Only God Knows What's Next by Linden Malki

Historically, we have been very fortunate in the past decade or so, to the point that it is hard for many of us to accept the dangers we see all around us. Danger has been a part of human society as long as we have existed, but we have not had so many of them staring us in the face recently. They are not as serious as many of the plagues and wars and invasions and famines that our ancestors have lived with over most of our history, but we have gotten spoiled. We are dealing with a virus that we still don't know as much as we need to know, and a quarantine that has cost jobs, connections with people, and in many cases, mental health. Add to that the police situation in Minneapolis that has triggered demonstrations and major damage to cities that have cost many people their homes and/or businesses.

Jesus had troubles enough with those who did not understand or believe in His teachings, but He did give answers. It almost sounds too easy--if we turn over the stumbling blocks we keep tripping over to Him, they can be removed or transformed. The one that is especially serious at this historical moment is the barriers between people that Paul mentions to the Ephesians, but it is one that can be answered with humility, peace, patience, and love (and all the other graces we are promised--we need them all!)

One of the most difficult situations many people are facing is ultimate reality--whatever comes across our path sooner or later, we will always face generational change--none of us are going to stay here forever. We may fade out peacefully, or unexpectedly; we may have warnings or not, we may be young or old or anything in between. There has been a recent opportunity for our church family and other friends and relatives to share a memorial service for a young man who grew up in the Calvary/Northpoint/Sandals family,who was in an accident recently. It was a privilege for many of us to share Aaron Ensman's life and support his family as they deal with his loss; and to meet or reconnect with other people who also cared for Aaron and his family.

The Mind of Christ--by Linden Malki

Let the mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus--even though He was God, He laid it aside and took the mind of man, humbling Himself.   We are not God, even though we are tempted at times to think we are.  How we think, and what we think, is one of the most important things we do.  What we think controls how we act, how we talk, and how we react to the world around us. When we don't think, we get into trouble. When we put aside thought for the indulgence of "feeling", we usually don't realize that feelings can take us places we may regret. I'm not saying that feelings may not be good, but we need to be aware of what they are and where they lead.

Our thinking can be under our conscious control,  or it can become unconstrained, to where we overestimate our own abilities and blame everything that doesn't work the way we want on everybody else. We are human, and limited by human flaws. If we are not aware of this, or don't want to believe it, we can cause incredible havoc in our wake.  Science at its best is a triumph of the capabilites of human thought, but if it is not constantly examined and checked, we can be led down paths that turn out to be misleading, wrong, or possibly dangerous. It is easy for us to think that if something looks good at the beginning, it will continue to work the way we expect--not noticing that there are unintended consequences that change the expected results. And very often those who think they know everything don't realize how much they don't know--we cannot keep track of everything and everybody, and the more we try the more we get tangled up in other people's assumptions of knowledge. 

Jesus teaches us to examine our hearts, our lives, and our relationships. He is the checkpoint, the One who knows what the results will lead when we can't see them. We need to remember that "Your ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all your paths." (Proverbs 5:21, NIV)  Our paths are often not His paths, and our paths usually have more to do with our own assumptions and wants than reality. God is reality, and we can only be truly sure of actual reality when we are in touch with Him.

 

Looking for Goals in Life--by Linden Malki

One of the bits of advice that adults often offer children and students is that they need to have goals in their lives. Some kids have demanding goals that they work for singlemindedly, some see something that looks or sounds interesting, some have ambitions that are unrealistic, some are pushed by parents or other adults to fulfill their own goals, some haven't the foggiest idea. Some--not too many, I suspect,  pray for God's guidance.

The whole idea of goals is probably more common in western countries; children in the Middle East and eastwards, have traditionally no choice of their future. In most cases, you are born with your state in life and very few break out of it, probably more so with the modern information culture.  Some years ago, I spent a summer in Jordan, that included spending time with a missionary cousin who was head of a hospital up in northern Jordan near the Syrian border. He got a call from the hospital during dinner, as the doctor on duty needed help; he had been pushed into medical school by his local family when he had really hoped to become an artist.

 We don't often realize that God has goals for us as well. He will let us know, if we listen, what it is
that God is calling us to. Sometimes we realize, when we have what we thought we wanted, that we need to back out and listen. Sometimes what we thought was the right track blows up in our faces. What we usually need to do, but hesitate a bit is to stop and ask God what gifts He gave us and what he wants us to do with them.  When I was in high school, I was into science and interested in the space program, then just building up. I started college as a physics major, started with a year of basic physics and calculus. I realized before the end of the year that it would cost of all my time, and I really didn't want to do lab reports until 2am any more. I was lucky, because I was also well into the math, which became my major.My first decision for the next year was to take as much as I could of what really interested me, with the idea that I would have background in whatever I was led to in the next three years. What eventually happened is that I had an the opportunity to spend a summer in the Middle East and meet the man I married. He had an auto repair shop, and I had a background in physics, chemistry, history, library cataloging, turned out to be the best background I could have had. I am convinced that God knew what I could learn to do well, and put me in a place to do it--a place that also gave our kids opportunities to find their goals as well.

Taking Time to Remember--by Linden Malki

   

"Foursquare and seven years ago our Forefathers brought forth a new nation."  At one time, schoolchildren were encouraged to memorize this speech, which was originally given at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

 At that time, the war that created the need for the cemetery, was still in progress.  One thing that was unique in American history about this war, was that it was going between American and American, and one of the underlying concepts was a speech by the same speaker, Abraham Lincoln, two years before he became President: but was already a guiding principle in his political life: a quotation from the Gospel, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

 There were several issues going on behind the stress that threatened the unity of a country that was different than any other nation; they included slavery and its possible spread; trade policies, and old-fashioned power struggles. We all know who won, and the price paid by Lincoln himself, and that there are still some of the same issues still haunting us. But one thing that came out of this war was the growth of a tradition, originally something that became a habit with the families of those who had also lost their lives in this war.  It was on a variety of days originally, usually on an annual basis, but once a year the families would go to cemeteries, especially military ones, and bring flowers and other decorations to honor their fathers, and brothers, and later grandfathers, who had fallen in the "War Between the States." The first official celebration,  put together by a Union general was held in Waterloo, New York, on May 30. In 1868, it moved to  Arlington National Cemetery. There have always been local celebrations on various days as well. It was expanded to include the World War I, and then all war dead before and after. It was originally called "Decoration Day" until  it was officially called Memorial Day and moved to the fourth Monday in May.

Wars have always been part of human society; we seem to have a tendency to solve problems the messy way. There have been political movements to "outlaw war", but the universal tendency of people to be stubborn, greedy, and generally difficult to get along has been a problem. Even the Bible describes wars, most of which were caused by quarrels, rivalries, idolatry, and the same things we still see today, and the tough choices are usually situations where people are causing trouble which cannot be tolerated. We know that if everyone were to follow the commands of God, the love of God, and appreciate the blessings of God, we could live in peace--which will happen when God takes control of situations that we have not dealt with well.

God-Designed Families--by Linden Malki

Last week, I was reading Genesis 1 & 2, preparing the Bible readings for Mothers' Day--and immediately noticed something I had read before, but never realized how important is is.  Genesis 1:27 says that "male and female He created them." We know that this doesn't only apply to human beings--almost every life form larger than microscopic is created male and female; plants as well as animals; insects, sea creatures, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals.  In most cases, there is what is called "dimorphism", which means that the male and female versions are structually different. And notice that it is always 2 versions of the creature; there is nothing random about it. When you look at mammals, the biological variance between the male and female versions is affects most of the adults; and still they are recognizably the same species. There is no way that this is the result of random mutations! The other thing that we see in these creatures is that they were designed to be a couple--"one flesh".  They become  a family, committed to each other and their children.    When they made the choice to be their own bosses, they took on a responsibility that is not easy; of their first two sons, one was a murderer.

There are several ways we differ from all other creatures: we can talk, and we can think and design and build. We are created with the ability to do worse than we can imagine. We can also do better than we can imagine. (This happens when we allow God to give us the wisdom and strength to do our best.)  We see this happening in Scripture; most of the families have internal rivalries and resentments. (Actually, most of the issues between siblings is related to rivalries. ) There are any number of stories of family disharmony in Scripture and very few healthy ones. There are also a number of women mentioned; some are good and some aren't. My favorites are Deborah, who served as a judge in the days before the monarchy, and who led an army into battle when the men wouldn't;  Hulda, called a "prophetess" in the late days of the Judean monarchy, was the person consulted by King Josiah when early manuscripts,  which had gotten hidden or lost during a time when pagan gods were popular, reappeared in the Temple and were brought to the King; and Priscilla, who, with her husband Aquila, were very knowledgeable about the early church doctrine and on several occasions taught new converts the truth about Jesus and his church.

As parents, we have a responsibility to raise our children to understand good and evil, and in knowledge of God.  Our precious children are entrusted to us for a fairly short time, and then they are responsible for acting as they were taught--deliberately or unknowingly.

The Price of Power--by Linden Malki

When Joshua was giving instructions to the Israelites who were getting ready to finally enter the Promised Land, this is what he told them: " Ponder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it. Then you’ll get where you’re going; then you’ll succeed. Haven’t I commanded you? Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid; don’t get discouraged. God, your God, is with you every step you take.” (Joshua 1:8-9 Msg)  Jesus, 1500 years later but very close to the same area,  was dealing with a similar concept: Satan had just made Jesus a proposition. Satan would give Jesus rulership of the whole world--the condition being that Jesus would recognize Satan's authority over all the peoples of the world. Jesus' answer:  "Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.” (Luke 4:8 Msg) I found it interesting that Jesus (whose Hebrew name was actually "Joshua") was committed to the same instructions as His predecessor had given.
We've been thinking and reading the last few weeks about what the most important things in our lives need to be to follow these instructions. I tried to picture what the world would have looked like if Jesus had taken Satan up on his offer of political power. The first thought was that if Jesus had actually had total political power, He could have made everybody follow Him and life would have been perfect. On second thought, living a good life without any options would have been lazy and sloppy.  Then I realized that the real trap in this offer would that Satan would still have had ultimate power, with the nice guy as the figurehead.  Could have been like Chicago or New York, run by politicians who are tools of the Mafia, with the harbor full of uncooperative guys wearing cement shoes. We actually can imagine this; we know a little bit about how ugly the underside of a society without character and morals can be. 

Being ready isn't difficult on paper: Read the Word, think about it, do what it says. God supplies the strength and courage better than we can.  Open our eyes to the alternative: a world run by evil. If we don't understand what evil can do, that's our fault. The bottom line is: who's the expert on the power of the dark side, and Who has the power to keep us in the Light?  I am reminded of what I think is the most important line of an old familiar Christmas carol: "And fit us for Heaven, to live with Thee there!"

We are not on the planning level with God! by Linden Malki

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel spoke of  End Times,  generally in terms of a takeover of the Land of Israel by God or someone sent by God.  This goes back to the Exodus, when the "Children of Israel", descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who was renamed "Israel" when he struggled with God after having to leave his childhood home.  Jacob/Israel was the father of 12 sons, who went to Egypt during a famine and settled there.  400 years later, those descendants of Israel had become enslaved by the Egyptians, and they escaped and returned to their original homeland through the intervention of God through an Israelite named Moses.  1500 years later,the surviving  Judeans were constantly expecting direct rule by God Himself to happen at any time, and there were no shortage of candidates for this revolution. 

When Jesus appeared,  there were those who attempted to make Him a King and expected the heavenly army to show up and re-establish the Kingdom of God.  He explained that he could not stay on earth and was taken back into Heaven--but said that he would return and there would be a new world established under the direct rule of God. However, what did happen is that He did maintain a spiritual relationship with anyone who accepted the terms of this relationship, which developed into what we know as the Church.

The original church was looking for a return within their lives, but it didn't happen. He told them it wouldn't, that nobody knew, but there are still those who claim to know what God didn't tell us. One of those times was the coming of a year designated as 1000AD, complicated by varying calendars. There was  a Jewish rabbi of the 1600's who claimed to be the prophet of the Messiah (the Jewish version) who gained a large following, was eventually jailed by the Ottoman authorities in Constantinople, and was offered the options of execution or Islam--and lived the rest of his life in the Ottoman court.

There have been several major church organizations founded on preachers who claimed to be the messengers of the Last Days. One was the Seventh-Day Adventists, whose founder was convinced that the second coming was due in 1844.  Another was the Mormons, who believe we live in the last days, and the Jehovah's Witnesses originally expected the end to be in 1914, and still emphasize a coming end.  Another interesting suggestion was a reading of an ancient Mayan calendar, which was being interpreted to say that it ended in December, 2012.

We still don't know any more than the disciples who lived with him and saw his ascension into Heaven--and we are still supposed to live every day like it could be tomorrow.