What a Blessing

So tonight I come home from work and look at the lawn that needs cut.  But I just don’t have the time.  I need to get inside and change clothes and visit with my wife and daughter before returning to the youth services at church where I serve as a leader.  In the short conversations with my wife that I have in the few fleeting minutes I jokingly ask her a question.  “Does it make me insane that I thought about skipping church to cut the grass. Not because it needed it because it did, but because both of my neighbors on either side cut their lawns today. So it makes our look twice as bad. ”  Sounds like keeping up with the Jones’ right?  And the whole time I had already planned to cut the yard tomorrow night when I got home from work. 

After making the statement my wife reminds me that we have family coming down for a visit in the evening. And I tell her that i will get it done and have it squared away and should be wrapping it up by the time that they get here. So I change my clothes and head off to church. 

A couple of hours later I come home from the youth services and as I turn into the driveway I look down the front yard. I saw the tracts of the lawn mower.  At first glance I tell myself that it is the tracts from I cut it last week and I caught a glimpse of it as the sun was fading and I was turning into the driveway.  Then I pull into the driveway and look dead out over the front lawn. It is cut.  I pull the car in the garage and walk back out to look at the front lawn.  The side of the house and the front lawn have been cut.  I couldn’t believe it.  I had to walk into the garage and put my hand on the lawnmower just to make sure it had been used.  The whole time I am thinking that a neigbhorhood kid has come over and was trying to raise money and my wife paid him five bucks to cut the grass or something.

So I walk into the house set my Bible down and call out to my wife. She is in the bathroom giving our daughter a bath.  I walk in and ask what happended to the lawn. Not hello, not how are you, how was the evening.  Let’s get to the important stuff. What happened to my lawn?  My wife calmly and plainly looks at me and says that she cut it.  I am floored. I didn’t know what to say.  In our nearly six years of marriage my wife has not once helped me due yardwork.  Mainly because I wouldn’t let her I was to particular about how I wanted it done.  She tells me that she just wanted to see if she could do it.  She tells me that she was cutting the grass and our daughter had her toy lawnmower cutting another area.  I am sorry I ddin’t get to see that. I graciously thank her and ask how much she actually cut, and tell her what I thought had happened. 

I then turn around and take the dog out and walk the yard. My wife has done a wonderful job! She cut the entire front yard and did it well!

Then I come back in and I am helping get my daughter ready for bed.  As part of our nightly routine I take our daughter to the bathroom while my wife takes the puppy, dog number two, out for one last bathroom break before bed.  While I am helping my daughter in the bathroom I thank her for helping mommy cut the grass.  And then the secret is let out!

My three year old daughter looks across the bathroom at me and says that her and mommy didn’t want me to have to cut so much tomorrow and miss grandma coming for a visit. It had nothing to do with wanting to see if she could do it.  I just have the best wife!

I have the most wonderful wife in the world that helps me even when I don’t have the sense to ask for it.  Who gives without seeking credit or thanks.  So thank you honey! I love you very much! And don’t know what I did for God to grace me with such a blessing to have you as my wife!

Epilogue

Some what of an ominuous title huh? Well I am not writing an epilogue on my life, Lord willing that won’t be needed for many more years from now.  The epilogue that I speak of was actually written by a well known man before his own death.

In May of 1785 Benjamin Franklin was concluding his affairs in France and preparing to depart back to America.  He had spent several years in France doing just a litte thing like securing the alliance of France to support the American Revolution, maintaining their continued support as an American Ambassador, and then negotiating the peace treaty between America and Great Britian, which was the firt time that we were acknowledged as a indepedent nation.  Benjamin Franklin had been living in France since 1777 serving his country as an appointed representative. During his time he formed many friendships there that when it came time to return home he had significant relationships to part with.  One of those was David Hartley who had helped him in many of the negotiations between France, Great Britian and outher countries in Europe.  In a letter written to David Hartley Benjamin Franklin wrote ” We were long fellow laborers in the best of all works, the work of peace, I leave you still in the field, but having finished my day’s work, I am going hom to go to bed! Wish me a good night’s rest, as I do you a pleasant evening. Adieu!” Benjamin Frnaklin’s health was failing and he knew that he was in the twilight of his life.  Even though ti would be another five years before his death, and much work yet to be done in forming the government of America he knew that he would not return to France.

Now Benjamin Franklin was not characerizied by history as a devout Christian.  There are many indications that he merley believed that there was a God up there. And it didn’t seem to go much beyond that. Now this great man, might not have been a practicing, believing Christian, but I am a Christian. Now I am no where even a fraction of the great mant hat Benjamin Franklin was, but when I hear his words I can not help but apply his parting words to my life.

I am leaving the field and leaving you behind so that I can go to my final rest.  How awesome that would be to have that said of our lives.  Taht we spent our lives working in the fields of the greatest peace ever, the salvation of Jesus Christ.  Sewing, reaping and harvesting souls to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is an awesome thing to think that I could at the end of my life look back and count myself a faithful worker in the field along side others. When that day comes may that be said of me!

Source: Benjamin Franklin: An American Tail by Walter Issacson

A little effort…

I have several bookshelves in my study, and I could probably use another one as many books are stacked on top of others and spread about in varying places.  One entire shelf is where I keep my Bibles. And yes I have several of them. I have varying translations, study bibles, hard cover, paper back but numerous Bibles.  I have always told myself that I need them all for my studies, and that rational is true.  And I know that there are plenty of Christians around the world today that don’t even have a Bible because of persecution.  But that is not what I am here to talk about this morning.  What I want to talk about is how we use those Bibles.

Several months ago I came across a version of the Bible that seemed to fit me very well as a note taker. It was a wide margin Bible with plenty of note taking space on each page.  As someone who writes everything down so that they can remember it became a very good match for me.  But there is another thing that I love about this Bible.  It is just a Bible.

Now at the back there are maps, and a short concordance.  But the text is all there is.  There is no scriptural reference notes in the margin, or in the center of the page. There is no application at the bottom, or commentary here and there on each of the pages. It is the text, plain and simple.  Now stay with me this is not a commercial for a wide margin, note takers Bible!

Have you ever put a car together from scratch?  Probably not, as I have not either.  But I drive a car every day.  When something goes, wrong or I need to know something about that car, I take it to someone who knows not only how to put them together but take them apart and then put them back together. But everyday I still drive the car and use it.  Now here is my question do we treat our Bibles like our cars?

I have several Bibles on my shelf as I would say many of the members of the church in America do as well.  But do we treat them like our cars, and don’t spend much time digging in to them.  If we run into a question we quickly look down to the bottom of the page and take someone else’s answer as the answer.  Or we quickly call a Sunday School teacher or a pastor for the answer, as we do with our cars.  When we do that we are missing out on something. Sometimes the true value of an answer is the process in getting that answer!

Going back to the Bible that I have taken as my own.  I recently was struggling with putting the life of Paul in a chronological order. Would seem like a simple task, pick up a book and put it all together.  But I also wanted to know how that fit into the context of Acts, and all his epistles and the end of his life.  Little bit of trivia, the Bible doesn’t record the end of his life.  He is still alive at the end of Acts and doesn’t die for about another six years after the end of the book.  So fill in the gaps.

What is the chronology of his life, where did he go when, where was he when he wrote this epistle, when he speaks of going places in Galatians where does that fit in to the story and order of Acts.  Things like this my mind wanted to know. And I know that my wife would say that makes me nuts, and probably many of my friedns would agree. I can accept that. 

Because here is my point.  In seeking those answers I went over books outside of the Bible, jumped through the scriptures putting it together and taking it apart.  And when it was done, I knew not only the answer to my questions but had a deeper understanding of my Bible.  To often today we want the easy answer, the quick solution.  And we have allowed that to apply to our Bible Study.  By allowing someone else to do all the work and study for us and have those results at our finger tips we are giving up a great privelege to dig into God’s word and learn how it works in our lives, and learn more of His great plan and who He is.

Now I can hear the words of my friends. You have degrees in ministry. You have books that we don’t have.  You know this or that.  And to some extent I give that point. Not everyone learend Greek and Hebrew in college.  But the books that sit on my shelf are not priveleged books only given to those who go to school to study theology.  They are available to everyone. You can walk into Lifeway Christian Bookstores, Barnes-n-Nobles, or Borders the same way that I can and pick up these books. You can go online and order them the same way that I do. 

All these things. Different translations of Bibles, study bibles, wide margin note taking bibles, applications, commentaries, concordances, maps these are all things that are meant to be tools. And we have begun to use them as crutches.  Crutches that give us the oppurtunity for easy answers.  And one hard answer can teach you more than a hundred easy answers. 

Here is my challenge. Whatever Bible you use, whatever your study method. Just study. Ask the questions and find the answers with the help of the Spirit. 

Last night when I was looking over the notes of my research into the chronology of Paul’s life and sorted through the stacks of my books on my desk I saw it come together. The spirit showed me that last missing piece, and reminded me of something and then there it was. Unfolding in front of my eyes the answer to my question. Paul’s life in the context of what we have recorded in scripture. I was ecstatic. I was walking around the house just smiling, and all excited and mumbling to myself amazed at how it came together. A joy only to be found by those who going searching!