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- Written by: Don Goulding
But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication will rise with healing wings, and you will skip about like calves released from the stall. (Malachi 4:2)
My family raises our beef. The other day I looked out the window to see three red angus charge past. Dad had left the pasture gate open and the escapees were having a good trot around the house. A two-month-old calf took the lead, his long legs causing him to rock more than gallop.
“Hey Junior, slow down,” the mama cow seemed to say. “It’s all I can do to keep up with this udder bouncin’ hither and yon.”
A frolicking good time was had by all until Farmer Dad chased the mischievous bovines to their side of the fence.
Malachi says I’m going to jump around the new creation like that calf. When every fear, including the fear of acting silly, is removed from our existence, then Malachi’s prophesy will come true. I’ll leap through my new home of green and gold, rest and healing. Best of all, the delight of my heart, whose name is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, will run beside me and laugh a hearty welcome. Everything I remotely hoped for, and much more, will become my new reality.
The assurance that I will skip in heaven is born of the unshakable promises made all through the Bible.
You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalms 16:11) (NIV)
Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake -some to everlasting life … (Daniel 12:2)
And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. (John 14:3)
Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more - or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist. (Revelation 21:3-4)
It is all so real, so absolutely certain—I could do a calf leap right now.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
Now godliness combined with contentment brings great profit. For we have brought nothing into this world and so we cannot take a single thing out either. (1 Timothy 6:6, 7)
I walked past a line of patients waiting outside our makeshift dental clinic in Zimbabwe. Inside, the dentist aimed a flashlight and a needle into an open mouth. A kitchen chair and some extraction tools completed the operating theater.
In rural Africa, there’s no money for prevention or fillings. When a tooth hurts, it’s extracted. After the last patient, the dentist showed me a tub of seventy-nine teeth pulled that day.
Those patients had waited for the rare opportunity when a dentist would help them without full payment. That meant there were many Africans normally living with elevated tooth pain, and yet they were always cheerful when I met them on the bush paths.
This is a primary difference between African Christians and me. They are diligent in spiritual arenas and passive with earthly circumstances. I’m the opposite—nonchalant about spiritual matters and outraged by physical brokenness. Given the chance to exchange their spiritual wealth for physical prosperity, I believe most native disciples would refuse. They know the importance of what they have, and don't have.
Materialism robs me of the African’s simple contentment. I have a hard time learning that less is more. I need less entertainment and more Spirit filling, fewer possessions and deeper relationships. The less must come before the more, and my old nature doesn’t want to accept that order.
I need to go African. If the poor natives can take their broken circumstances, together with God’s promises, and thrive, then so can I. Push my heartaches into a pile, then let me clap and boogie around them, African style. Let’s celebrate together because our God redeems.
Prayer: Jesus, teach my heart true contentment.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For there is more to life than food, and more to the body than clothing. (Luke 12:22, 23)
During our early years of marriage, Dani and I lived in rental houses. Later we owned our homes. While owning generally has long-term financial benefits, it also comes with concerns for mortgages, maintenance, and taxes. As a renter, I wasn’t anxious about how the neighbor’s abandoned cars lowered my equity, or about fixing the roof. All that was the landlord’s problem.
Living for God makes him the landlord and me the renter. I’m unqualified to handle the worries of owning life. I need a simpler code of existence. I can trade a thousand concerns for one rent payment of pleasing Jesus. Instead of juggling anxieties for friends, health, and job security, listening to the Spirit of Jesus becomes my one uncomplicated payment. Everything else is his responsibility.
Renters travel light. This life is only a brief encampment, and we don’t invest in additions that will be left behind when we move. Instead, we focus on improvements, like integrity and charity, that can be packed up and taken with us.
Renters also know the equity accrues to the Lord. The assets and resources aren’t ours. Anything achieved in his service belongs to him. It all came from him, and it returns to him.
Ownership is too exhausting. I have to fret about the dilapidation in my life, and struggle to pay for each mistake. I’d rather admit bankruptcy, then move into his real estate, free of sanctimonious works. His righteousness is a first-rate accommodation, and staying in his joy is like living on permanent vacation.
The time I save by not owning life is much better spent praising my Landlord.
Prayer: Jehovah Jireh (God Provides), take ownership of all I am.