Something Later

Romans 8:25

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

John Murray:

Impatience spells dispute and dissatisfaction with God's design. Attempts to claim for the present life elements which belong to consummated perfection, whether it be in the individual sphere or in the collective, are but symptoms of that impatience which would disrupt divine order. Expectancy and hope must not cross the bounds of history; they must wat for the end, "the liberty of the glory of the children of God".

John Murray's description of eternal life:

... it is life that death cannot invade and life that cannot be forfeited ...

I'm slowly working my way through a backlog of things to read and think about.

It's nice to have this again. This time around it'll have more focus on how I actually want to use it - less about archiving, more about things to remember for later.

In a lot of ways this is me embracing this for what it should be - a classic link blog.

When Dad no longer knows the faces of his family,
Yet will you know him, O Lord.
When he can no longer remember his own name,
Yet will you remember him.

This will be his enduring hope, until at last he wakes from his long fog
into a bright morning of clarity and sees you face to face,
remembering again all that he had forgotten,
and knowing then even as he is known.

In light of this promise, give him peace even now,
secure in the knowledge that what is obscured from him is not truly lost,
only tucked away and waiting to be revealed fully in that eternal light.

O God, though all else be hid from him,
all memory, all knowledge, all understanding,
do not hide your presence.

Be to him more present, more immediate,
more abundant in grace and peace, than ever he knew.

Though he knows nothing else, still let him know you.
And if a morning dawns when he can no longer name you
or remember to call upon you, be more immediately present to him then
than his own confusion, than his own breath.
Be to him a peace and a light and an abiding sense that he is loved and held
and that all will be well.

Give grace and mercy also, O God, to those of us grieve his decline,
to those who love him, who must suffer the heartache of such slow loss.

Bless our patient sacrifice on Dad's behalf. May our hope and our humor hold
and our hearts be strengthened beyond expectation.

Thank you for the years of health and love we were given to share.
May those memories and your grace sustain us in sorrow.

Be near us now.

O Father, in his weakness, be strong.
O Jesus, in his loss, be found.
O Spirit, in his absence, be present.

O God, in his forgetfulness, remember Dad, your child.

Amen.

I intended last week to start writing down thoughts and descriptions of what’s going on right now, but kept putting it off.

It’s been right at 10 days since the first wave of realization hit (on a large scale) that this was going to be something serious. I had been following the news of the spread out of China and the reported havoc it was wreaking in Italy and Iran. Was also reading people like Rod Dreher. It sounded like things were going to get bad; but it was hard to know how quickly it was going to hit and how seriously - especially poor reliability of news coming out of some of the origin countries (China and Iran). On a certain level it felt a little surreal to even think about.

Thursday, March 12, was the evening I went to Kroger to get some milk for dinner and had to circle the parking lot twice to find a spot and then stand in line 20+ people deep to check-out. Aside from the announcements of extended school spring break there wasn’t any single event that day to trigger the surge in buying. It was more the slow, steady drip news had finally culminated into awareness that maybe something bad was happening. Since that day the drum beat of bad news has continued - new cases skyrocketing, stock market crumbling, cities on lock down, etc.

Jana went to buy groceries early on the morning of the 13th (before 7am) and still had to wait in line to check-out. The cashier told her stories of people getting into fights in line the night before. The girls had a basketball party that night; that was the last group outing any of us has been to. Saturday morning the news continued to build and all signs pointed to “social distancing” as the best thing anyone could do to help clamp down on the spread. So, we cancelled game night with the Gaffords and Jack had to miss a basketball party.

Last Sunday, the 14th, was the first week most churches cancelled services and started doing streaming-only. GCC still held service but we stayed home and “went to church” via First Presbyterian Augusta’s Evensong service.

Most of us worked from home all last week, but some continued to go to the office - either out of preference or necessity. It was spring break for us, so Jana and the kids had a relaxed week. There wouldn’t have been any outside-the-house events anyways, so aside from me being home all week it wasn’t that different from a normal week.

The news all week continued to be a steady stream of bad following bad - more tanking markets, more businesses shutting down, more people getting sick. More people who’d been dismissing the whole thing (including the President) suddenly started taking it more seriously.

GCC had a pre-recorded service yesterday. It wasn’t the same, but then again nothing is right now. We also gathered with our Sunday night crew via Zoom for a little bit. It was awkward, but encouraging nonetheless.

It’s surreal to think of the cultural and political things that were dominating the media 2-3 weeks ago. So little of that feels like it matters at all right now. Nothing right now is normal and very little is certain. Who knows - maybe spring hits and warm weather puts the kibosh on the contagiousness.

I’ve been thinking a lot on James 4:13 ...

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Also on Galatians 3:5-6 ...

Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith — just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

Maranatha.