Author: danefowlkes

“He maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth and his hands make whole.” Job 5:18

As we pass beneath the hills which have been shaken by the earthquake and torn by convulsion, we find that periods of perfect repose succeed those of destruction. The pools of calm water lie clear beneath their fallen rocks, the water lilies gleam, and the reeds whisper among the shadows; the village rises again over the forgotten graves, and its church tower, white through the storm twilight, proclaims a renewed appeal to His protection “in whose hand are all the corners of the earth, and the strength of the hills is his also.” (Streams in the Desert)

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain).

It is hard to be unwanted. She should be immune by now to faces turned the other way she told herself, but the sting of dismissal brought its own brand of shame she couldn’t shake. Unclean—she hated the word and the shun that accompanied judgment. She had done nothing to deserve the disgrace. Twelve years is an eternity for anyone enduring the ignominy of private torment and public ban. Her modest means of support was long gone with nothing to show for it. Some took her money hoping to help; others simply took her for a ride. Either way, her condition was worse now than in the beginning, and she was penniless to boot. With nowhere else to turn, hope ebbed away like the final grunts of a dying man when she overheard strangers speak of a healer headed her way. He was not approaching to find her, obviously, but she quickly formulated a plan. No one in their right mind would stop to help her, but perhaps she could reach out and touch the healer healing before he passed out of reach.

It was against the Law to do such a thing, but years of banishment from the temple and enduring public and private hell made her desperate. She knifed her way through the throng, ceremonially sullying all she touched in the process, and reached out and grasped his cloak from behind. The gesture was not intended to foster attention; she desired healing not notoriety, but the moment she brushed his garment the bleeding stopped. She looked down in bewilderment, stunned at the sudden change. In an instant, one touch secured more than twelve years of treatments and her last mite combined.

Jesus never leaves anyone anonymous. People were jostling and pushing into Him from all over, yet he stopped, turned, and asked, “Who touched me?” (Mark 5:30). The disciples were incredulous for the interruption, but Jesus knew that healing power had gone out of Him. We cannot “steal” a miracle from God. The crowd parted as the woman stepped forward and explained herself. To her astonishment and relief, Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering” (Mark 5:34). Jesus placed desperation on par with faith, and healing was the result.

Contrary to popular opinion, faith does not paint God into a corner. Faith does not change God; it changes us. As a result, our focus shifts from gaining what we desire, to permitting God to do all He desires in and through us. We all need healing of one kind or another, whether we admit it or not. An inordinate amount of suffering is self-induced, but Jesus stands ready to heal that which we bring on ourselves as well as that which is outside our control. The healer never leaves us as he finds us. The question is not, “Do you want to be healed?”, but rather, “How willing are you to change?” In desperation, reach for the healer, and you will receive more than you bargained for.

“And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.” Joel 2:32

Why do not I call on His name? Why do I run to this neighbor and that when God is so near and will hear my faintest call? Why do I sit down and devise schemes and invent plans? Why not at once roll myself and my burden upon the Lord?

Straightforward is the best runner–why do not I run at once to the living God? In vain shall I look for “deliverance anywhere else; but with God I shall find it; for here I have His royal shall to make it sure. I need not ask whether I may call on Him or not, for that word “Whosoever” is a very wide and comprehensive one. Whosoever means me, for it means anybody and everybody who calls upon God. I will therefore follow the leading of the text, and at once call upon the glorious Lord who has made so large a promise.

My case is urgent, and I do not see how I am to be delivered; but this is no business of mine. He who makes the promise will find ways and means of keeping it. It is mine to obey His commands; it is not mine to direct His counsels. I am His servant, not His solicitor. I call upon Him, and He will deliver. (Streams in the Desert)

A friend told me of miraculous answer to prayer in the Middle East that inspires me to call on the Lord. This true story begins by a tender youth opening her heart to Christ, with several relatives following her example. We will call her Mary. Hope dawned for the impoverished family in a dark landscape of fear and oppression, but dimmed again in the days that followed when her eyesight began to fail. Mary was carried to doctors to learn what could be done, but each physician pronounced the same verdict—inevitable blindness. Doctors suggested she should learn to read Braille, but the family was too poor to buy any books and there were no institutions to provide them for her. What began as an alarming situation was now even more grim, so the new disciples cried out in desperation to the Lord.

A church in their neighborhood invited her along with other children to join them for a special program. The eager children pressed into the meager space, and giggled at the puppets, laughed at numerous dramatic presentations, and sang along as best they could. Every portion was carefully orchestrated to present Jesus Christ as Son of God and a willing Savior. At the end of the program, the leader announced a special surprise. Friends from America had sent a shoebox for each child filled with items they could keep. The boxes were distributed, and the leader counted down, “Three . . . two . . . one,” which signaled the children to open their boxes. Children laughed and cheered as they peered inside to find things most of them had never held before, much less possessed. Mary slowly removed the paper and top, and could not believe her failing eyes when she looked inside her own box to find a book written in Braille. She showed it in wonder to the adults, and all were stunned. They quickly went to the other boxes to see if that same gift was repeated in any others, but it was not. In God’s mercy and providence, He placed hope in the exact hands intended to receive it. No hurt is too secret and no need too impossible to share with the God of mercy.

“But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.” Psalms 52:8 | KJV

“The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.” Psalm 103:19

Then did He lay His hand upon me tenderly. “My child,” He said, “thy only safety is, in everything, to love and trust and praise.” (Streams in the Desert)

“I’ve been thinking….” How many times have I said that to myself or others, without pausing to consider the import of the thought? Much of what constitutes life is conducted in our minds, and every meaningful thought is predicated on honesty. There can be no deep reflection, no positive change without intellectual honesty; all other mental activity is smoke and mirrors. Dishonest thought is nothing more than senseless mental chatter. “What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort . . . than being able from time to time to stop that chatter” (F. Buechner, Whistling in the Dark).

Unseen and frequently unsettling, our thought life reflects who we are and determines the people we become. “As a man thinketh …” (Proverbs 23:7); “When I was a child I thought like a child …” (1 Corinthians 13:11).  What am I doing to promote the spiritual discipline of rigorous and honest contemplation?

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” Isaiah 26:3-4, KJV

“God that cannot lie promised.” Titus 1:2

Faith is not working up by will power a sort of certainty that something is coming to pass, but it is seeing as an actual fact that God has said that this thing shall come to pass, and that it is true, and then rejoicing to know that it is true, and just resting because God has said it.

Faith turns the promise into a prophecy. While it is merely a promise it is contingent upon our cooperation. But when faith claims it, it becomes a prophecy, and we go forth feeling that it is something that must be done because God cannot lie. (Streams in the Desert)

“Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it imparts a moral inspiration. Moses endured, not because he had an ideal of right and duty, but because he had a vision of God” (Oswald Chambers).

Faith always costs something. I fail the test when I balk at waiting, or am too timid to act upon the knowledge I do have. I met a small group of intercessors in western Michigan who have met every Monday morning for twenty years to pray for specific needs in the world, in their state, and those right next door. I shared indisputable evidence that God is answering one of their long standing prayers in a mighty way and they began to weep and worship God Almighty. I have rarely witnessed such gut wrenching gratitude. Their faith had obviously cost them much, but to a person they declared the results well worth the wait. Faith demands extravagant love for both the object of intercession, and the Father to whom we pray.

“And the ill favored and lean-fleshed kine did Eat up the seven well favored and fat kin…and the thin, ears swallowed up the seven rank and full ears.” Genesis 41:4,7

There is a warning for us in that dream, just as it stands: It is possible for the best years of our life, the best experiences, the best victories won, the best service rendered, to be swallowed up by times of failure, defeat, dishonor, uselessness in the kingdom. Some men’s lives of rare promise and rare achievement have ended so. It is awful to think of, but it is true. Yet it is never necessary.

S. D. Gordon has said that the only assurance of safety against this tragedy is “fresh touch with God,” daily, hourly. The blessed, fruitful, victorious experiences of yesterday are not only of no value to me today, but they will actually be eaten up or reversed by today’s failures, unless they serve as incentives to still better, richer experiences today.(Streams in the Desert)

A curious phrase gets batted around in Christian circles that smacks more of myth than reality, but is, nonetheless, quite en vogue among believers. The popular spiritual litmus test has to do with finding and following “God’s perfect plan for my life.” Hitting such a minuscule bullseye more resembles a Grimm’s fairy tale or Disney happily-ever-after than a genuine possibility. How could I ever hope to find and experience God’s best in light of the mess I have made of things up to this point? Perhaps I have already relinquished His best and will never get another chance. If mistakes and poor choices along the way disqualify me from God’s plan, I might as well close up shop and waste away with a Mai Tai at Trader Vic’s. In reality, knowing and following God’s purposes is far less fairy tale and much more mystery; full of twists and turns, momentary or enduring suffering, disillusionment and ecstasy, disappointment versus victory, and, sometimes, deep dark secrets.

“Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises all the time” (Oswald Chambers).

What if God’s plan includes all the afore mentioned struggles? What if the Father uses wreckage and mishap to move me ultimately to where He wants? It is at this point that advice from my seminary days comes to my aid. Homiletics professor Dr. Fasol told us the most important lesson we would learn in seminary and in life is simply, “Go with what you’ve got.” No excuses; be present in every moment and live to the glory of God, regardless of what failures crowd your past or how unprepared you are at the moment. Anything you conjure up as the ideal is likely just a figment of your imagination anyway. Disciples slug it out in the trenches; they do not recline in ease on summits of splendor. God’s perfect plan is to surrender this hour to Him and take the next step by faith.

“Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are.” James 5:17

Thank God for that! He got under a juniper tree, as you and I have often done; he complained and murmured, as we have often done; was unbelieving, as we have often been. But that was not the case when he really got into touch with God. Though “a man subject to like passions as we are,” “he prayed praying.”  It is sublime in the original–not “earnestly,” but “he prayed in prayer.” He kept on praying. What is the lesson here? You must keep praying.

Come up on the top of Carmel, and see that remarkable parable of Faith and Sight. It was not the descent of the fire that now was necessary, but the descent of the flood; and the man that can command the fire can command the flood by the same means and methods. We are told that he bowed himself to the ground with his face between his knees; that is, shutting out all sights and sounds. He was putting himself in a position where, beneath his mantle, he could neither see nor hear what was going forward. He said to his servant, “Go and take an observation.” He went and came back, and said—how sublimely brief! one  word—“Nothing!”

What do we do under such circumstances?

We say, “It is just as I expected!” and we give up praying. Did Elijah? No, he said, “Go again.” His servant again came back and said, “Nothing!” “Go again.” “Nothing!”

By and by he came back, and said, “There is a little cloud like a man’s hand.” A man’s hand had been raised in supplication, and presently down came the rain; and Ahab had not time to get back to the gate of Samaria with all his fast steeds. This is a parable of Faith and Sight—faith shutting itself up with God; sight taking observations and seeing nothing; faith going right on, and “praying in prayer,” with utterly hopeless reports from sight.

Do you know how to pray that way, how to pray prevailingly? Let sight give as discouraging reports as it may, but pay no attention to these. The living God is still in the heavens and even to delay is part of His goodness. (Streams in the Desert)

“God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance, and perseverance must finish its work in order for you to be mature and complete.” James 1:2-4

Perseverance is more valuable than ability. What matters in life, is not what you achieve in any given moment, but rather what you willingly endure to the end. Many persons of tremendous promise sparkle like a sprinter bursting forth from the blocks, only to learn that ours is a marathon, not 100 meter dash. One-hit wonders do not make good disciples. Youth inevitably fades like hair color, and time becomes either our friend or bitter enemy. Make certain the handwriting on the wall does not translate, “Weighed in the balance and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27). Perhaps the most pragmatic statement in Scripture is, “Strengthen that which remains” (Rev 3:2). Whatever comes your way today is no surprise to the Father, so bend into the wind and plod forward toward the finish line by God’s mercy.

“When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he raised up a deliverer for the Israelites who rescued them. His name was Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The Lord’s spirit empowered him and he led Israel. When he went to do battle, the Lord handed over to him King Cushan-Rishathaim of Aram and he overpowered him.”  Judges 3:9-10

God is preparing His heroes; and when opportunity comes, He can fit them into their place in a moment, and the world will wonder where they came from. Let the Holy Ghost prepare you, dear friend, by the discipline of life; and when the last finishing touch has been given to the marble, it will be easy for God to put it on the pedestal, and fit it into its niche.

There is a day coming when, like Othniel, we, too, shall judge the nations, and rule and reign with Christ on the millennial earth. But ere that glorious day can be we must let God prepare us, as He did Othniel at Kirjath-sepher, amid the trials of our present life, and the little victories, the significance of which, perhaps, we little dream. At least, let us be sure of this, and if the Holy Ghost has an Othniel ready, the Lord of Heaven and earth has a throne prepared for him. (Streams in the Desert)

It is easy to lose eternity in the daily grind. I am certain Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. meant well when he said, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good,” but problem is just the opposite. I tend to forget Heaven, or at the very least, ignore it. Absorbed with the press of work demands and financial responsibility, I muddle through a string of disconnected moments with no sense of what went before or what lies ahead. In the worst of ways, I whittle away my life treading water. I fall victim to garden-variety myopia when I refuse to see the Father at work in the mundane, and when I fail to recognize His voice midst the incessant racket that vies for my attention. Heaven is but a breath away, and God is even nearer than that. When we see this moment through the lens of eternity, both come into clearer focus.

“A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven.

It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.” (C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity)

“And the one who lives! I was dead, but look, now I am alive – forever and ever – and I hold the keys of death and of Hades!” Revelation 1:18

Flower! Easter lilies! Speak to me this morning the same dear old lesson of immortality which you have been speaking to so many sorrowing souls.

Wise old Book! let me read again in your pages of firm assurance that to die is gain.

Poets! recite to me your verses which repeat in every line the Gospel of eternal life.

Singers! break forth once more into songs of joy; let me hear again the well-known resurrection psalms.

Tree and blossom and bird and sea and sky and wind whisper it, sound it afresh, warble it, echo it, let it throb and pulsate through every atom and particle; let the air be filled with it.

Let it be told and retold and still retold until hope rises to conviction, and conviction to certitude of knowledge; until we, like Paul, even though going to our death, go with triumphant mien, with assured faith, and with serene and shining face. (Streams in the Desert)

I am not intelligent enough to explain in metaphysical detail what takes place when breath and heartbeat cease, but I am wise enough to admit that I do not know how to explain it. Some say death is the start of a gradual journey toward the ultimate reunion. My thoughts run counter to such linear speculation, for I see heaven as a matter of dimension, not distance. Heaven is not a far-off place—some biblical Land of Oz—and the Father is not, as Bette Midler sang, “in the distance.” Scripture throbs with passionate cadence that God is near, making heaven not a trip, but merely a step—what Marcus Borg calls “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.” For all that I’m worth, I believe that those who die in the Lord immediately meet Jesus again for the first time; the only waiting for them is for the opportunity to introduce us. (From Ordinary Glory: Finding Grace in the Commonplace by Dane Fowlkes)

“More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things – indeed, I regard them as dung! – that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8

Shining is always costly. Light comes only at the cost of that which produces it. An unlit candle does no shining. Burning must come before shining. We cannot be of great use to others without cost to ourselves. Burning suggests suffering. We shrink from pain.

We are apt to feel that we are doing the greatest good in the world when we are strong, and able for active duty, and when the heart and hands are full of kindly service. When we are called aside and can only suffer; when we are sick; when we are consumed with pain; when all our activities have been dropped, we feel that we are no longer of use, that we are not doing anything. But, if we are patient and submissive, it is almost certain that we are a greater blessing to the world in our time of suffering and pain than we were in the days when we thought we were doing the most of our work. We are burning now, and shining because we are burning. . . . Many want the glory without the cross, the shining without the burning, but crucifixion comes before coronation.

“The glory of tomorrow is rooted in the drudgery of today.” (Streams in the Desert)

I began the day praying, “God, I want to know you,” followed hard after by the question, “How in the world will I know you today?” Had I been in some remote location on a spiritual retreat of some kind, I may have answered the question with thoughts from Bonhoeffer or Chambers or any of my other favorite authors who operate as spiritual mentors. But this was a normal week day, and my deep seated desire to know God soon gave way to mundane demands of the day—washing machine repair, taking out the trash, writing thank you cards to partners, database entries to make, reports to assemble, dishes to wash, beds to make, ad infinitum. Not exactly the setting one might expect as especially conducive for experiencing the divine.

Do not confuse the extraordinary moment for knowing God:

“One of the great snares of the Christian worker is to make a fetish of rare moments. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say—‘Now I will always be like this for God.’ No, you will not, God will take care you are not. . . . If you say you will only be at your best, you are an intolerable drag on God; you will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments.” (Oswald Chambers)

Abraham Lincoln touts some pretty good theology when he states, “The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.” The same applies to common experience; our days and nights consist largely of repetition, tried and hackneyed cliches. How can I know the Father in the run-of-the-mill that demand the majority of my attention? Were we created for mountains or valleys? God either remains silent most of the time, or He speaks regularly and I simply fail to recognize His voice. What we fail to grasp at our own peril is that the humdrum is exactly where we meet God. Lower your gaze. Stop looking for Christ in the clouds and you will find Him waiting at the convenience store, next door, or in your own home. Prove useful when you are uninspired, and you will know God in a measure that exceeds expectation.

“And there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulcher.” Matthew 27:61

How strangely stupid is grief. It neither learns nor knows nor wishes to learn or know. When the sorrowing sisters sat over against the door of God’s  sepulchre, did they see the two thousand years that have passed triumphing away? Did they see any thing but this: “Our Christ is gone!”

Your Christ and my Christ came from their loss; Myriad mourning hearts have had resurrection in the midst of their grief; and yet the sorrowing watchers looked at the seed-form of this result, and saw nothing. What they regarded as the end of life was the very preparation for coronation; for Christ was silent that He might live again in tenfold power.

They saw it not. They mourned, they wept, and went away, and came again, driven by their hearts to the sepulchre. Still it was a sepulchre, unprophetic, voiceless, lusterless. So with us. Every man sits over against the sepulchre in his garden, in the first instance, and says, “This woe is irremediable. I see no benefit in it. I will take no comfort in it.” And yet, right in our deepest and worst mishaps, often, our Christ is lying, waiting for resurrection. Where our death seems to be, there our Saviour is. Where the end of hope is, there is the brightest beginning of fruition. Where the darkness is thickest, there the bright beaming light that never is set is about to emerge. When the whole experience is consummated, then we find that a garden is not disfigured by a sepulchre. (Streams in the Desert)

The small community I call home excels in simplicity. Ours is not a meager existence, but one definitely scaled-down to essentials. We border a fair-sized city to the south and rapidly sprawling bedroom community to the north; “in-between” is a fair description of Bosqueville. We struggle on purpose to remain that way, and become collectively nervous when urban sprawl threatens to infect our delightfully remote way of life.

We avoid media overload for the most part; outdoor advertising billboards do not scar our rural landscape, but our two clapboard churches do have old-school message boards along Rock Creek Road they change manually from time-to-time. Neither the Baptists nor Methodists get into any hurry to update their messages, and I have heard myself more-than-once ask out-loud the value of the signs when driving by the same quip or quote for the umpteenth time. Both signs display their same messages from the day after Easter, but it is the two word admonition on the Baptist board that pokes my conscience each time I pass: “Practice Resurrection.”

In a very real sense, we are all either waiting for or practicing resurrection. To phrase it another way, we are either bystanders or agents of change. Neutral Christianity is a myth; Resurrection demands response. Some walk away in disbelief, while others run pell mell to the empty tomb and live out the remainder of their days infecting all they meet with the unearthly glow of transfiguration. For God’s sake and that of all those you know and will meet before you die, put on full display the glory of God. Practice resurrection.