What happens when a man begins to live without God’s help … making decisions contrary to His revealed will within the pages of Scripture? Eli, the unrepentant high priest who raised Samuel, found out the answer to that question when he heard that the ark of God had been captured on a nearby battle field. He fell backward and died when he received the news. Eli’s wicked and corrupt sons, Hophni and Phinehas, found out the answer when they brought the ark of God to the battle front to give the soldiers courage. They and their comrades were massacred on the same battlefield. The wife of Phinehas found out the answer as she went into labor upon hearing about the death of her husband. Before she died in childbirth she named her firstborn son Ichabod so that her people would remember that “the glory is departed from Israel”.
The answer to this question is very basic: the man who forgets God will be judged. God is our rock … our help … and when any man forgets that fact, he is on the pathway to death. The practical outworking of this truth in the life of a believer is that God disciplines His children in love so that they can come back to rest in dependence and submission to the Father.
The story of Eli and God’s discipline of his family doesn’t end there. After the people of Israel were oppressed by the conquering Philistines they “lamented after the Lord”. They remembered where real life and true help come from. Through the leadership of an older and wiser Samuel, and the supernatural intervention of God, they turned back to God and soundly defeated the Philistines on the same battlefield where the glory of God had departed twenty years before.
After the victorious battle Samuel raised up a great stone and named it Ebenezer which literally means “stone of help”. Now when the people and their children saw this rock they were reminded of this great lesson of life so aptly stated by Moses 350 years before:
The eternal God is thy refuge,
And underneath are the everlasting arms …. Deuteronomy 33:27
On a certain day in June on the last day of school this year I found myself on a similar battlefield. I felt the twin blast of a double barreled shotgun as I turned 62 years old and retired after 40 years of teaching all on the same day.
One year before this encounter with father time God had introduced the possibility of teaching mathematics in a Christian school in the Dominican Republic. After a conversation with the administrator I agreed to pray and prepare for one year as I sought God’s leading. By the end of the year I was sure that God would honor my decision to retire from my job here in Idaho so I could teach in that school.
My departure date is August 1st so my wife and I are busily engaged in the task of accomplishing a to-do list that seems to grow longer the closer we get to the deadline. This part of it is a normal phenomenon which doesn’t bother me (too much.) What concerns me more is my spiritual condition. My daily prayer has been that I would have the heart of David which he expressed in one of his psalms:
Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning;
For in Thee do I trust:
Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk;
For I lift up my soul unto Thee. Psalm 143:8
At my age, and in this uncertain economy, I do not make this decision lightly. I cannot afford for the glory of the Lord to depart. (Who can?!) I do not want to rest on my own wisdom or strength. Without God’s help I know I can not go through with this decision.
Shortly before I officially signed the retirement papers and decided to commit to the two-year overseas contract, I spent some extended time with the Lord. Again, my prayer was expressed so perfectly by David:
O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth:
And hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works.
Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God,
Forsake me not;
Until I have shewed Thy strength unto this generation,
And Thy power to everyone who is to come. Psalm 71:17,18
So, by God’s grace, my wife and I will embark in a few weeks on a small journey in the eyes of most observers … a monumental challenge in our eyes … and we are depending on God’s help. But, however sincere and insightful I appear to be right now, I realize that I have a propensity toward self reliance. The state of ungratefulness and sinful independence may sometimes come as the thundering gallop of conscious rebellion, but in my experience it is rather the soft kitten paws of undetectable compromise.
Therefore this blog will be a place for me to remember God’s help on a consistent basis as I reflect on my time in the Dominican Republic during the next two years. It will be a place to declare His strength and His power to all who happen to stop by and look at my Stone of Ebenezer.
The answer to this question is very basic: the man who forgets God will be judged. God is our rock … our help … and when any man forgets that fact, he is on the pathway to death. The practical outworking of this truth in the life of a believer is that God disciplines His children in love so that they can come back to rest in dependence and submission to the Father.
The story of Eli and God’s discipline of his family doesn’t end there. After the people of Israel were oppressed by the conquering Philistines they “lamented after the Lord”. They remembered where real life and true help come from. Through the leadership of an older and wiser Samuel, and the supernatural intervention of God, they turned back to God and soundly defeated the Philistines on the same battlefield where the glory of God had departed twenty years before.
After the victorious battle Samuel raised up a great stone and named it Ebenezer which literally means “stone of help”. Now when the people and their children saw this rock they were reminded of this great lesson of life so aptly stated by Moses 350 years before:
The eternal God is thy refuge,
And underneath are the everlasting arms …. Deuteronomy 33:27
On a certain day in June on the last day of school this year I found myself on a similar battlefield. I felt the twin blast of a double barreled shotgun as I turned 62 years old and retired after 40 years of teaching all on the same day.
One year before this encounter with father time God had introduced the possibility of teaching mathematics in a Christian school in the Dominican Republic. After a conversation with the administrator I agreed to pray and prepare for one year as I sought God’s leading. By the end of the year I was sure that God would honor my decision to retire from my job here in Idaho so I could teach in that school.
My departure date is August 1st so my wife and I are busily engaged in the task of accomplishing a to-do list that seems to grow longer the closer we get to the deadline. This part of it is a normal phenomenon which doesn’t bother me (too much.) What concerns me more is my spiritual condition. My daily prayer has been that I would have the heart of David which he expressed in one of his psalms:
Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning;
For in Thee do I trust:
Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk;
For I lift up my soul unto Thee. Psalm 143:8
At my age, and in this uncertain economy, I do not make this decision lightly. I cannot afford for the glory of the Lord to depart. (Who can?!) I do not want to rest on my own wisdom or strength. Without God’s help I know I can not go through with this decision.
Shortly before I officially signed the retirement papers and decided to commit to the two-year overseas contract, I spent some extended time with the Lord. Again, my prayer was expressed so perfectly by David:
O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth:
And hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works.
Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God,
Forsake me not;
Until I have shewed Thy strength unto this generation,
And Thy power to everyone who is to come. Psalm 71:17,18
So, by God’s grace, my wife and I will embark in a few weeks on a small journey in the eyes of most observers … a monumental challenge in our eyes … and we are depending on God’s help. But, however sincere and insightful I appear to be right now, I realize that I have a propensity toward self reliance. The state of ungratefulness and sinful independence may sometimes come as the thundering gallop of conscious rebellion, but in my experience it is rather the soft kitten paws of undetectable compromise.
Therefore this blog will be a place for me to remember God’s help on a consistent basis as I reflect on my time in the Dominican Republic during the next two years. It will be a place to declare His strength and His power to all who happen to stop by and look at my Stone of Ebenezer.
Here I raise mine Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I’m come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wand’ring from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandr’ring heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above.
From the hymn “Come, Thou Fount” by Robert Robinson
1 comment:
James,
Your thoughts are both sobering and encouraging. The insight shared and the prayerful entreaties and commitment to seek God's face has been very convicting to my own self-reliant heart.
It is clearly evident that you have been gifted as a teacher. May God use the skill He has blessed you with in mighty ways both in the Dominican Republic and also here, on your blog.
Thank you so much for sharing your reflections.
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