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- Written by: Don Goulding
Yesterday, our pastor challenged us to consider what we would say to our younger self. Here is what I'd tell that knucklehead-
So teach us to consider our mortality,
so that we might live wisely. (Psalms 90:12)
If you will listen these words, your life will go better than mine did.
Going to Bible college and entering ministry are the third and fourth best decisions you will make. Embrace those choices.
Your second best decision is the wife you will marry. Cherish her everyday.
Numero uno of all your choices is your vow to follow Christ.
To live well, don’t stop at accepting the forgiveness of Jesus. Put all of who you are into becoming like him.
Don’t run after the pleasures of the world. Trying to get fulfillment from the temporal is like gasping oil. It slips through your fingers and you’ll never hold joy.
The average person is given 2.5 billion seconds to live. Use them wisely. Don’t repeat my mistakes.
The sooner you lean there is nothing in the world that satisfies, the sooner you will cling to only Jesus. He is your past, your present, and the sum of your future.
I know your mule headed thoughts. You think I must be wrong. You want a way to gain the benefits of the world and eternity with Jesus. But, Younger Self, I have the advantage of experience and hard won wisdom. You must choose Jesus or the world. Then go and live every second intentionally.
Prayer: Lord, let me use my short life wisely.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
But our citizenship is in heaven - and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ… (Philippians 3:20)
I’m a patriot. I love my country with passion, though I’ve never been there. I was born in a foreign land, where my father came from. Mother and Father met when she visited his country, but she made sure I received citizenship in her homeland.
When Dad saw how things were going in his land, he changed his citizenship to the same as ours.
I’m amazed by the patriotism of those I live among. They love their country. More accurately, they love what their country was, or what they hope it will be. They complain about what it is. Still, they wave flags and sing anthems, and I grow quiet. When they brag about the landmark sites of their despoiled land, it’s hard for me to keep silent about my home.
I understand patriots. I also get crazy mad defending my people and my government. Let anyone speak against our heritage and my adrenalin runs. I catch snatches of my mother’s songs, hear our accent spoken, or read about the coming reunion, and my mind flies home.
A dialysis connection binds me to the capital of my country. My blood flows to that radiant city where it’s purified, then returned to my vagabond body.
Others consider me crazy to be a flaming patriot of a land I’ve never been to. But the place is so amazing that you don’t have to see it to be a loyalist of heaven.
Prayer: King of Paradise, I’m ready to immigrate whenever you say, “Come home.”
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- Written by: Don Goulding
Many will be purified, made clean, and refined, but the wicked will go on being wicked. None of the wicked will understand, though the wise will understand. (Daniel 12:10)
When I flush the toilet, befouled water is swept through pipes until it shows up at the sewage plant. After sticks and debris are screened off, the “waste liquor” is sprayed over a bed of jagged stones. Each drop percolates down the gauntlet of rough surfaces, is collected at the bottom, and returned to the top for repeated buffeting. This process forces life-giving oxygen into the droplets so invisible microbes can consume the waste.
The removal of sewage from water is disgusting business, but then, so is the removal of sin from a heart.
Daniel says the wise understand what happens when they encounter rocky trials. Understanding allows them to embrace the process. Everybody, wise and unwise alike, has the brown sludge of self-rule in their hearts. Everybody is strained through the rocks of life. But only the wise use the buffeting for purification.
The unwise simply bounce from one trial to another, never seeking God’s strength or perspective. They come out at the bottom as soiled with attachments to earthly life as when they went in. What a pity they endure suffering for nothing. How grieved is the heart of God over the unwise.
There is much to be gained in trials. Each rock forces me against the life-giving Spirit, begging for his comfort and direction. With an invisible process, the awe of Christ consumes my contaminated agenda. The waste liquor of self-rule is removed, and I’m left with nothing but a sparkling trust in God.
Prayer: Lord, help me accept purification.