abandon. To love sacrificially. To love as God loved us. To love till we die!

For God so loved the world ….

ANTICIPATION!

I had figured I’d be pretty despondent when I returned. After more than two weeks away, I thought I’d dread coming back. It would be depressing, I expected. The end of Christmas and New Year celebrations. Away from family and friends. Far from (what still technically is) “home.” No more sunshine! No more basking in the 70s! I predicted a dispiriting and disheartening flight back to Aberdeen earlier this month. But I was wrong.

There was an ebullience in my heart and all my 158 lbs were borne with a lightness of step, lofted by a blithe spirit, giddied by an anticipating mind.

Anticipation? Indeed!

Anticipation brought about by good news! I would be heading back to the U.S. just about three weeks after I returned to Scotland post-Christmas: my erstwhile dermatology associate wanted me to fill in for him in Dallas for the week straddling the last days of January and the early part of February. So I would be going home … again … soon. And I am! This week!

(Talk about a long commute to work: 10,000 miles RT!)

The anticipation of that upcoming trip, made these last 3+ weeks hurtle by in quadruple time! I was going home! The ardent expectation of that trip made those December goodbyes in Dallas easy and these days in Aberdeen transitory. That’s what “going home” can do for you!

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in.
Dreary skies? Phooey! I couldn’t care less. I was going home. Where …

Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight!
Yup! That’s Texas, y'all!

It’s pouring outside. And I …

I'm singing in the rain; Just singing in the rain;
I'm laughing at clouds So dark up above
The sun's in my heart And I'm ready for love.
(Well, maybe not that last part!)

But you get the picture: I’m headed home!

Praise Him, ye stormy winds that blow,
Ye fire and hail, ye rain and snow.
Fine with me. The Scots can keep all of it—storm, wind, fire, hail, rain, and snow.

Sun and moon, rejoice before him;
Praise Him, all ye stars and light.
Now we Texans can handle that!

Then I began to think …

If a brief one-week trip can do this to me—make me lighthearted, blithe, and giddy—I wondered what the anticipation of an eternity in heaven could do to lighten up my (few and thankfully brief) days here on earth? Am I that wistful and wishful about my real Home? Am I equally enthusastic and exuberantly passionate about heaven? Am I waiting eagerly?

For I consider that
the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared
with the glory
that is to be revealed to us.
For the anxious longing of the creation
waits eagerly
for the revealing of the sons of God.
Romans 8:19

… even we ourselves groan within ourselves,
waiting eagerly
for our adoption as sons,
the redemption of our body.
Romans 8:23

… if we hope for what we do not see,
with perseverance
we wait eagerly for it.
Romans 8:25

RESOLVED: To think about and anticipate—wait eagerly for—heaven at least once a day, every day! After all, I’m going Home! I ain’t got long to stay here!

AUTHORITY!

For the last four months or so, as you can see, I have been engaged in the leisurely labor of crafting a thesis. I expect this tranquil toil to continue for a while, before I’m done with the gratifying grind. Oh, the delight of this drudgery!

Prof. Watson and I are getting along quite well together, I might add. We’ve been meeting almost weekly. I tell him what I’m thinking. We discuss what I’ve submitted. He gives me his input.

Looking back on those meetings with my supervisor, I detect an interesting (and edifying) pattern. At least half a dozen times, if not more, Watson suggested scholars whose work, he felt, would be helpful for me to examine. And every single time, all of those half a dozen times, I thought he was barking up the wrong tree! I didn’t care much for what, I concluded, were tangential trajectories of exploration. I distinctly remember coming away from those meetings in despair!

Wittgenstein? Ricoeur? Explore their notions of “language games”? “genre”? What have those dead philosophers and their dry prescriptions got to do with what I want to do? Thus I thought, but, open my mouth, I did not. Like Mary of old, I pondered them in my heart.

Actually, I did better: I went to the library to make my case. You can guess what happened next, can’t you?

Three cheers for that good ole’ deutscher thinker, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), and that homme français, Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005), who have since become my best buddies. I’ve practically devoured everything they’ve written. And “language games” and “genre” feature preeminently in my work, needless to say.

There is a lesson in this, I think.

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
And do not forsake your mother’s teaching;
Indeed, they are a graceful wreath
to your head,
And ornaments about your neck.
Proverbs 1:8

Simply put, I must listen to those in authority over me. No, not to give them carte blanche, of course, but the proverb does convey a truth that is more often right than wrong. Exceptions? Sure. But for the most part the wisdom of this text holds good.

And what if those in authority are wrong?

Remember that French dude, Ricoeur, that I mentioned? Prof. Watson originally wanted me to pursue him for one particular reason. That reason unraveled to become nothing but a totally false lead. But, quite gratuitously, while investigating Ricoeur’s prodigious and near-encyclopedic output, I hit upon a vein of pure gold that turned out to be extremely useful; it might well end up being the linchpin of my thesis.

Lesson? God can use even false leads to bless me. He can even use mistakes by authorities to pour it on. Abundantly. Beyond measure. If … I am willing to submit. I hate to think of what I’d have missed, had I not taken Prof. W seriously.

And we know that God causes
all things to work together
for good to those who love God ….
Romans 8:28

That’s it. I’m done. Henceforth, I quit rebelling. (At least, that’s my resolution for 2006!) And I begin trusting. In Watson, sure, but that’s because I’m trusting—even more—my God! Sovereign. Loving. Gracious. Merciful. And good!

DARKNESS!

Yup! It’s dark. That’s why you can’t see much in the picture. The sun has set. Night has fallen. And it’s only 3:30 pm! That’s what happens when you live 57°North of the equator, a paltry 9°below the Arctic Circle! Add to this the perpetually overcast skies, and you have a pretty bleak midwinter day to be ecstatic about!

Life. Darkness and light. Night and day. Pain and pleasure. Bane and blessing.

The truth is that we are going to experience darkness of one sort or another, of one intensity or another, before this life is over. The question is not whether darkness will envelop us; the question is when it will. Pleasure, one said, is but an intermission in the sequence of pain. Some of you might actually be in the valley of shadow of death even as you read this. For others, 2006 may be the harbinger of tears, the valet of pain, the emissary of grief. It’s only a matter of time. Life is messy!

Flee these morbid thoughts, you say. But I say, better to be prepared. How? How can we be ready to face those trials, tumults, turmoils that life is sure to cast in our paths?

Hopefully, the worst is over for us Aberdonians suffering the disappearance of that bright orb of fire in the sky these wintry days. The longest night of the year is behind us. This darkness shall pass. My confidence is grounded in the sure knowledge that, beyond the darkness, there is a sun. Indeed!

And you know what? Beyond our life-is-messy-darknesses, as well, there is a Sun—this One, however, is the Sun of righteousness, packing energy Spiritual, not solar.

Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.

Charles Wesley, 1739, from Malachi 4:2

This is the Son, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). He went through darkness, so that you and I wouldn’t have to live in it forever, so that we wouldn’t be beset by an eternity of wintry nights, unrelenting pain, unflagging grief, haunting bane. This was the joy He pursued—to save us, to redeem us, to rescue us. This was His joy—His love for you, for me!

Therefore, there is an end to the darkness. This darkness, too, shall pass. The Sun will rise. In fact, He is risen! And one day, darkness will fade away permanently: there shall no longer be any night, neither will there be a need for the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them—His people, the saints of God, you, and me (Revelation 22:5).

Life—hallelujah!—will no longer be messy!

For momentary, light affliction
is producing for us
an eternal weight of glory
far beyond all comparison,
while we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen;
for the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17–18

Keep your eyes on the Son!

PROVISION!

Over the past few months of this blogging experience of mine, I have had occasion to mention my predilection for that high-calorific gooey substance that is extracted from Arachis hypogaea, especially the commercial species manufactured by that venerable institution, J. M. Smuckers—the edible product that goes by the rather trivial name of "Jif"! Not trivial to me, though. It is the means and material of my subsistence in Scotland!!!

To cut a long story short, folks, I’ve been buried under a deluge of Jif! Not only did some compassionate souls—may their tribe increase!—go to extreme lengths to mail four bottles of the precious stuff to Scotland (at $40 a pop, I might add—God bless their kind hearts!), but during this current holiday trip to the Dallas area, everyone—and I mean everyone—gave me enough of this “food of the gods” to last me till the Lord returns! And, yes, I’m gonna take it all to Scotland! The guys in U.K. customs are going to have a fit! I hope I don’t get taxed for importing peanut butter.

The benefaction of my friends this season, their bounteousness and generosity, are prototypical of the blessings of God upon my life in 2005. God has blessed me abundantly, not least through the body of Christ, whose concern and love for me have been overwhelming, as I began a new chapter in my life this fall. I am grateful to God and for my brothers and sisters in Christ—friends and family, church and community—for their having allowed the Spirit of God to be manifest through them. And, I am sure, God has been plenteous and profuse in His blessings to all of you, as well, in like fashion. Pressed down and running over. He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

Unmeasurable grace, illimitable love, unbounded power. He is Yahweh Yireh, indeed—the God who provides (Genesis 22:14)!

God’s Word promises us His continued provision for all our needs—most especially, of course, His giving of His only begotten Son, for our salvation from sin. Not only do we have the assurance of His Word, God’s abundant blessing for our every need in the past also vouches for His assured care and solicitude for our future, for 2006 and beyond. Our God is worthy of our trust.

He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials he multiplies peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed
Ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

Annie J. Flint (1866–1932)

May our God supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19) in the New Year. May He use each one of us to meet the needs of our fellow-believers as well, as we manifest Christlikeness more and more, day by day.

Have a blessed 2006!