“Father of the fatherless”

“Father of the fatherless”

          The other day we were talking about Psalm 10 and how God sometimes seems to “hide” Himself from our view so that the “eyes of our heart” don't sense His Presence as we usually do. He's “there” but we're not strongly aware of it. He's teaching us to walk by faith and not by feelings.

          That Psalm also has one of my wife's favorite verses, one that she told me about many times. You know that her father died when she was only 11 years old. That was in 1949 and he was 39 years old. Minnie's mother was 31 with 5 children and no insurance and no social security and only a rented house to live in.

        When Minnie, age 11, came home from work at the cafe at 10:00 at night, she would sit by her dad's bed and talk to him for awhile every night. They were very close and he had a strong influence on her life. He often told her that the hardest thing about his illness (cancer) was having to leave his wife alone with 5 children to raise and he couldn't be there to help and provide for them. You can well imagine what an intense pain inwardly this would be for a conscientious man such as he was.

           So he told little Minnie that he found great comfort in three verses in the Psalms that promised God's provision for the “fatherless.” One of those verses is Psalm 10:14, “thou art the helper of the fatherless.” And Psalm 68:5 ESV describes “the helper” actually as the Father of orphans and adds provision for the widows: “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” The third Psalm is 146:9 NIV “The Lord . . . sustains the fatherless and the widow.”

         Need I tell you that God, in fact, did those things? He provided and sustained and strengthened that little family. The young widow and all the children worked at whatever jobs they could find and God provided in a whole host of ways. Including the men of the town who, with their wives, had several money-raising projects and then with volunteer labor built that little family a simple house for them to live in and own. 

      They “gathered” and worked with and prepared what God had provided, but it was God who made the provision. As in Psalm 104 where God is providing for the animals and birds: ^“These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.” 104:27-28 ESV

       Psalm 10 starts with a lament, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” But it ends with a praise: “O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will listen carefully, doing justice for the fatherless and the oppressed.” 10:17 ESV & HCSB

The Pleasure of Reminiscing and the Comfort it Brings

The Pleasure of Reminiscing

and the Comfort it Brings

Have you ever noticed when you haven't seen someone for a long time how much the two of you or several of you talk and laugh about what happened to you a long time ago? Do you remember this or that? And the warm-hearted memories cheer the conversation. That's because when you love someone, you want to share the good things of life with them—and the good memories. And Minnie often quoted Elisabeth Elliot's book “All That Was Ever Ours. . . .” [Still is!] That's because you carry those things in your heart and in your memory and they have become a part of who you are. Whatever was yours, still is. The memories remind you of your love for one another and the faithfulness of God. They are an intrinsic part of who you are.

But have you also noticed how quickly our wonderful experiences slip from the present into the past? I'm presently on another very rewarding project. During the 1970's and 1980's Minnie and I took pictures mostly as slides and only had a few of them printed to put into our photo books. So I'm going through hundreds of slides—probably 2000 or more—and having many of them transferred to CD's or DVD's. The resulting resolution is excellent and the whole family can now have copies to see on their computer screens what had been only a sampling of small photos in the photo books. So I'm thankful to the Lord for technological improvements making it easy to share with others.

And yes! There's an important theological and practical lesson to this experience. Those wonderful pictures of happiness and joy with all those sweet grandchildren the Lord gave to Minnie and me can be enjoyed again in our memories while seeing them again on the screen. But—and this is profound! And should be pondered—those sweet little children are not sweet little children anymore! They've grown into adulthood and have their own families. And yes, we still love them and are close to them. And yes, they're still a joy to be with! But the little ones are not there any more. And yet we haven't lost them! And there's where the deep profound theology comes in! In a very similar way, I haven't lost my wife either—and you can make the application to your own life. She is with the Lord and all the wonderful growing together and building into each other's lives has taken fruit and made us both into the kind of persons we actually are. And through it all God was working out His purposes in our lives and gradually transforming us more and more into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to the next. (2 Cor. Chs. 3 & 4)

Now for Minnie, she has actually seen the Lord face-to-face and has become like Him! just as scripture promised. And we have the reassurance that we will see her again someday! What an enormous comfort it is to know where she is and with Whom and that we will see her again not many years from now. And all the good things God has poured into our lives in Christlike character is still there and always will be. Time doesn't erase, it just adds on more of God's blessings for us to enjoy in eternity future.

--Pastor Burnside

"Together again. . . ."

“Together again. . . .”

        Isn’t that a marvelous scene when Jesus took Peter, James, and John and went up into a mountain to be transfigured so the disciples could see His glory in a physically visible way. And both Moses and Elijah came in bodily form with glory from God to talk with Jesus. And we know what they talked about because scripture tells us! “They spoke about His departure. . . .” Luke 9:31–his homegoing to heaven. They had been “dead” for 1500 years, but there they were!–in recognizable bodily form speaking in understandable human language. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” so they were not “dead” in the way most people think of it. They were very much alive and in the Presence of God.

        What insights that gives us into the glory that yet awaits us when God takes us home to be with Him. Look at the pattern you see in these verses from the Old Testament: “ Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.” Genesis 25:8 ESV

        “And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days.” Genesis 35:29

        Then Jacob commanded them and said to them, "I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.” Genesis 49:29

“When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.” Genesis 49:33

        God spoke to Moses, "Let Aaron be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land that I have given to the people of Israel. . . .” Numbers 20:24

And He told Moses, “[You will] die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.” Deut. 32:50

        The pattern is clear: when we die, we go to be with “our people” as well as “with the Lord.” We’re not alone and we’re no longer separated from many we love.

        That same truth was taught in a slightly different way when David’s little son died and David said, “But now he is dead. . . . Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." 2 Samuel 12:23

        So scripture gives us an expectation, an anticipation, of a future personal glorious reunion with those we love so dearly in this life.  Surely that will give you comfort and encouragement as you look forward to seeing each other again.

        Today one of my granddaughters entrusted to my care what was probably the last letter that her Mimi wrote to her before the Lord took her home. Minnie gave her some of her jewelry to have and remember her by and here is part of what she wrote, “When you wear it remind yourself that I am surrounded by all the jewels and crowns of heaven–and remember that great reunion that is coming when we all get to heaven. I love you and your little family so very much and have been blessed that all of you are parts of our lives.” (Mimi to Wendy, December 2009)

          We will not only be “together again,” we will be “together forever!”

                                                                                                                               

Home

Home

I've been thinking about home lately. The home Minnie made for us while the children were growing up. The home we had when the grandchildren were able to visit us very often. The home she and I had alone in Washington State for eleven years. And I'm thinking that home as God means for it to be should be a little taste of heaven while we're still yet so imperfect in this fallen world. We live among fallen creatures in a fallen world and sadly enough, we don't always help to make it a better place. And yet in spite of the rigor and the weariness of the daily chores and the unexpected problems that often arise, very often when love and kindness are shown in the family and we share in the excitement of learning and experiencing life as God intended it, “how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”

Home should be a place of refuge where all are accepted and loved because each has his or her own place to be and a responsibility to contribute and a share in all the goodness that the family has together. And this goes beyond the confines of the place that houses the individual family as the greater family shares with one another and helps bear one another's burdens. At home you can “wonder aloud” about things and have help clarifying your thinking and learning things you didn't know or understand. You can have demonstrated from life-to-life “how then should we live?” You can learn and share and teach each other the great truths you are learning from the Word of God and learning how to walk in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

At home you can walk by quiet waters and your soul can be refreshed and renewed each day. At home you find help with your problems. And you can share the excitement of the accomplishments God gives you. After all half the joy of the good things of life is sharing them with those you love.

I said that I was thinking about “the home Minnie made for us while the children were growing up.” Actually we all made it together not any one person (and surely the husband and father has a major role to play, too), but a mother so often is able to set the tone for the home, the attitude that is picked up by the rest of the family. I think of Minnie's attitude of love and acceptance and hard work and cheerfulness and doing things with such a “willing heart.” Those are the qualities that all of us remember so well and wanted to emulate. So I pray for the attitude of all the mothers I know that they live up to what they know should be a good mother as described in Proverbs 31, for example. And I pray that the children will love their mother and father and honor them by obedience and a willing heart to do what is right. And may the children be kind one to another! I remember many times when the children were growing up and one of them said something too sharply to another, I would hear Minnie telling them from the other room in a kind, gentle voice herself, “And be ye kind one to another!” And the children responded and immediately softened their voices. I always loved to see that response.

But think now how God is the “ultimate Home builder,” the One who invented home in the first place! How wonderful for a man and a woman deeply in love to get married and set up their own home and then through the glories of sexual relations (another creation of God's; He thought up and created the whole idea!) then a family is started. And what a good effect the children have on their parents! How can you continue to be self-centered when little children need your attention so much and so often? Having children is a major help in breaking our “natural” self-centeredness.

So God started the whole thing by creating Adam and Eve with the capacities that they both had. 'God setteth the solitary in families.” Ps.68:6 “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.” Ps. 113:9 So God's wisdom, power, and grace are all seen in this basic institution of the home that God created.

Think about the whole connotation of this well-loved word, “Home.” Consider a paragraph Jeannine wrote to me in an e-mail the other day:

“I was thinking on the bus this morning about what we were talking about last night when we had to end our conversation: God as the ultimate Home builder, resting place (He is Home), and provider of all the joy and comforts connoted by the word Home (not only the provider of it, but the creator of it, and the creator of even our capacity to long for and then enjoy Home). That is really mind boggling and I'm sure, completely unique among all of the alternative religions and philosophies. When we try to imagine what God is like, this is another way to see more of his traits and his love for us.”

We speak of God as our refuge and strength, our resting place—which is another way of saying He is our Home. In Him we live and move and have our being. In Him we dwell! And all the joy and comforts of home that I was trying to describe a few minutes ago, it is He who created them and brings them in to being.

And then, she wrote that God not only created Home but He is also “the creator of even our capacity to long for and then enjoy Home.”

And surely that is helping to prepare us for our Ultimate Home in heaven where Jesus Himself has gone “to prepare a place for us.” That's what we have at home and God Himself will dwell among us and He is our Father after which fathers on earth should pattern themselves. You have a longing for heaven because God actually created you for another world than this one. So when the Lord takes you home, you can say, “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. . . .” C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, p. 196. “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Phil. 3:20 ESV

Let's take it one step further: very often in our travels, we might be in Hong Kong, or Taiwan or Australia, or Europe, far from home and perhaps ready to go home then, I would tell Minnie, “Honey, my home is where you are.” And she understood and I understood. She was so dear to me that my home was wherever she was. When we get to heaven, we are going to realize that heaven is what it is because Jesus is there! And we are going to find perfect satisfaction and joy in His Presence. “. . . In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Ps. 16.11

--Pastor Burnside

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