Grace Archives - Page 10 of 18 - call me pasturescott

153 reasons

It’s the month of thanks, or, if you’re born anew, a continuation of the theme.

Here I’ll raise mine Ebenezer and join the family sing-a-long. You might want to settle in, mine’s got 153 verses.

It starts with a story. Once upon a Galilee morn, seven disciples crowd into a boat with hopes set high for a good catch. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. All night long and not a single bite. Mind you, these are experienced fishermen and they get nada. Zero. Squat.

Their leader is the most confused. Peter grouses, “What in tarnation is happening here?” He’s known how to do this since a paidíon. This was second nature to him. Must he fail at this too?

The early April morning is suddenly cleaved by a voice from the shore.

“‘Mornin’ lads! Any luck?”

There’s a cute moment embedded in the story: Jesus asks them if they’d had any success through the night. He wants to know if they’ve caught any prosphágion. Don’t anyone tell me Jesus didn’t have a sense of humor. The word he used means a side dish, not the main course. He was trolling them!

“Hey fellas, you got anything to nibble on?”

Groan.

Peter squints through the mist and sees the shape of a man. A hundred yards off, it’s difficult to tell who yon figure is. And yet the Voice sounds familiar…

There’s fish, and then there’s fish

“Try your nets on the right side,” the Man on the shore suggests.

“You’ve got to be kid—”

You pretty much know the next bit if you’ve been to Sunday school or raised up in the Word.

The seven knackered disciples throw the nets starboard and look on in amazement as the sea comes alive. The fish practically school themselves right into the nets! The startled men never saw such a haul!

Our narrator, John (aka, “the other disciple”) describes the moment the catch comes in. He chooses the word ichthúos to supplant their fruitless all-nighter. Now, we’re talking game fish, big fish, what you’d serve at a banquet!

Count ‘em. 153. (you best believe fishermen wouldn’t lie about something like that) That’s almost 22 family-sized fish per disciple. And the net didn’t break. Not a single ichthúos was lost!

Tell me, if you were in the boat that morning, what would you do? What other response could there be but to recognize Jesus in the moment and hurdle every obstacle to get to the feet of the Lord? That’s what Peter was thinking too. Casting off restraint, Peter jumps out of the boat.

While Peter doesn’t exactly walk on water, he throws on his tunic over his bare bottom and swims to shore, leaving the great catch behind. Just Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus.

Charcoal fires

What does he find when he gets to shore? Jesus sitting beside a fire of coals and a ready-made breakfast. Pardon the quick side trail, but do you remember when we last saw a charcoal fire? That’s right. Simon Peter stood by one at night, warming his hands, denying he knew the Man Jesus.

Quite niftily, John adds this bit of trivia into the gospel record. Mind you, it’s there for more than just atmosphere. His deft narrator’s eye catches the detail of fire burned down to the coals, owing to the fact the Savior’s been there a long while.

The seaside breakfast tells us Jesus is waiting for us to simply “Come.” Whether we’ve failed, lied, or trampled on his name, the sizzle tells the story. The aroma doesn’t lie.

Hear this, beloved: that the fire’s been set in the morning reminds Peter — and us — it’s a brand new day. The veil of that awful night of scandal has been lifted and the mercies of Christ are fresh as the dew.

There’s dying, and there’s living

Conversation ensues. There’s a fascinating back-and-forth between Jesus and Peter regarding agapáō and philéō and something about Peter’s not-so-flattering future. But then Jesus looks at the reeling disciple and says, “Walk with me.”

It’s not a metaphorical invitation. Jesus quite literally stands up from the group and motions for Peter to follow. The two start a stroll along the beach, away from the others. We can skip for now the bit about John getting up to follow after and Simon Peter’s protest.

Here’s where I wanted to take you today: I’d wager Jesus wanted to speak life into Peter, privately teaching him about agapáō and feeding sheep and lambs and why charcoal fires and the significance of 153 fish. And a whole lot of other stuff too, perhaps. Cool to think about.

Someone counted all of the encounters Jesus had with individuals in the gospels and came up with the number 153. I haven’t proven that, but I’ll take it on face value. It wouldn’t surprise me if that number were accurate. That’s 153 Jesus stories in the gospels.

Those seven Galileans in that gospel johnboat had 153 gospel stories that day, enough to spend the rest of their lives talking about them and writing about them. Peter, soon-to-be leader of the global spread of the gospel, surely did his share.

How many Jesus stories might you have? I bet you could come up with at least 153. That’s a lot of fish tales!

An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others.
A.W. Tozer

Dear reader, I pray you have some breakfast conversations with Jesus in the coming days. I’m going to ask him to lovingly explain some deep stuff to you, marvelous things that equip you for your next assignment. I hope you hear the sizzle and smell the aroma of the fish on the fire. He’s waiting for you now.

I finished John’s gospel in my daily reading yesterday and wrapped up my welling emotions over this final text with a thanksgiving prayer from my journal. Here’s what I wrote, in part:

I’m actually sitting with you this morning … You are the Risen Christ and I’m sitting with you. And you’re listening. You’re reading along with me. I love you, Jesus.

Thank you for my disability. May I use it for your glory today.

Thank you for all my close calls with death and for your Resurrection Life in me. Thank you for all my sicknesses and hospitalizations. You have been faithful and kind to me. You are my shepherd and I follow you in my wheelchair, wherever you lead me. I trust you.

Thank you for the “153” great fish you’ve given me, Father. I seem to always pine for only a handful, a bucketful, of “snack-sized” fish and have never been successful. Thank you for the “haul”, the supernatural “catch”…through my weakness, my inadequacy, my need. Thank you for the charcoal fires and for the already-cooked breakfast I didn’t labor for.

Thank you for inviting me to sit with you and serving (!) me. Bless you, in Your endearingly gracious name. Amen.

Selah and amen.

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grace canyon

I’m dedicating this post to the grandest 
of earthly companions, 
my wife, 
who’s gone everywhere with me 
since the start. 
Thank you, Gracious Lord, 
for the gift of Sandy. 
You know how much I needed her.

From South Rim Chamber & Travel public website.

Today marks 40 years I’ve been a paraplegic. That’s ten years from ‘Jubilee’ if you’re keeping score, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to party like it’s 2031.

Much of this blog site is dedicated to sharing my journey through disability and how God has faithfully shepherded me through it all. For 40 years I’ve been one of his broken sheep, hind legs dragging, but he has been my Good Shepherd. He coaxes and carries me along, through valley and vale, all the way home.

I’m now in my 60s, a far bleating from 21 when I still had youthful vigor and a ready-to-take-it-on bearing. Now I consider a good day when a Carolina wren or hummingbird comes to the feeder. I do other stuff too, but birds are my party jam these days. And I never tire of it.

We were going on a two-week road trip to the Grand Canyon a few weeks ago but somebody ended up in the hospital. [Me, I’m somebody.] It was going to be a celebration of life, milestones reached, and a long-time dream come true. And then somebody got a kidney stone, went septic, and nearly died. I’m still holding that against him.

Anyway, can you imagine a wheelchair on those ridges and cliffs?

Of course we scouted out the park before our proposed departure date, taking special note of the accessible views and attractions but still found them limited. While the national parks system tries to ensure everyone has a memorable time, the fact is there are lots of trails and views which folks with physical limitations can’t experience. Those spots aren’t for the feint of heart, however. Some are downright perilous. The narrow trails and sheer drop-offs are enough to give the most experienced hikers pause. But, oh the payoff!

For four decades I’ve been given views of God’s grace that make me shudder inside. I’ve heard the voice of the Grand Shepherd singing over me as I’ve fed in green pastures, played beside babbling brooks, and softly slumbered by quiet streams.
He’s faithfully stood by and helped to navigate me over treacherous terrain and through starless nights of the soul. I’ve clapped my hands over my mouth — too many times to count — being witness to his magnificent mercies. He’s been so grand to me!

His love is the Grand Canyon and I’m an ‘able-bodied’ man standing on the pinnacle of the South Rim, watching the sun rise every day bringing with it new mercies and fresh grace. He takes me places I’ve never dreamt possible. Tenderly, he’s fed me from rations of sweet manna for forty years.

Jesus and me, we’ve crested such heights and plumbed depths so low you’d grow old before your time. He unfolds deep mysteries of sacred spaces and teaches me my life is a miracle.

Here is where I need to hit pause. None of this is because I’m special or his favorite. Even this has been all of grace. You’ve read enough of my journey by now to know these forty years have been a gift. I wouldn’t trade a day for anything I might have scripted for myself when i was 21. All praise to him.

Turns out, Sandy and I could’ve gone on the trip anyway as I’d pretty much recovered and begun to feel normal again. But COVID escalations in some of our trip’s plot points, added to my weakened immune system, and we were seeing yellow flags. So we’ve chosen to wait.

Herein lies another lesson of the broken road: disappointments down here remind us we are not supposed to feel entirely at home. The late Clive S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” Amen, Clive. The wait will be worth it all. So we wait in faith.

I’m living in Grace Canyon. My disability has been his mercy’s vaccine against a wasted life and I take my daily medicine with, at times, a pinch of salt. Sometimes it can be hard to swallow but it’s always what I need. I trust my Grand Physician. He knows best.

My sister texted me and asked what I’m doing to celebrate 40 years. Here’s what I’ll be doing: dancing on the rim of Mercy Rock and soaring skyward as the God of Grace meets me — yet again — with healing in his wings. Today marks 40 years but it feels more like ‘The Year of Jubilee.’ It’s been quite a trip.

Selah, beloved.

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why your “why” matters

Which of these is true:

Your life is temporal and ultimately lacks meaning and lasting value
You are imperfect at best so do what you can with what you have
You were created for a divine purpose and your Heavenly Father will perfect your calling and transform your life into a beautiful work of grace
Only the really important people can do the really important stuff

If you’ve been paying attention, you picked ‘C.’ As we saw in the last post, Sunday school teachers, lowly monks, maids, wives, sisters, whoever and whatever, can rise to their calling and find their “beautiful works” (καλὸν ἔργον) remembered forever in the logbooks of Glory.

The Lord of heaven pays attention even to the littlest of mites and smallest of lunches…and leaves space for each in his trophy case. He calls them “beautiful.”

As we discussed prior, a “beautiful” work (also Matt 5:16) is something that is selfless, sacrificial, motivated by love, and blesses the heart of God.

That’s what a beautiful work is, but what does it do? How does it move the needle?

🔸a “beautiful work” brings a bit of heaven to earth

John adds this pleasant detail inside his account of the story: “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” And so it is when we offer anything of loving sacrifice to our little worlds. The echoes of glory reach into that sacred space; the luster of heaven shines where it happens.

The ancient scene before us takes place in a village called “Bethany.” I’ve always thought that name was so lovely, so feminine. It sounds like someone you would want your son to marry. But then you study the name, what it means. You find out it is a combination of two words translated, “house” and “depression.” House of sorrow, if you will.

Now when you see what Mary did that evening, by filling the entire house with the aroma of sweet sacrifice, you begin to understand how “beautiful works” can bring heaven to earth.

In her book, ‘Suffering and the Heart of God,’ Diane Langberg describes a place outside Cairo called “Garbage City.” The streets and roofs of houses are made of compressed garbage and the stench gets in your hair and sticks to your clothes and skin. Rats skitter about your feet. There is no sewage system to wash away the filth.

Garbage mounts and rises to the sky in hills and small mountains. Pass through the streets and they’ll take you to an area about half the size of a football field where trash that can’t be recycled is burned in incinerators. The smell is sickeningly exacerbated; it hangs low and heavy in the air.

But just past all this is an area pristine and clean, with gleaming white walls and floors. “You see a room where woven handbags, rugs, and placemats are displayed,” Langberg writes. “Hanging on the walls of another room are quilted wall hangings, comforters, and pillow covers. Women are there sorting rags according to color and placing them in different baskets. Others work at two looms to create beauty out of the garbage.

If you continue down the steps you will hear the sound of water in large tubs as bags of shredded paper dissolve into pulp. Women in rubber aprons spread the mush into sieves, pull the sieves out of the vats, and stack them into the press where the new paper is drained. The paper is then dried in the sun and cards are made with gold embossing and marbled designs. More beauty created from garbage.

She continues:

There is a Coptic Church in the garbage community that began as a Sunday school nineteen years ago…you will enter one of two cave churches built on this mountain. The larger cave seats 10,000 and rivals the Red Rock amphitheater in Colorado in its dramatic beauty. Thousands of people gather – people whose lives are full of garbage, people who work with garbage, people who smell of garbage – for praise and preaching service. It is beauty in the midst of garbage.
Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God, 329-ff

🔸a “beautiful work” is borne from the fruit of personal sacrifice

When Mary broke the seal of her perfume, Mark described it by using a graphic term, συντρίβω. It means to to crush or strike together; to smash against, like a ship run aground, battered by the waves. That young woman in our story could not, would not bring her Master something that did not come at great cost.

We read in Matthew, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” Instinctively, Mary knew the death of Jesus was close at hand and what did she bring him? Her broken heart. Consequently, that broken-and-spilled-out-sweet-smelling sacrifice filled a house, surrounded by sorrow and depression, with the aroma of resurrection life.

Beloved, whether you are bedbound, homebound, working a third shift job, raising children, supervising workers, answering phones all day, teaching a Sunday school class, living in a childless marriage, fighting off chronic illness, leading presentations at work, standing in front of church congregations and expounding the truths of God’s word each week, blue collar, white collar, or T-shirt and jeans, tenured or part-time, single or hitched, wherever you fall in the spectrum of life, you can spill the goods knowing whatever you do, even if goes unnoticed or criticized, you do it for the applause of heaven.

🔸a “beautiful work” disarms folks and exposes their heart orientation

Mary received some startlingly negative feedback after she offered her service. First off, how dare she? and second, what in the world?? Imagine looking to buy something on Amazon and seeing every reviewer giving one star because there was no option for zero. That would be the disciples in the room. Then imagine a single raving review of 5 stars! That would be Jesus.

Side note: sometimes ‘the church gonna church’ but Jesus is the only vote that counts.

2 Cor 2:15-16 tells us we (the people of “good works”) are are an odorous folk who either make people sick to death of us or drawn to the Life of Jesus in us.

Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God…
2 Cor 2:15, The Message

Just as Mary discovered, you too will find not everyone will be a fan of your beautiful deeds. Some will assume the worst. You weren’t sincere. You did it to be noticed. You want something in return. I wouldn’t have done it that way…

Do it anyway. Let them question. Let them criticize. So what if you don’t get the result you hoped for. One thing is certain: every “beautiful work” is seen and remembered in heaven.

🔸a “beautiful work” receives the approval of the Master and reaps eternal rewards

Which brings us to my favorite, most mind-blowing part of the story:

…wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.
Mark 14:9

The gospel story has been published and preached in thousands of languages, spanning two millennia. Every continent and country has heard the good news in some form….and everywhere it’s been told, this woman’s “good work” has been remembered.

Imagine! Having yourself offered special mention in the gospel story! Having future generations talk about your story being instrumental to the global spread of the gospel!

Astounding!

Hey you. Doubting lamb. God has written you into his great gospel story, too.

You are his masterpiece, created for good works.

You are an aroma of grace.

There is a shine inside of you that only gets out when you realize you are nothing without Christ, eternally indebted to him, and yearn to be “wasted”on him for no other reason than he is your “Why.”

Perhaps your story won’t be mentioned worldwide, but many years from now, your children and your children’s children and their children will point to a photo of you and say, “That’s my grandad. That’s my dad’s great-aunt. They loved Jesus and that’s why I’m a Christian today.” Others will pick through stories of your life and marvel at how you loved and they will be pressed to pick up the mantel and, in so doing, find their “Why” too.

May your story (and mine) always be a story of prodigal love. Selah, beloved.

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