Tag: Miracles

home home.

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Headed home from the hospital after an 8-day stay. All praise to Jesus! So many miracles happened! As God does.

Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Galatians 4:25-26, CSB

If you visit Jerusalem today, you will see a people who are the spiritual offspring of Hagar — born of the flesh, after the flesh. The Lord loves them and longs for them to open their eyes (2 Cor 3:14-15), but for now, they choose to wander the spiritual wasteland of blindness and deafness.

BUT THERE IS A HEAVENLY JERUSALEM (v26). That City will one day supplant the present one. It is spiritual and heavenly, populated by people who know and are known by the Lord Jesus Christ — whose names are written in heaven (Heb 12:23). Saved Jews and Gentiles. Every tribe and tongue. Righteous people, made perfect by the sacrifice of the Lamb, worshipping their King in reverence and awe.

the jerusalem above

Followers of Jesus Christ are looking for that City (Heb 11:16), not at all satisfied with this one. We are ascending — up, up, up — climbing ever upward until the day we top that final hill and behold the City of God spread out before our eyes: shining and beautiful, surrounded by a myriad of angels, all dressed out for the festival of the ages.

It took valleys and deserts to cross to get here (Psa 84:6), but there she is — a multi-faceted jewel, the eternal dwelling place of God our Father and Jesus our Brother. The Holy Spirit is its everlasting Light.

When we fix our eyes and affections on this “Jerusalem” instead, we forget that we have been set free and saved for another Country altogether. We turn to graven images and works of the flesh, practicing an artificial religion that promises some attachment to the heavenly — but all it does is detach us from our True Country.

We soon realize that lifeless religion, empty rituals, and sad attempts at tower-building are futile. So we settle. We reach for shiny things on the ground — in the dirt, in the mud — and pretend we are happy. But the heart is deceitful and wicked, and no amount of playing in the dirt will appease our empty souls.

Weren’t we once “children of promise” (v28)? Why are we in the pig sty rooting around for corn cobs when my Father’s House has fatted calves and wide open spaces? Why am I wearing a yoke of slavery when I’m meant for a robe of righteousness (Gal 5:1)? Why am I severing myself from Christ (Gal 5:4) when I’m supposed to be dancing in the House of God (Gal 5:13)?

When did I stop ascending and start descending? I was making progress. Who bewitched me (Gal 3:1)?

There is good news. In the present Jerusalem is a holy spot where the Christ of Glory became the Lamb of sacrifice. He was slain upon a Jerusalem tree by a Jerusalem mob, but was raised to life inside a Jerusalem tomb. He then ascended to the Heavenly Jerusalem and told us He is preparing a place for us.

Don’t forget your true homeland. The present “Jerusalem” is not your home. You are commanded to come out of it (Rev 18:4) and set your sights on the City whose builder and maker is God. Look away to the heavens, Child of God — there is nothing for you here. Your help comes from heaven (Psa 121:1-2). Your birth certificate is in heaven. The census of heaven has your name on it.

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

He’s promised us a holiday at the sea. Pack your bags and get hoofing! The journey ahead won’t always be pleasant — at times it will be fraught with scaries and peril — but it is the only journey worth taking. Soon we’ll crest the last rise, and there She will be: the heavenly Jerusalem, spread out wide and wonderful, all dressed up for our arrival.

Just think of stepping on shore
and finding it heaven;
of touching a hand and finding it God’s;
of breathing new air and finding it celestial;
of waking up in Glory and finding it Home.

— “Finally Home,” Don Wyrtzen

taking it home

The hospital doctor came into my room this morning with good news: “I think I can confidently say that you are going home today.” It’s been a comedy of errors getting discharged, but as God does, He has a reason for everything. I’ve enjoyed my time with the doctors, nurses, and techs who have graciously cared for me. I’ve tried to shine Christ to each one — three asked for a copy of my book! — learning all their names and blessing each. For me, hospitalizations have become second business. First business is living Jesus in front of people who face death every day.

I came in with the onset of sepsis and infection spreading through my body. Multiple blood clots in my lower legs were also discovered — hello, Eliquis — contributing to my issues. The bottom line: I have been unwell since October. But I feel I’ve been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and wherever problems surfaced, they have been addressed, one by one. I am so thankful for the hope of better health. And now I get to go home. Not home home. But home.

Home home is the one on my radar. This lower Jerusalem, for all its hardships and unpleasantries, has also afforded me quick gulps of Glory and glimpses of the land of our inheritance — if you squint hard enough.

On earth as it is in heaven…

Soon, Shahd will be here for my bed bath. Sandy will arrive and get me dressed and ready for the short trip home. Not home home. But for now, just home is good enough.

Selah, beloved.

a savior who has time

When the wine ran out, Jesus’s mother told him, “They don’t have any wine.”
“What has this concern of yours to do with me, woman? ” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.”

John 2:3,4

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For Jesus, His “Hour” was the thing He held most sacred. It could not be trifled with; it couldn’t be waved off or pushed aside; he refused to be distracted from it. It was most expedient. His Hour was the work of His Heavenly Father through him to accomplish God’s will from the beginning. His Hour was His appointment with the Cross for the redemption of lost humanity.

At the wedding celebration in Cana Jesus wasn’t caught in a moment of fleshly irritation. No. There was no sin in his response to his mother no matter how much we try to run cover for Him. “Well, Jesus wasn’t really being disrespectful, there’s technical nuance in the original language that we don’t see in ours, etc.” While true, Jesus showed no ambiguity in exposing his inner motivation to His mom. For our Savior, the Hour of His death was everything. No surrender; no capitulation.

I was honored to share at my dad’s funeral seven years ago. Sharing from John 12:23 (And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”), I remembered something my dad said a day before he died. He had been rushed to the hospital with a heart episode and we thought his hour had come. But no. Dad rallied and recovered quickly and, only a few hours later, was resting comfortably in his hospital bed. Crisis averted.

“You had us all scared Dad,” I said. He flashed his signature boyish smile at me. All of 88 years old, he still looked like a much younger man.

“Did you feel ready if, you know, it was your time?” I asked haltingly, yet knowing the answer.

His soft blue eyes were shiny. “Every day I look up at the sky and spot a cloud. I wonder if my Savior will step out on that cloud and come for me. And I always tell him, I’m ready, Lord.”

A few hours later, Jesus stepped out on a cloud and said, “Let’s go, Tom.”

That last conversation with my dad means everything to me. Knowing my dad could have died before I got to him, yet given those extra hours with him, is a precious gift I hold dear.

Death comes for us all. We all have an Hour. That Hour is sacred, binding. There’s no avoiding it. For the believer in Jesus, we leave it in God’s hands and celebrate the days we have until then.

Jesus may have been at a wedding party, but he saw the Cross standing ominously in the background. Still, He was present and merciful and gracious and cared enough to keep a good party going. Isn’t He wonderful?

Tim Keller thoughtfully addressed the inner tension Christ must have felt in that moment:

When Jesus makes his enigmatic statement it’s as if he were looking far away, past his mother and past the bride and groom, and past the whole wedding scene. He’s seeing something else. He’s thinking, ‘Yes, I can bring festival joy to this world; I can cleanse humankind from its guilt and shame. I have come into the world to bring joy, but, oh, Mother. I’m going to have to die to do it.’

– Tim Keller, Encounters With Jesus

Even so, Jesus performs the miracle. How amazing! Yes, he faces a Cross, but he’s also in the company of people who are sad, worried, and frantic. The Gospel of Mark tells of a time Jesus healed a paralyzed man. When he encountered the pitiful man, he dealt with the worst problem in his life: his sin. “Your sins are forgiven you,” Jesus told the man. And then, because of the man’s physical condition, he showed compassion and said, “Rise from your mat and walk!”

In the upper room, following his resurrection, Jesus encountered Thomas. Thomas needed to feel the wounds in Jesus in order to see that he was really alive and not just some ghost or figment or hallucination. When Jesus entered the room, he knew immediately. This is really Jesus, my Savior, my Master! Even still, Jesus invited Thomas to touch him.

Jesus has time for us.

He takes time for us.

He makes time for us.

Jesus sat amidst all the joy of the wedding feast sipping the coming sorrow so that today you and I who believe in him can sit amidst all this world’s sorrow sipping the coming joy.

– Dr. Edmund Clowney

Don’t miss it. The “Hour” Jesus spoke of was His biggest assignment. Bigger than our life events or schedules or plans. And yet he kept the party going.

Master, carest Thou not that we perish? He stills the waves because of course He does. Not because we demand He do it, but because He wills it for us.

How can I pay my bills, Lord? He points out the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. Don’t you see, Child? You think I don’t have time for you, too?

Put yourself in the Savior’s sandals. Facing a Cross of execution as the Substitute for all humanity for all time, bearing all sin and its curse, and then someone — his mother! — tugs at His sleeve and says “We need more wine.”

And Jesus is liable to say, “You see those stone water jars? Bring them to Me.”

Selah, beloved.

another turn

In Eugene Peterson’s classic, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, he writes of a time when he needed to sharpen the blade on his lawnmower. He got the biggest wrench he could find and worked on that nut but it wouldn’t loosen. Then he got a long length of pipe to add leverage to lean into. Still, no go. Next he took a large rock and beat it repeatedly against the pipe.

He writes, “By this time I was beginning to get emotionally involved with my lawnmower.”

As the story develops, Peterson tells of a neighbor who saw him struggling, walked over and shared that, as it so happened, he once had the same lawnmower. “[I]f he remembered correctly, the threads on the bolt went the other way.”

Sure enough, it worked. A simple change of direction loosened the bolt and released the dull blade.

Today I celebrate my 62nd turn around the sun. I wish I could say every turn was in the right direction, but there’ve been some turns in there that challenged my sanctification. But I’m still here and I can only say that by the good grace(s) of God.

I’ve had several close brushes with death; I even coded once, which is pretty cool, so I know God has me here for a reason. I have a good idea why overall, and sometimes I even know why in the immediate. As long as God puts oxygen in my lungs, I’m here to offer up my life as a praise to Him.

But how I do long for home.

I’ve lived 22,630 days on this planet. There have been some really good wins and some embarrassing losses filling the pages of my story. God has been in it all.

I don’t really have a whole lot to share, except to emphasize how much I love the life God has given me. It’s not a perfect life, but I’m perfectly happy. I adore the one who helps hold the wrench alongside me. I’d like to think we’re turning it in the right direction together. She’s been that “neighbor” to me, getting things to work right and better.

I apologize for all the first person singular pronouns throughout this post. That’s unfortunately necessary in a post like this, but I know that you know my story is not because of me but Jesus in me.

I do want to share this brief section of Peterson’s book. He puts just the right words to my ‘turning 62’ meditation:

…each step we walk, each breath we breathe, we know we are preserved by God, we know we are accompanied by God, we know we are ruled by God; and therefore no matter what doubts we endure or what accidents we experience, the Lord will guard us from every evil, he guards our very life.

Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, 45

This morning I closed my journal entry with these words,

“Bless this day. Make it holy. Make it fun. Make it memorable. Let me see a bird or some creature that fascinates and makes my heart soar!…Thank you for this life you’ve given me. If this is my last year here, I’ll be a happy man. If it is not, I’m still here for you! In Jesus’ name, amen.

Selah, beloved.

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