It's been awhile (a long while) since I posted, but something new has happened. I had an incident at work Monday where I nearly fainted and had to be driven home from work. Actually, I had bloodwork scheduled for that afternoon at Baptist Hospital, so my driver graciously took me there, a trifle early, before taking me home.
While I was there I ran into Sherri and Charles (I called him "Edward") Willard, from waiting room days several months ago. Please keep praying for them. Sometimes Charles has very long, uncommunicative days because of his situation, and that is hard on Sherri.
I was thinking the reaction was due to my first round of post-radiation chemo, which I completed on the 18th of January, but Ed Shaw said the bloodwork was normal. I had an MRI scheduled for the 9th of February, which he moved up to this past Wednesday evening. I called him about that last night, and he told me that everything on the MRI was hunky-dory, or better. I couldn't ask for more than that.
Which leaves as our lone culprit the little item of stress, which can pile up when you are working a different route every day and splitting it four or five different ways and when the post office does not take into account the travel time needed for all the subs to travel from their routes to the part of my route they're carrying. (These are at least partially excuses, which I will critique later.) But the Post Office has been very gracious and has offered me a light duty position as a custodian until I get back on my feet.
I have another appointment with Ed this Tuesday, February 2, and Priscilla and I will ask him some questions about further treatment, as well as determine when I might go back to work.
I think ultimately all of our maladies are worship disorders, either our own or perhaps traceable all the way back to Adam and Eve, but I certainly have had time to reflect on some of mine. I am sure that at work, much of the stress lay in my inability to worship God in the circumstances rather than trusting in my own strength for the task. Since I've been home, I've noticed some others, like watching TV basketball. I turned on the Wake game today with 6 minutes to go and watched them lose, which disappointed me greatly until I remembered who made the players and the gymnasium and the ball and the uniforms and everything else I was watching. At that point, I had to repent and beg forgiveness for misplaced worship. God, of course, who is gracious above all things, willingly granted.
I've had a chance to do some reading this week from three books: "What I Think I Did," by Larry Woiwode; "Amish Grace," by three different authors, none of whose names I recall immediately, and "End of America," by Naomi Wolf, sent to me by my sister Shelley Tea in Seattle. The one that grabbed me first was "Amish Grace," a book detailing the reaction of an Old Order Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to the murder/wounding of ten young female students in a school in southern Lancaster County. (The killer also killed himself in the process.) This community takes seriously Christ's command to forgive, and they went to work right away, walking the few miles, if necessary, to the homes of the killer's wife and parents to offer condolences for their pain and loss.
The work was not that easily completed, most notably for the relatives of the girls who were attacked, and the writers point out that the Amish will be constantly needing to reforgive. But as daunting as this task was, it is still relatively easy compared to the often laborious work of forgiving fellow Amish within their church districts, a work complicated by the fact that the "culprits" have the nasty habit of continuing to live. This book probed the whole Amish process and culture of forgiveness, editorial reaction to the forgiveness, and many serious questions about the whole forgiveness/pardon/reconciliation process. And it offered an overview on the entire Amish community that would be well worth the time to read, particularly since the book is only 203 pages long .
The Woiwode book is subtitled "A Season of Survival in Two Acts," and revolves around an extremely cold winter in southwestern North Dakota and various glimpses into Woiwode's past. There is an absolutely amazing intermission section in which Woiwode talks about the influence of nature on his outlook, particularly as it relates to English poet W.H. Auden's statement that "time...worships language" and Christ as the ultimate language/revelation of God the Father, in nature and in other ways. (The Gospel of John refers to Christ as the "logos," or "word" of God.)
I've got to leave you with one quote from the book. "I feel a pressure behind and turn and there are the cottonwoods and the willows at the far end of the street, along the edge of the lake, flying the maidenhair faces of their leaves into the wind, and beyond their crowns of trembling insubstantiality, across the lake dotted with cottonwood pollen, the blue and azure plain abuts against the horizon at infinity." In this all he sees Christ.
The Naomi Wolf book has two subtitles, "Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot" and "A Citizen's Call to Action." I've read thirty-five pages so far. Wolf's thesis is that Fascist states follow the same predicatable pathway to repression, and that the Bush/Cheney administration has started us down this pathway. I am not on the same ideological page as Naomi Wolf, but Shelley has asked me to read it with an open mind and I am doing that. I did check out one internet clip where she says she would oppose Obama if he attempted to use the powers that Bush had arrogated to himself. That is certainly admirable.
I have meandered on long enough, so let me bid you all adieu. Will keep you posted, hopefully more often.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Jan. 8--Devotional
Folks, this is from a pile of devotionals I wrote a couple years ago for our men's accountability group.
GOSPEL FAITH
Habakkuk 2:4--...the righteous will live by his faith...
Hebrews 10:10 tells us we are made holy by the will of God.
This is foundational. If God hadn't chosen you to be holy, you probably woudn't be reading this, and you certainly wouldn't be comprehending it.
But let me tell you something else. He did not will your holiness in such a way as to render your own will superfluous.
At this point, I need to issue a warning. People have, quite literally, gone straight to hell trying to figure out how God's will and their own will could exist in the same universe.
When they got to hell, they may have arrived at a conclusion. Who knows. But don't bother going there to find out. Just believe they both exist and go from there.
Which is not to say that a few statements can't be made about the situation.
We observe, first of all, that our will exists because God willed it to exist. And we observe, secondly, that God has willed for our will to operate on faith--a faith that he has created, birthed in us, and is now nurturing to fruition. And--we observe that we genuinely have to choose to accept that faith.
In fact, the cardinal truth of sanctification is that the just live by their faith. Habakkuk's statement gets plenty of press in the New Testament.
This is not a life experience for most of us. Most children of God live as if they get into the kingdom by faith and then paddle upstream from there. And we've all tried it. We all keep trying it, from time to time.
But the Bible says we live by faith; that is, our actions derive from the unassailable fact that the Father loves us and has clothed us in the righteousness of Christ.
Let me give you a scenario.
Your boat has hit some rough water. As a matter of fact, it is being tossed thirty and forty feet into the air by waves you had no idea lurked on the little lake of your life. You are in pain; some situation or relationship is lacerating you; a bloody, throbbing wound in your soul is begging for novocaine.
And then you see it--the way out--the anesthetic--the one you've used so many times before, your favorite; the one that works! And you can have it--no-one will know--it's yours for the taking. And the devil fool with the consequences.
(He will, by the way.)
Friends, this is when you need faith--that God loves you, that you are whole, that no Bondo is needed on the car body of your life.
But this is also exactly where faith is hardest to find. Because all this pain that's tearing out your intestines is about some perceived deficiency in your life or soul, and gospel faith, of course, tells you that your soul is as safe and healthy in the arms of Jesus as a nursing baby. But you can't see this. The two strands of your life, actual and experiential, have diverged, and you're like a kid on roller skates with one leg careening south and the other racing insanely north.
And you might lose this battle. Because faith is better applied steering you away from the city the bordello's in than dragging you out the front door of the durned thing.
If you do lose, make up your mind to go back to faith. Remember who died to forgive you. Practice James 5:16. Figure out who you can call to keep you in the right city, or to go through the wrong one with you if that's where the path really leads.
And then again, you might not lose. Because faith, like a muscle, gets stronger every time you exercise it. And if Satan does manage to get you into a bad place, the child of God who's been around the block a few times remembers how much that last soul hit cost him.
And he remembers something else.
Gospel faith means you don't need painkillers.
GOSPEL FAITH
Habakkuk 2:4--...the righteous will live by his faith...
Hebrews 10:10 tells us we are made holy by the will of God.
This is foundational. If God hadn't chosen you to be holy, you probably woudn't be reading this, and you certainly wouldn't be comprehending it.
But let me tell you something else. He did not will your holiness in such a way as to render your own will superfluous.
At this point, I need to issue a warning. People have, quite literally, gone straight to hell trying to figure out how God's will and their own will could exist in the same universe.
When they got to hell, they may have arrived at a conclusion. Who knows. But don't bother going there to find out. Just believe they both exist and go from there.
Which is not to say that a few statements can't be made about the situation.
We observe, first of all, that our will exists because God willed it to exist. And we observe, secondly, that God has willed for our will to operate on faith--a faith that he has created, birthed in us, and is now nurturing to fruition. And--we observe that we genuinely have to choose to accept that faith.
In fact, the cardinal truth of sanctification is that the just live by their faith. Habakkuk's statement gets plenty of press in the New Testament.
This is not a life experience for most of us. Most children of God live as if they get into the kingdom by faith and then paddle upstream from there. And we've all tried it. We all keep trying it, from time to time.
But the Bible says we live by faith; that is, our actions derive from the unassailable fact that the Father loves us and has clothed us in the righteousness of Christ.
Let me give you a scenario.
Your boat has hit some rough water. As a matter of fact, it is being tossed thirty and forty feet into the air by waves you had no idea lurked on the little lake of your life. You are in pain; some situation or relationship is lacerating you; a bloody, throbbing wound in your soul is begging for novocaine.
And then you see it--the way out--the anesthetic--the one you've used so many times before, your favorite; the one that works! And you can have it--no-one will know--it's yours for the taking. And the devil fool with the consequences.
(He will, by the way.)
Friends, this is when you need faith--that God loves you, that you are whole, that no Bondo is needed on the car body of your life.
But this is also exactly where faith is hardest to find. Because all this pain that's tearing out your intestines is about some perceived deficiency in your life or soul, and gospel faith, of course, tells you that your soul is as safe and healthy in the arms of Jesus as a nursing baby. But you can't see this. The two strands of your life, actual and experiential, have diverged, and you're like a kid on roller skates with one leg careening south and the other racing insanely north.
And you might lose this battle. Because faith is better applied steering you away from the city the bordello's in than dragging you out the front door of the durned thing.
If you do lose, make up your mind to go back to faith. Remember who died to forgive you. Practice James 5:16. Figure out who you can call to keep you in the right city, or to go through the wrong one with you if that's where the path really leads.
And then again, you might not lose. Because faith, like a muscle, gets stronger every time you exercise it. And if Satan does manage to get you into a bad place, the child of God who's been around the block a few times remembers how much that last soul hit cost him.
And he remembers something else.
Gospel faith means you don't need painkillers.
Monday, January 5, 2009
1-5-09; Back to Work
Before I start in on the back to work section, let me tell you about the two preceding days. On Saturday, the 3rd, I had my heart set on cleaning out my garage. Alison had her heart set on going ice-skating at the Coliseum Annex. Priscilla (my wife) managed to talk some sense into my head, and the garage is still waiting to be cleaned. I can clean it when Alison goes off to college, if worst comes to worst, but time with one's daughter is simply not something to pass up. We had a wonderful afternoon and evening, and I am very thankful that Priscilla spoke up.
Yesterday, the 4th, we had an amazing adult Bible study from a John Piper book. The teacher ran off copies of one of the chapters, entitled "Faith in Future Grace vs. Anxiety." (Maybe now you know the title of the book, which eludes me.) John Piper related that when he was in high school he had a monstrous fear of public speaking, what he called a "horrible and humiliating disability." This was more than a little stage fright, believe me. He and his mother struggled mightily in prayer, but no breakthroughs came. Finally, John went off to Wheaton College. He knew that in order to graduate, he would have to speak in public.
The first chance came in a Spanish class. Each student was required to give a three-minute speech in Spanish. John memorized his, to eliminate the possibility of losing his place and lapsing into a "paralyzing pause," and he also stood behind a very large lectern which he could hold onto to conceal his shaking. He was obviously frightened. But somehow, he made it through.
A second opportunity came when the school chaplain asked him to lead prayer in chapel. Again terrified, John said "yes" anyway, and once more received grace. From that moment, he vowed never to turn down a speaking engagement because of fear. The rest, of course, is history.
Piper's application was simply that anxiety is lack of faith and often leads to other sins. He said that if you were driving a race car (analagous to our race of life) and someone threw mud onto your windshield, you would turn on the wipers and the windshield washer. He compares the wipers to the Word of God and the washers to the Holy Spirit. He then went on to exposit Matthew 6:25-34, where on four different occasions we are told not to be anxious.
When I went to bed that night, knowing I'd be going back to work in the morning, albeit parttime, I picked up the copy of the article, reread the Scripture passage, and prayed for the Holy Spirit to come. Nothing happened. The harder I struggled, the more fear made a fool out of me. (I know this sounds crazy, but believe me, it happened.) Finally, in desperation, I said simply "Father, I want your name to be glorified."
And then it hit me. That was exactly the same thing Jesus said in John 12:28, a passage my pastor had spoken about that morning. Jesus there was struggling with much more than I was--the huge weight of the cross loomed before him. My struggle was small by comparison, but still very real.
And it occurred to me--there was no way the old Chuck Eggerth could have produced that thought. It obviously came from the Spirit of Christ inside me. Suddenly I realized I had resources to deal with the situation.
Then another image came to me, a picture of myself at the post office with Jesus shining inside me, a light so bright people would have to know who it was . My struggle to that point had been selfish, wondering how I would look to folks who knew the Chuck Eggerth from four months ago. Now I had a reason to go back to work that didn't involve my ego. And the fears left me. I was able to relax and go to sleep.
And when I got up, I went to work. I had a couple of panicky moments, where it oppeared to me that the carriers who were assigned to finish what I didn't carry would be standing around waiting for me to get the mail ready, but I made up my mind to go one step at a time. It worked out, and I was able to finish my job.
Yesterday, the 4th, we had an amazing adult Bible study from a John Piper book. The teacher ran off copies of one of the chapters, entitled "Faith in Future Grace vs. Anxiety." (Maybe now you know the title of the book, which eludes me.) John Piper related that when he was in high school he had a monstrous fear of public speaking, what he called a "horrible and humiliating disability." This was more than a little stage fright, believe me. He and his mother struggled mightily in prayer, but no breakthroughs came. Finally, John went off to Wheaton College. He knew that in order to graduate, he would have to speak in public.
The first chance came in a Spanish class. Each student was required to give a three-minute speech in Spanish. John memorized his, to eliminate the possibility of losing his place and lapsing into a "paralyzing pause," and he also stood behind a very large lectern which he could hold onto to conceal his shaking. He was obviously frightened. But somehow, he made it through.
A second opportunity came when the school chaplain asked him to lead prayer in chapel. Again terrified, John said "yes" anyway, and once more received grace. From that moment, he vowed never to turn down a speaking engagement because of fear. The rest, of course, is history.
Piper's application was simply that anxiety is lack of faith and often leads to other sins. He said that if you were driving a race car (analagous to our race of life) and someone threw mud onto your windshield, you would turn on the wipers and the windshield washer. He compares the wipers to the Word of God and the washers to the Holy Spirit. He then went on to exposit Matthew 6:25-34, where on four different occasions we are told not to be anxious.
When I went to bed that night, knowing I'd be going back to work in the morning, albeit parttime, I picked up the copy of the article, reread the Scripture passage, and prayed for the Holy Spirit to come. Nothing happened. The harder I struggled, the more fear made a fool out of me. (I know this sounds crazy, but believe me, it happened.) Finally, in desperation, I said simply "Father, I want your name to be glorified."
And then it hit me. That was exactly the same thing Jesus said in John 12:28, a passage my pastor had spoken about that morning. Jesus there was struggling with much more than I was--the huge weight of the cross loomed before him. My struggle was small by comparison, but still very real.
And it occurred to me--there was no way the old Chuck Eggerth could have produced that thought. It obviously came from the Spirit of Christ inside me. Suddenly I realized I had resources to deal with the situation.
Then another image came to me, a picture of myself at the post office with Jesus shining inside me, a light so bright people would have to know who it was . My struggle to that point had been selfish, wondering how I would look to folks who knew the Chuck Eggerth from four months ago. Now I had a reason to go back to work that didn't involve my ego. And the fears left me. I was able to relax and go to sleep.
And when I got up, I went to work. I had a couple of panicky moments, where it oppeared to me that the carriers who were assigned to finish what I didn't carry would be standing around waiting for me to get the mail ready, but I made up my mind to go one step at a time. It worked out, and I was able to finish my job.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
December 30--Devotional--"Quiet Time"
Luke 18:11,12--"God, I thank you that I am not like other men...I have my quiet time daily..." (Helpful Eggerth paraphrase)
Luke 18:21--"All these I have kept from my youth (and my quiet times)"...(HEP)
This "quiet time" thing may be a little over-rated.
Don't get me wrong. I need the Bible--desperately and often.
(Once a day, in fact, is not generally sufficient for a man like myself. I have many holes in my body, from which truth leaks copiously, and consequently need repeated injections.)
But when I have a "quiet time," I eviscerate the Word of God. I downsize it from a mountain to a grain of sand by assuming a position of control. "Word of God," I say, "you are my servant. You will assist me today in my sacred task of compiling a truly stupendous evangelical resume."
So here's my advice. Let the Bible lead you around by the nose, and not vice versa. And for heaven's sake, quit having those stupid "quiet times."
But now I'm preaching.
So let me introduce the rest of my little discourse with a quote from Anne Lamott. "I thought such awful thoughts," says Anne, "that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish."
This is hyperbole, of course, but Anne has her poetic license escrowed in with her mortgage, so she can get away with it.
And yes, Anne is not the only one thinking those thoughts.
And that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that I forget I ever thought those thoughts, or pretend I never thought those thoughts, or conjure up someone who thinks worse thoughts so that I won't feel so bad that I thought those thoughts.
What do you propose to do with a fellow like me? What do I need? Really?
I need the Word of God to tell me how teetotally screwed up I actually am.
But when I have a "quiet time," it's not the Word of God doing the telling, if you know what I mean.
So what do you suggest?
I think you would propose that I actually read the Bible. You know, like pay attention to the words. And that I swallow the bad news about myself with, by God's grace, a little fortitude.
And then you would tell me to start looking for the good news.
Which, by the way, is in there.
Luke 18:21--"All these I have kept from my youth (and my quiet times)"...(HEP)
This "quiet time" thing may be a little over-rated.
Don't get me wrong. I need the Bible--desperately and often.
(Once a day, in fact, is not generally sufficient for a man like myself. I have many holes in my body, from which truth leaks copiously, and consequently need repeated injections.)
But when I have a "quiet time," I eviscerate the Word of God. I downsize it from a mountain to a grain of sand by assuming a position of control. "Word of God," I say, "you are my servant. You will assist me today in my sacred task of compiling a truly stupendous evangelical resume."
So here's my advice. Let the Bible lead you around by the nose, and not vice versa. And for heaven's sake, quit having those stupid "quiet times."
But now I'm preaching.
So let me introduce the rest of my little discourse with a quote from Anne Lamott. "I thought such awful thoughts," says Anne, "that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish."
This is hyperbole, of course, but Anne has her poetic license escrowed in with her mortgage, so she can get away with it.
And yes, Anne is not the only one thinking those thoughts.
And that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that I forget I ever thought those thoughts, or pretend I never thought those thoughts, or conjure up someone who thinks worse thoughts so that I won't feel so bad that I thought those thoughts.
What do you propose to do with a fellow like me? What do I need? Really?
I need the Word of God to tell me how teetotally screwed up I actually am.
But when I have a "quiet time," it's not the Word of God doing the telling, if you know what I mean.
So what do you suggest?
I think you would propose that I actually read the Bible. You know, like pay attention to the words. And that I swallow the bad news about myself with, by God's grace, a little fortitude.
And then you would tell me to start looking for the good news.
Which, by the way, is in there.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Dec. 28--sleepless night
I said on my last blog I'd tell you about the rest of last week, and since time has already warped into another week, I guess I'd better get at it. It is past five in the early morning of December 28, I have been awake since 2:41, and I've pretty well exhausted any means of getting to sleep. I had a classical station playing and was making progress, but then the boring music ended and some piercing soprano got airtime, and that ended that. I've also been reading Larry Woiwode (pronounced "Why-woody"), but his memoir of life in a North Dakota winter is slowly freezing me to death, and I've got to do something else.
(You know what they say about the cold in North Dakota--"It keeps the riff-raff out.")
The week was pretty slow for four days after last Sunday. I burned a lot of energy on Sunday, including watching a doomded football game ("doomded" a phrase from a semi-literate baseball player in a novel called "Bang the Drum Slowly"), and I was lethargic, fatigued; and so I just puttered around the house working on cleaning projects. Friday I got some energy back, and I went after a big project--cleaning out a closet full of magazines, most of them train magazines. Thirty years accumulation is a bit much, but I got the job done--weeded out about two-thirds of them, hauled them off to the landfill. I ran across some other magazines, notably "Books and Culture," and saved most of them. But the closet is considerably cleaner than it was.
Back to Woiwode, whose mother died when he was nine. He sealed off a childhood's worth of memories, which it took him a decade or better to recover, and now he recalls years by specific ages from each of four different children. I have one child and am not capable of that.
It seems to me that time fades rapidly into some huge, black mist, that the only access I have to it is now and maybe a three-month window backwards, and that beyond that it's simply gone. Of course, I remember things from my childhood and young adulthood quite clearly, but once you get to 1986, my only signposts are years at the post office and what I was doing there. (Maybe I was born to be a mailcarrier!)
So all I have is God, and me, and a few months. I'm sure the memories are safe with him.
I am going back to work, parttime, on the fifth of January. I'm ready for that.
Back to Woiwode again--he's set up this huge outside wood-burning furnace, and hasn't even gotten it completely installed when the worst winter in years descends on him. I am intimidated, first of all, by the mechanical tasks he performs, and secondly, by the winter itself and the lack of electricity, which is going to kill them all if the co-op doesn't get it turned back on. But the co-op itself could get some people killed trying to fix it in the blizzard. Which takes me back to the middle of Romans 8 and the messed-up universe we're living in. But Paul says creation itself is waiting for the "freedom of the glory of the sons of God," and I believe that with all my heart.
It is now 5:52--I'm going to proof this, then go back to bed, get up, worship, eat Korean food, drive my daughter to a winter retreat on the southeastern side of Greensboro, and (hopefully!) go look at a used pickup in Advance.
The big word in that whole sentence is this--worship!
--Sayonara, Chuck Eggerth
P.S.--I was going to tell you about one of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 73. I call it "confessions of a knucklehead", but a real knucklehead wouldn't have told us about it. Asaph gets himself freaked out by looking at wicked people who prosper. But then he goes to the sanctuary (remember what I said about worship?) and God shows him the truth, and he starts telling it to us, about how he was a brute beast in God's presence as long as his delusion persisted. And here are the verses I've memorized: "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
Amen.
P.P.S.--I forgot to tell you something God taught me this week. It was Thursday and I had been dithering all week about figuring out the computer stuff--e-mails to word documents, creating a blog, etc., and then Alison and I spent nearly three hours and got it all done. But when I reviewed the day that evening in bed, I was still stressed--this time about some other foolish item. And I realized I needed to repent of this blamed worrying, that worrying had actually become an idol. And I did, which hooked me up to the Holy Spirit again and got me out of my "brute beast" condition. Today, of course, it was something else to worry about; but I'm making progress.
(You know what they say about the cold in North Dakota--"It keeps the riff-raff out.")
The week was pretty slow for four days after last Sunday. I burned a lot of energy on Sunday, including watching a doomded football game ("doomded" a phrase from a semi-literate baseball player in a novel called "Bang the Drum Slowly"), and I was lethargic, fatigued; and so I just puttered around the house working on cleaning projects. Friday I got some energy back, and I went after a big project--cleaning out a closet full of magazines, most of them train magazines. Thirty years accumulation is a bit much, but I got the job done--weeded out about two-thirds of them, hauled them off to the landfill. I ran across some other magazines, notably "Books and Culture," and saved most of them. But the closet is considerably cleaner than it was.
Back to Woiwode, whose mother died when he was nine. He sealed off a childhood's worth of memories, which it took him a decade or better to recover, and now he recalls years by specific ages from each of four different children. I have one child and am not capable of that.
It seems to me that time fades rapidly into some huge, black mist, that the only access I have to it is now and maybe a three-month window backwards, and that beyond that it's simply gone. Of course, I remember things from my childhood and young adulthood quite clearly, but once you get to 1986, my only signposts are years at the post office and what I was doing there. (Maybe I was born to be a mailcarrier!)
So all I have is God, and me, and a few months. I'm sure the memories are safe with him.
I am going back to work, parttime, on the fifth of January. I'm ready for that.
Back to Woiwode again--he's set up this huge outside wood-burning furnace, and hasn't even gotten it completely installed when the worst winter in years descends on him. I am intimidated, first of all, by the mechanical tasks he performs, and secondly, by the winter itself and the lack of electricity, which is going to kill them all if the co-op doesn't get it turned back on. But the co-op itself could get some people killed trying to fix it in the blizzard. Which takes me back to the middle of Romans 8 and the messed-up universe we're living in. But Paul says creation itself is waiting for the "freedom of the glory of the sons of God," and I believe that with all my heart.
It is now 5:52--I'm going to proof this, then go back to bed, get up, worship, eat Korean food, drive my daughter to a winter retreat on the southeastern side of Greensboro, and (hopefully!) go look at a used pickup in Advance.
The big word in that whole sentence is this--worship!
--Sayonara, Chuck Eggerth
P.S.--I was going to tell you about one of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 73. I call it "confessions of a knucklehead", but a real knucklehead wouldn't have told us about it. Asaph gets himself freaked out by looking at wicked people who prosper. But then he goes to the sanctuary (remember what I said about worship?) and God shows him the truth, and he starts telling it to us, about how he was a brute beast in God's presence as long as his delusion persisted. And here are the verses I've memorized: "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
Amen.
P.P.S.--I forgot to tell you something God taught me this week. It was Thursday and I had been dithering all week about figuring out the computer stuff--e-mails to word documents, creating a blog, etc., and then Alison and I spent nearly three hours and got it all done. But when I reviewed the day that evening in bed, I was still stressed--this time about some other foolish item. And I realized I needed to repent of this blamed worrying, that worrying had actually become an idol. And I did, which hooked me up to the Holy Spirit again and got me out of my "brute beast" condition. Today, of course, it was something else to worry about; but I'm making progress.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Before I start in about myself, let me remind you of a couple of folks who are in considerably worse condition than I am. One of them is my brother-in-law, Paul Rudy, from SE Wisconsin. He has finished a successful stem cell transplant therapy, to cure B-cell lymphoma, but they won't know until February if it killed the cancer. I was reading his blog the other day, and he quoted something he read in A.W. Tozer.
"To the child of God, there is no such thing as accident. He travels an appointed way. The path he treads was chosen for him when as yet he was not, when as yet he had existence only in the mind of God.
"Accidents may indeed appear to befall him and misfortune stalk his way; but these evils will be so in appearance only and will seem evils only because we cannot read the secret script of God's hidden providence and so cannot discover the ends at which He aims....
"The man of true faith may live in the absolute assurance that his steps are ordered by the Lord. For him, misfortune is outside the bounds of possibility. He cannot be torn from this earth one hour ahead of the time which God has appointed, and he cannot be detained on earth one moment after God is done with him here. He is not a waif of the wide world, a foundling of time and space, but a saint of the Lord and the darling of His particular care."
If that last sentence does not set your heart on fire, it's been raining on your kindling wood. And now a C.S. Lewis quote, from an e-mail from Paul's wife (my sister Elaine).
"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."
I think that one gets to the heart of it, because deep down, we're all cowards. But we have to believe God will give us courage. And he will, but not until the moment we need it.
Another person I've been praying for a lot is Rhonda Dering, from Redeemer Presbyterian in Winston-Salem. She has leukemia. I've temporarily lost her blog address, but she is in Duke Hospital and the last I heard, the human prognosis was not good.
As to my situation, I am slowly gaining strength. I had a wonderful Sunday, which started at my church in Greensboro, Korean First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro. I think you know I don't speak Korean, but we do have both an English ministry and a Korean ministry. We've recently been blessed with an outstanding pastor for the EM side, a man who prays and a man with a vision. We are in the process of formulating a small group program, about which I am very excited.
From church, I went to a Christmas party at the jail, where we split into four groups, each of which did a half-hour worship service in four different living areas. Part of our worship, as volunteers, was to distribute gifts and candy. We also sang, and prayed, and preached; and just blazed before their eyes, alight with the Holy Spirit.
And then it was on to "Night in December" at Redeemer. This is a talent night where folks from Redeemer let it all hang out. I promise you, if you didn't know better, you wouldn't guess this is a PCA church! The music was scintillating, every bit as good as (but not better than) the KFPC adult choir. And there was even a skit about a place called "Possum Lodge," where one of the fellows was wondering why he got exiled to the porch for buying his wife a silver-plated socket set for their twenty-fifth anniversary.
I really think this is about all you've got time to read, but tune in some time soon when I will tell you about the rest of the week.
See you later, alligators!
--Chuck E.
"To the child of God, there is no such thing as accident. He travels an appointed way. The path he treads was chosen for him when as yet he was not, when as yet he had existence only in the mind of God.
"Accidents may indeed appear to befall him and misfortune stalk his way; but these evils will be so in appearance only and will seem evils only because we cannot read the secret script of God's hidden providence and so cannot discover the ends at which He aims....
"The man of true faith may live in the absolute assurance that his steps are ordered by the Lord. For him, misfortune is outside the bounds of possibility. He cannot be torn from this earth one hour ahead of the time which God has appointed, and he cannot be detained on earth one moment after God is done with him here. He is not a waif of the wide world, a foundling of time and space, but a saint of the Lord and the darling of His particular care."
If that last sentence does not set your heart on fire, it's been raining on your kindling wood. And now a C.S. Lewis quote, from an e-mail from Paul's wife (my sister Elaine).
"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."
I think that one gets to the heart of it, because deep down, we're all cowards. But we have to believe God will give us courage. And he will, but not until the moment we need it.
Another person I've been praying for a lot is Rhonda Dering, from Redeemer Presbyterian in Winston-Salem. She has leukemia. I've temporarily lost her blog address, but she is in Duke Hospital and the last I heard, the human prognosis was not good.
As to my situation, I am slowly gaining strength. I had a wonderful Sunday, which started at my church in Greensboro, Korean First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro. I think you know I don't speak Korean, but we do have both an English ministry and a Korean ministry. We've recently been blessed with an outstanding pastor for the EM side, a man who prays and a man with a vision. We are in the process of formulating a small group program, about which I am very excited.
From church, I went to a Christmas party at the jail, where we split into four groups, each of which did a half-hour worship service in four different living areas. Part of our worship, as volunteers, was to distribute gifts and candy. We also sang, and prayed, and preached; and just blazed before their eyes, alight with the Holy Spirit.
And then it was on to "Night in December" at Redeemer. This is a talent night where folks from Redeemer let it all hang out. I promise you, if you didn't know better, you wouldn't guess this is a PCA church! The music was scintillating, every bit as good as (but not better than) the KFPC adult choir. And there was even a skit about a place called "Possum Lodge," where one of the fellows was wondering why he got exiled to the porch for buying his wife a silver-plated socket set for their twenty-fifth anniversary.
I really think this is about all you've got time to read, but tune in some time soon when I will tell you about the rest of the week.
See you later, alligators!
--Chuck E.
December 19, 2008
My doctor said I would still be feeling pretty crummy at least a couple of weeks after the radiation ended. The man was a prophet, but I am beginning to see some improvement. Yesterday I rode my exercise bicycle for fifteen minutes at a fair to middling clip, and was considerably less fatigued than a week earlier, when I rode five minutes, slowly, and was exhausted. I did not sleep well last night, which is typical after a day when the adrenaline runs, but that too is part of a pattern, and I can see improvement.
(At this point in the epistle, Alison came along and wanted to use the computer to download tunes onto her ipod. Because we trust her discernment in matters musical, I was glad to do it. It took all afternoon, and so now I'm writing on the 20th of December. But it was a matter of priorities, and now we'll get back to what I was saying.)
Fear is a terrible thing, and we all have more than our share of it. Fear in the night is even worse. Two nights ago, I was lying on the floor beside my bed with my head on a pillow (my favorite praying posture!) and fighting one after another. Some of you may know how it is--terrible things happening to your family, etc., etc. But I zeroed in on my prayer targets and finally put the fear out of my mind, though it took awhile. It seems the nights you pray the hardest, you get hit the worst. (The nights you don't pray, you go right to sleep!)
This morning I was lying in bed alternating between a nameless sense of dread and listening to my stomach growl, when I thought I heard the air horn on a Winston-Salem Southbound freight train. Believe me, that galvanized me! (If you've seen some of my train t-shirts, you know I'm looney on this topic.) I was out of bed in a heartbeat. Turned out to be a false alarm, but it got me up.
I fed the dogs, took care of the cat litter, and finally got around to feeding the birds. The tray had been empty for a couple of days, but the little rascals throw out a certain kind of seed they don't like, and I was waiting for them to break down and clean it up. You know who won on that deal.
I had to sweep my way up the stairs, on a wet morning, and sweep the discarded seed off the side of the deck, another chore, but it was worth it. English sparrows constitute eighty percent of what congregates on the railing, but the chickadees and cardinals and titmouses (or is that titmice?) and juncoes and occasional red-bellied woodpeckers make up for the nuisance. And I get to praise God for the deck. When my father-in-law helped us build the house in 1991, he built a deck that will be standing fifty years from now. (The house is not too bad either! One of our neighbors at the time, a contractor himself, gave us quite a compliment--"You've got a lot of nails in this house.")
Speaking of the house, I was thirty-nine when we built it, and the weight of the whole project lay on me like a cement slab. I would have had to read the directions to nail my sister's shoes to the floor, but between Priscilla and her father, the job concluded successfully in three and a half months. Believe me, I did a lot of the hammering and sawing and carrying shingles, but when it came time to think things through, it was not me doing the thinking.
Which is a picture of the kingdom--we all have different gifts for different jobs.
But I really don't think God put anyone in charge of worrying!
Auf Wiedersehen--Chuck E.
P.S.--Alison has been teaching me how to convert e-mail to word documents, and I would like to compile an entire collection of these little epistles I've sent out. If any one has been keeping them, could you e-mail them back to me? Thanks!
(At this point in the epistle, Alison came along and wanted to use the computer to download tunes onto her ipod. Because we trust her discernment in matters musical, I was glad to do it. It took all afternoon, and so now I'm writing on the 20th of December. But it was a matter of priorities, and now we'll get back to what I was saying.)
Fear is a terrible thing, and we all have more than our share of it. Fear in the night is even worse. Two nights ago, I was lying on the floor beside my bed with my head on a pillow (my favorite praying posture!) and fighting one after another. Some of you may know how it is--terrible things happening to your family, etc., etc. But I zeroed in on my prayer targets and finally put the fear out of my mind, though it took awhile. It seems the nights you pray the hardest, you get hit the worst. (The nights you don't pray, you go right to sleep!)
This morning I was lying in bed alternating between a nameless sense of dread and listening to my stomach growl, when I thought I heard the air horn on a Winston-Salem Southbound freight train. Believe me, that galvanized me! (If you've seen some of my train t-shirts, you know I'm looney on this topic.) I was out of bed in a heartbeat. Turned out to be a false alarm, but it got me up.
I fed the dogs, took care of the cat litter, and finally got around to feeding the birds. The tray had been empty for a couple of days, but the little rascals throw out a certain kind of seed they don't like, and I was waiting for them to break down and clean it up. You know who won on that deal.
I had to sweep my way up the stairs, on a wet morning, and sweep the discarded seed off the side of the deck, another chore, but it was worth it. English sparrows constitute eighty percent of what congregates on the railing, but the chickadees and cardinals and titmouses (or is that titmice?) and juncoes and occasional red-bellied woodpeckers make up for the nuisance. And I get to praise God for the deck. When my father-in-law helped us build the house in 1991, he built a deck that will be standing fifty years from now. (The house is not too bad either! One of our neighbors at the time, a contractor himself, gave us quite a compliment--"You've got a lot of nails in this house.")
Speaking of the house, I was thirty-nine when we built it, and the weight of the whole project lay on me like a cement slab. I would have had to read the directions to nail my sister's shoes to the floor, but between Priscilla and her father, the job concluded successfully in three and a half months. Believe me, I did a lot of the hammering and sawing and carrying shingles, but when it came time to think things through, it was not me doing the thinking.
Which is a picture of the kingdom--we all have different gifts for different jobs.
But I really don't think God put anyone in charge of worrying!
Auf Wiedersehen--Chuck E.
P.S.--Alison has been teaching me how to convert e-mail to word documents, and I would like to compile an entire collection of these little epistles I've sent out. If any one has been keeping them, could you e-mail them back to me? Thanks!
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