A Place to Live

For some months now I've been house hunting. It's been a frustrating process. Rents on nice apartments are way out of my budget range and places that I can afford are small and not too nice. A friend in the real esate business has been showing me small homes to buy in South Philadelphia. I've seen two that I particularly liked but by the time we tried to make an offer, both were already under contract to someone else. I keep looking both at rental units and homes to purchase.but the frustration continues. I know that the Lord has a place for me. Finding it is just more work than I had bargained for. When I find it it will be in the right location at the right price with all the necessary amenities--or lack of them. Most certainly it will not be what I expect, but it will be the place of God's own choosing. God has, after all, promised to provide for all our needs.

I've been reflecting on the Psalmist's statement, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations." (Ps. 90:1) I've lived in various places in the world, and no matter where I've gone, I've been at home in God, no mater how great the adjustment of moving or the culture shock of being in a totally different place. I've lived in an unheated room in Paris, which had no hot water, in a story book looking chalet in Switzerland, in a room in a grand old villa on a hillside overlooking Florence, in the basement of some friends' home, in an apartment in the center of Florence in a building that I found on a town map dating from the late 1400's. I house-sat in London, shared a friend's apartment in Queens, NY, and found shelter with various people while travelling in Asia and Africa. The Lord has always provided a place to stay.

As I look back over the list of the dwellings in which I have found abode, all I can say is that there has been incredible diversity. I'm reminded of a line from an old gospel song: "A tent or a cottage, why should I care? They're building a mansion for me over there."

I guess it boils down to that. If God is our ultimate abode here on earth, then we look forward to more of same, although in a richer, fuller sense than we have ever known, in the life to come. It's more than a spiritual hope. It's a place. Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you." We have reason to believe that the dwelling that He is preparing for us far outshines anything we can imagine here on earth. The architect and builder is the Creator of the universe Himself. There will be no leaky roofs, wet basements, termites, faulty wiring, sagging walls, unstable foundations, etc. It will be perfect. It's worth looking forward to.

"Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come..the city that has foundatinons, whose designer and builder is God." (Hebrews 13:14, 11:10)

"Some through the fire...'"

Yesterday morning as I was having my devotions I heard sirens. When they died down and stopped near my building I admit that I found it hard to concerntrate on Malachi, so I put down my Bible and went out onto my balcony to see what was happening.

The fire truck was parked in front of the condos across the street and firemen in full gear were knocking on the outside doors of the various apartments, trying to rouse people, or get them to open their windows to let in some fresh air and let out the smoke, which began at one point to pour out of one of the lower apartments.

The firefighters must have brought the fire under control quickly, because within about a half hour they were gone.

All this was a very powerful trigger for my memories of nearly two years ago when the building next door to where I was then living caught fire. We were roused from sleep at about 1:00 am with the state of the art fire alarm that had been installed in our building just a few months before. What was my reaction? No, it was not fear. It was just plain annoyance at being distrubed in the middle of a sound sleep. I'd just returned from Cameroon two days before and was quite jet lagged. Sleep was a precious commodity at that point and I wanted to capture as much of it as possible. Imagine the indignity of being roused by a fire alarm at a time like that!

When I could not ignore the alarm any longer, I got up, washed my face and dressed. I grabbed my glasses and my purse and prepared to evacuate, hoping that all of this would soon be over and we could go back to sleep.

Now, for years I had a plan that if ever I had to evacuate, I would take certain treasures with me. If I were in the bedroom, I would take certain paintings off the wall and grab certain other valuables and get out. If I were in the living room, I'd grab other things. This particular night I saw the silk rug I'd bought from a Tibetan rug seller in Nepal, and I picked it up, put it over my shoulder and opened the door to my apartment. Then I thought, "Why am I taking this?" I commited my home and my belongings to the Lord saying, "Lord, I'm not going to take anything. I am commiting all my belongings to you, and I want you to watch over everything. Please preserve what I need, but it's all yours and I'm letting go of it." With that I left.

The fire turned out to be much more serious than anyone had bargained for. The building next door was completely destroyed, and the fire spread to the roof of our building. The firefighters poured an incredible amount of water on the whole thing and when I went back the next day everything was awash. I ended up spending the rest of the night in the Red Cross shelter in a nearby school. I thought about the relative value of my posessions, even thouse whtat had been passed down through generations of my family. Everyone who posessed them before me left them behind. Moreover, it occured to me that one day everything will be destroyed by fire: "The elements shall melt with fervent heat..." and I thanked God for things that abide forever.

I'm afraid that I backed into the Scriptural principle through the hymn that went through my mind, "When through firey trials thy pathway shall lie
My grace all sufficient shall be thy supply,
The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design,
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the floods, they shall not overflow you; when you pass through the fire, it shall not kindle upon thee, neither shalt thou be burned." Isaiah 43:2.

Grace In Affliction

GRACE IN AFFLICTION

It was a rough year. Between August 2003 and the end of July, 2004, my apartment building was destroyed in a fire, my mother died, I had major surgery and three weeks later a routine mammogram revealed a “suspicious lump” that turned out to be cancer.

The Bible tells us that no testing comes upon us that is not “common to man”, something that everyone else goes through. All my neighbors, both Christian and non Christian lost their homes in the fire. In a fallen world, most of us will someday lose our parents. I was not the only person scheduled for surgery last summer, and when I visit the oncology department, the waiting room is usually full of people. However, as a Christian, we have at least three advantages over our unbelieving friends.

First, we have the promise of God’s own presence: “When you pass through the waters I will be with you.”(Isaiah 43:1) “Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”(Psalm 23: 4)

Second, we are part of the Body of Christ, and have the ministry of all other believers. After the fire, for example, it was a family in the church who took me in, and there was a great outpouring of love from people in the church. When I went for surgery last summer, a friend from the church took me to the hospital and then sat with me in the waiting room, and waited for me during the surgery. People sent flowers and cards (I have a whole shopping bag of cards from last summer!) and most importantly, prayed for me. I felt very sustained by your prayers. Your prayers are a very precious gift to me.

When we go through times of trial, we also know that our trials have meaning and they are accomplishing something. Paul, who had his share of trials, wrote: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outward nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight and momentary affliction is preparing for us a weight of glory beyond comparison.” (II Corinthians 4:16-17) In the midst of each of my trials, the Lord reminded me that each was a “light and momentary affliction”, no matter how big and overwhelming it seemed at the time. This life is not all that there is. We are made for eternity, and the Lord is at work in us to make us like Himself so we can dwell with Him forever. In the light of eternity, then, anything that happens to us here is by comparison, “slight and momentary.” What the Lord promises us is an amazing exchange: what is light or “slight” for something that has weight and substance; what is momentary (and in the light of eternity everything is momentary) for what is eternal; affliction for glory. This is all well worth having!

How we respond to the things that happen to us is also part of the spiritual battle. The book of Job tells us about this. We can choose to trust God or to deny Him. God is glorified when we trust Him in affliction.

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis records the correspondence between a senior devil and a junior tempter, instructing him on how to gain possession of a human soul. In the eighth letter, he tells him that humans pass through peaks and troughs. It is, surprisingly, the troughs that the “Enemy” (God) uses to make human beings like Himself. Some of the people with whom he is most pleased have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. He ends by saying, “Do not be deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do the Enemy’s will, looks about a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, asks why he has been abandoned, and still obeys.”