Remembering a milestone...one month late

I didn’t get the chance to blog about it on the actual day but I wanted to speak about a special event from my past.  When I was a baby, on April 24th of 1982, I had the first defining moment of my life.  I’m not going to go into great detail today, but essentially I was sick with an unmerciful disease as an infant.  While at the hospital, I died for 3 minutes.  My life would have been gone, but God intervened.  I love the words of Daniel to King Belshazzer in Daniel 5; he tells him God holds “your breath in His hands” (verse 23; NKJV).  God put breath back into me that day; what’s more, the disease was gone; and it hasn’t resurfaced again in almost 4 decades now!

Some people are of the opinion that the past doesn’t matter.  That one should just look forward, and never contemplate the past.  But this isn’t a biblical idea.  I recently came across an excellent article from the website got questions.org.  I commend it to you, as I really can’t delve as deeply into it as I would like.  It asks and answers the significance of the stones of remembrance in Joshua 4.  The author writes, “Joshua’s stones of remembrance are just one monument in a series of memorials commemorating the mighty acts of God on behalf of the people of Israel (Exodus 13:3-6; Deuteronomy 27:1-8; Joshua 22:9-12; 24:24-28; 1 Samuel 7:12).” 

Later on in this marvelous article, the writer states, “Remembering the past plays a vital role in the identity of any nation.  Sociologists claim a society aspiring to endure must become “a community of memory and hope” (Waltke, B.K., “Joshua” New Bible Commentary 21st century Edition, ed. By D.A Carson, R.T. France, J.A. Motyer, and G.J. Wenham, Inter-Varsity Press, 1994, p. 241).  God repeatedly directed ancient Israel to set up monuments and enact rituals such as Passover (Exodus 13-14).  Each tribute marked a significant historical memory that would offer hope for the nation that God had claimed as His own.” 

(Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/stones-of-remembrance.html)

As I look at my life now, I’m overwhelmed at God’s power, mercy, and sustenance to me.  God is not bound by time.  We humans experience time in a linear fashion; it unfolds one moment at time.  But God is outside this limitation.  The Bible says that a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8).  I bring this up because God knew when He healed me as a child the life I would be living today.  He knew the battles I would fight with my own sin today.  The old hymn says it well: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.  Prone to leave the God I love.”  I struggle and I fall.  But I call out to Him for forgiveness, and He graciously provides it.  He picks me up, cleans me up, and we recommence walking together.

To conclude, I love the song from writer Tommy Nelson titled “Never gonna stop”.  His words echo mine with these words from his pen: “For Your beauty that’s been shown, for Your mysteries unknown, for the miracles we’ve seen, we praise You, Lord.  For the story of Your love, for the wonder of Your blood, how it makes the sinner clean, someone like me.  So I’m never gonna stop, never gonna stop, lifting up my hands to You, lifting up my heart.  When the last day comes and goes, and time will be no more, I’ll be praising You.”           

Kevin 

Lessons learned (part 3 of 3)

Well, I’ve finally returned after a long absence.  I have done this before.  I’ve seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth and then returned.  So keep in mind, in an ever-changing world, it’s good to know some things don’t change!  In all seriousness, life has been very chaotic lately.  Blogging had to be put on hold, but I’m happy to be back.  I’m hopeful I can begin to consistently post blogs because that’s something I love to do.

It seems like forever ago now, but back in March I began a series of blogs on lessons learned from 2020.  I did this because it was in March of 2020 when my world was turned upside-down and backward as a result of covid-19.  Of course, everyone’s way of life was disrupted.  So after two previous blogs, today I want to conclude that blog series with another life lesson I learned.

It has been said that God is in the timing.  This is true.  I wanted to write on this important topic for months, but I was sidelined.  In the interim, I saw an old TV show that had a statement in it that will help introduce today’s subject matter.  In an episode of the TV show “Hazel” (1961-1966), Hazel Burke, the Baxter family’s meddling, but well-intentioned maid was at it again.  She counseled a friend of hers to confess to an indiscretion, even though this person wasn’t even guilty of this.  Hazel’s rationale was to take the blame for it anyway, because as she put it: “People like forgiving other people.  It gives them a sort of ‘holier than thou’ feeling.”

What a misunderstanding of forgiveness!  Hazel may have had her heart in the right place, but she was wrong on this one.  A person doesn’t forgive because they are saying, “Look at how good I am.”  A person forgives because the alternative is grim.  If I hold on to unforgiveness, if I choose to nurse a grudge, I’m really not hurting you; ultimately I’m only hurting myself.  Further, since I don’t want bitterness to eat me up inside, I’m going to choose to grant forgiveness. 

One of the Mother’s Day gifts my mom received was an excellent book by Margaret Feinberg.  It’s titled “More power to you: Declarations to break free from fear and take back your life.”  In one chapter, she tells a powerful story of how she struggled with unforgiveness.  I love her honesty as she relays the details of that season.  She writes,

“Refusing to forgive left me distrustful.  My ire was doled out toward anyone who broke the most innocent of promises.  If you said you’d bring a salad to dinner and forgot, I felt betrayed.  If you promised to meet me at the movie theater on the hour and arrived four minutes late, I felt you were out to get me.” 

She goes on to describe how she came upon the Bible’s words in Matthew 18, where Jesus tells Peter that he must forgive not up to seven times, as Peter had suggested, but seventy times seven (verse 21).  “For me, forgiveness took root somewhere between 372 and 379 times.” she states.  “I finally stopped counting, and forgiveness flooded the deep recesses of my heart…I’m no longer eaten up by negativity and a lust for justice.  What they did was wrong, and forgiving them hasn’t made it right.  But my soul is healthy regardless of them.”

So, in conclusion, why am I bringing this subject matter up?  Because 2020 taught us that everyone on Earth needs forgiveness.  We can’t live life, and we can’t have interpersonal relationships, without hurting others along the way.  I won’t take the time for it today, but I could tell you about how I said something I later regretted, so I had to go and apologize.  Forgiveness was extended to me, and it felt like a breath of fresh air in my lungs.  Further, I could tell you incidents of how I was hurt by others, and I chose to forgive.  Matthew West had it right in his song “forgiveness: “The prisoner that it really frees is you.” 

Kevin