Meeting Tracey

    Walking across the parking lot toward the bus where I was going to meet Tracey was the longest walk of my life.  If I were a movie maker, I could have  made at least a dozen different movies showing the different emotions and thoughts I had along the way.  To say I was nervous is an understatement.  Butterflies?  Bats?  Bigger than that!  More like condors flapping around in my stomach.  I felt like I was going to puke.  (Sorry, I know that’s gross, but it’s true nontheless.)  I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited, so scared, as I was walking toward that bus.  I’d like to tell you I was overwhelmed with confidence and positive thoughts, but I’d be lying.  I kept telling myself that it was going to be okay, that it was going to work out, that we would meet and it wouldn’t be awkward.  We would see each other, and it would be just wonderful.  While I was thinking these thoughts, I had to keep banishing the ones coming inbetween.
     I told myself it wasn’t too late.  I could always high tail it and run.  I could go back to the van, and beg Dad to take me away (By the way my Dad would never have done that).  I doubted my sanity, my intelligence, my courage, my faith.  I lashed myself with all the failures of my past.  How could I even consider asking another woman to be a part of my life?  How in the world could I have done it this way?  Here I was meeting a woman for the first time that I had never ever seen, and didn’t have a clue what she looked like.
     I thought of a million reasons to turn and run, to do anything other than what I was doing, and yet I kept walking toward the bus that had just pulled up.  I walked toward the gate Tracey would come through with a boquet of flowers in my hand, and hope in my heart.  As I mentioned I had all kinds of reasons for not going forward to meet her, and yet I walked on, and reached the gate she was going to come through just as the door of the bus opened.
     People began to get off, and here I stood waiting for Tracey.  I can’t imagine how I must have looked to people as I stood there waiting for her.  I can’t remember if I thought of the flowers at the last minute or not.  I’d like to think that I thought of them way before hand, but in truth I don’t know if I did or not.  I only know that I had the flowers with me ready to give her should she show.  Yes, the thought did cross my mind that this was just a terrible prank being played on me by some scam artist on the internet, but I had put the thought away bound and determined to see it through.  I figured if she didn’t show it would be no less than I deserved.  So there I stood feeling more than a little stupid, as the question “Is that her” kept repeating itself in my mind with the appearance of each woman that came off the bus.
     I know it couldn’t have been more than maybe ten or fifteen minutes but it seemed like it took hours for people to get off.  With each woman that got off, I’d look intently at her, trying to make eye contact, with-what I’m sure was-a ridiculous smile on my face.  Since I have the nervous habit of shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I’m fairly sure that I looked exactly how I felt.  I knew that she had the advantage.  I was the only one standing at the gate.  I don’t mean the only man standing with a bunch of flowers in my hand.  I mean I was the only one at the gate, so I was pretty sure she knew who I was, but I had no idea who she was.  She could take a good long look at me and if she decided she didn’t like what she saw she could just walk right by me and I’d never know.  So not only was I asking myself “Is she the one” as each woman passed, but I was also thinking “maybe that was her and she didn’t like what she saw.”  
     I kept running the gamut of emotions as each woman came off the bus.  Looking for some tell-tale sign.  Any kind of smile, a quick glance, a frown, a snort of disgust, a shriek in panic, anything to give me an indication that this was the woman I was supposed to meet.  Here I was standing in front of this bus watching people disembark, shifting from one foot to the other, smiling insanely (how you smile insanely I don’t know, but I felt sure I was), staring so hard at people I felt as if I could look right through them, and alternately holding the flowers at waist level, then in front of my face peeking around them like I was standing behind a tree.  I don’t know when it was I realized that I was playing looky loo through the flowers, but when it dawned on me that I was doing so I was really embarrassed and beet red (I turn red when embarrassed or angry so there’s never any hiding what I feel from anyone).
     Suddenly, this black woman steps off the bus, looks directly at me, gives me this great big smile, and starts walking toward me with her arms open as if to embrace me.  I’m stunned, frozen, can’t move.  I want to move toward her.  Tell myself that I have to.  Command my feet to move, but I can’t.  At this moment I’m absolutely terrified, and having a real moment.  “But this can’t,” I tell myself.  “This can’t be Tracey.  It doesn’t feel right.  Something’s wrong.”  Suddenly I realize I’m faced with something I hadn’t really allowed myself to consider.  I thought I had.  Somehow, during all our hours together talking over the internet, I had formed a picture of Tracey in my mind; an impression had begun to grow; it was almost as if I could feel her, as if I knew her as I did myself, and this woman walking toward me wasn’t . . . .her.  At that second had there been a hole I could have crawled into I would have.  How was I going to face her?  What was I going to say?  How could I tell this woman approaching me that she didn’t fit the image I had of her.  
     I started to move toward her, then suddenly she waves at me, and veers away walking off in the opposite direction.  I’m so stunned to see her walking away from me that I don’t know what to do or think, then from behind me I hear this lovely female voice say, “Hi Wayne.”  I turned around to see a tall redhead standing there with the biggest grin on her face, and a big black duffle bag slung over her shoulder.  “Are those for me,” she asked.  Just as I knew almost instantly that the woman who had approached me earlier couldn’t be Tracey, I knew that this woman was.  How?  I can’t tell you except that I knew.  It took me a minute to switch on, then I said, “who else would they be for?”
     “You’re sweet,” she said, drops the bag and gives me the biggest, most fierce hug I’ve ever had in my life, and that was how me and Tracey met, but it was just the beginning.

From “Morning and Evening” by C.H. Spurgeon

     Just a reminder that sleep isn’t all that we should want.

“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.”

Pro_24:33, Pro_24:34

The worst of sluggards only ask for a little slumber; they would be indignant if they were accused of thorough idleness. A little folding of the hands to sleep is all they crave, and they have a crowd of reasons to show that this indulgence is a very proper one. Yet by these littles the day ebbs out, and the time for labour is all gone, and the field is grown over with thorns. It is by little procrastinations that men ruin their souls. They have no intention to delay for years-a few months will bring the more convenient season-to-morrow if you will, they will attend to serious things; but the present hour is so occupied and altogether so unsuitable, that they beg to be excused. Like sands from an hour-glass, time passes, life is wasted by driblets, and seasons of grace lost by little slumbers. Oh, to be wise, to catch the flying hour, to use the moments on the wing! May the Lord teach us this sacred wisdom, for otherwise a poverty of the worst sort awaits us, eternal poverty which shall want even a drop of water, and beg for it in vain. Like a traveller steadily pursuing his journey, poverty overtakes the slothful, and ruin overthrows the undecided: each hour brings the dreaded pursuer nearer; he pauses not by the way, for he is on his master’s business and must not tarry. As an armed man enters with authority and power, so shall want come to the idle, and death to the impenitent, and there will be no escape. O that men were wise be-times, and would seek diligently unto the Lord Jesus, or ere the solemn day shall dawn when it will be too late to plough and to sow, too late to repent and believe. In harvest, it is vain to lament that the seed time was neglected. As yet, faith and holy decision are timely. May we obtain them this night.

From the Writings of Andrew Murray

     No man can let his past define him when he turns to God. 

Dealing With the Past

“Believe ye that I am able to do this?” (Matt. 9:28).

God deals with impossibilities. It is never too late for Him to do so, when the impossible is brought to Him, in full faith, by the one in whose life and circumstances the impossible must be accomplished if God is to be glorified. If in our own life there have been rebellion, unbelief, sin, and disaster, it is never too late for God to deal triumphantly with these tragic facts if brought to Him in full surrender and trust. It has often been said, and with truth, that Christianity is the only religion that can deal with man’s past. God can “restore the years that the locust hath eaten” (Joel 2:25); and He will do this when we put the whole situation and ourselves unreservedly and believingly into His hands. Not because of what we are but because of what He is. God forgives and heals and restores. He is “the God of all grace.” Let us praise Him and trust Him. –Sunday School Times

“Nothing is too hard for Jesus No man can work like Him.”

“We have a God who delights in impossibilities.” Nothing too hard for Me. –Andrew Murray

　

From “Daily Meditation” by Rev. George Bowen

     As christians let us look at our lives in view of who our Lord and Savior is, and the gift of eternal life He gives.

” This is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.” —

1Jn_2:25.

Not that we shall be exempt from loss disappointment, sickness, human unkindness, embarrassment, vexation, insult, defamation, humiliation; not that we shall have in this world all the displays of providential favor on which we may have calculated; these are not the things promised; the promise that he hath promised us is eternal life. God may have dealt strangely with thee, my soul; but say frankly, has he at all dealt with thee in a way to hinder the fulfillment of the promise made thee?

We are saved by hope. He that believeth hath eternal life; he hath entered upon it; he is living a new life, one that stretches out into eternity; but what he has experienced is only the beginning of it. We know not yet what we shall be; as the infant little knows what is the life it possesses, what its endowments, its susceptibilities, its privileges.

This promise of eternal life is the door opening out from the gloom of this world into the ever-blooming paradise of God. To the common ear of man it is an empty sound. Men care nothing for eternal life, because they know nothing of life. A man must have experience of life before he can hail with rapture the promise that that life shall be eternally his. What is life? Life in God is life. A vital conscious union of the soul with God through Christ; so that the individual is transferred to God; his body, his soul, his understanding, his affections, his desires, his purposes, all under the direction of God; not in such a way as to diminish in the least his individuality, his voluntariness; but to enhance it, refine it, perfect it; this is life. Now with regard to the mere life of the body, hardly any one has it in perfection; death and decay have set their marks on all. Of even the merely corporeal life of paradise, we have but a faint shadow. Similarly, with regard to those who have entered upon eternal life, spiritual life is with them a matter of degree; one has it in one degree, one in another; but who has it in perfection? According to the degree in which we possess it, does the simple promise of eternal life seem to us a sufficient dowry; a talisman under the influence of which deserts are no longer deserts to us, privations no longer privations.

Eternal life and all things essentially conducive to it; such is our portion. Sometimes Satan may creep into our imagination and persuade us that some bright and beautiful phantom, some lovely creation wrought out of the stuff that rainbows are made of, is absolutely necessary to the web of our eternal life, and then we cling to it with something of the tenacity of our love to Christ; Satan laughs, but we awake in spite of him, and notwithstanding the scar at heart, soon satiate ourselves with that better portion, now better understood. God builds the bridge by which we pass into the unclouded region of eternal life, stone by stone, as we step by step advance; every day he lays down the stone on which we are that day to put our foot. Some beholding the far-stretching morass before them and discerning no bridge, refuse to advance; they wait for God; but God has put down a stone for them, and will add no other until they have begun to walk.

　

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From “Goszner’s Treasury” by Johannes Gossner

     The mouth and the heart.  There’s a big connection between the two.  Too many of us fail to realize that our mouths too often speak what is in our hearts.

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. Pro_23:26. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. 1Pe_3:15. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Mat_5:8. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Mat_12:34.

 

To give one’s heart to God means to preserve one’s heart pure from everything which is not God; to cling with one’s heart to naught but God and Christ; to have the same will as God; to delight in everything in which God is well pleased, and to shun everything that displeases God. He who is ever filled with God, filled with love to Christ; who in all things is led and constrained by love to Jesus only, who does not ask, “What will the world say about it?” but who asks, “What does my Beloved wish? What does the God of my heart delight in? What is His good pleasure? How am I best to find the will of God?”, he sanctifies God in his heart. He who does not permit himself the slightest unrighteousness, not even things permissible, though he gain the whole world thereby, because he knows that God, Christ, does not wish it, or is unwilling that it shall be done, has given and sanctified his heart to God: his heart is pure; such a heart sees God. He whose heart is filled with love to God, can not with his lips give utterance to anything which is not of God. The mouth is the betrayer of the heart. But it is also often a deceiver and a liar; for in the hypocrites it can speak of God and of love to Christ, while God and love to Christ are not in the heart. Yet not always. The mouth betrays at times that which dwells in the heart, because the mouth of those who are not on right terms with God in their heart, is changeable and does not always say the same thing.

 

Lord, in ceaseless contemplation
Fix my thankful heart on Thee,
Till I taste Thy full salvation,
And Thine unveiled glory see.

 

　

 

From “Morning and Evening” by C.H. Spurgeon

   

November 20

     As christians, let us not forget that we’re to walk with confidence.  We’re to live as if we already have what we’ve been promised.

“0 Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul.”

Lam_3:58

Observe how positively the prophet speaks. He doth not say, “I hope, I trust, I sometimes think, that God hath pleaded the causes of my soul”; but he speaks of it as a matter of fact not to be disputed. “Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul.” Let us, by the aid of the gracious Comforter, shake off those doubts and fears which so much mar our peace and comfort. Be this our prayer, that we may have done with the harsh croaking voice of surmise and suspicion, and may be able to speak with the clear, melodious voice of full assurance. Notice how gratefully the prophet speaks, ascribing all the glory to God alone! You perceive there is not a word concerning himself or his own pleadings. He doth not ascribe his deliverance in any measure to any man, much less to his own merit; but it is “thou”-“O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.” A grateful spirit should ever be cultivated by the Christian; and especially after deliverances we should prepare a song for our God. Earth should be a temple filled with the songs of grateful saints, and every day should be a censor smoking with the sweet incense of thanksgiving. How joyful Jeremiah seems to be while he records the Lord’s mercy. How triumphantly he lifts up the strain! He has been in the low dungeon, and is even now no other than the weeping prophet; and yet in the very book which is called “Lamentations,” clear as the song of Miriam when she dashed her fingers against the tabor, shrill as the note of Deborah when she met Barak with shouts of victory, we hear the voice of Jeremy going up to heaven-“Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.” O children of God, seek after a vital experience of the Lord’s lovingkindness, and when you have it, speak positively of it; sing gratefully; shout triumphantly.

From “Music For The Soul” by Alexander Maclaren

     At times, we allow things to disrupt and get in the way of our relationships with others.  When those things happen let us be quick to acknowledge and deal with them so they don’t hamper us or put distance between us and the ones we love.

FOLLOWING AFAR OFF

 

But Peter followed Him afar off. – Mat_26:58

Many women were there beholding from, afar. – Mat_27:55

The consciousness of God’s presence with us is a very delicate thing. It is like a very sensitive thermometer, which will drop when an iceberg is a league off over the sea, and scarcely visible. We do not want His company, or we are not in harmony with His thoughts, or we are not going His road, and therefore, of course, we part. At bottom there is only one thing that separates a soul from God, and that is sin – sin of some sort, like tiny grains of dust that get between two polished plates in an engine, that ought to move smoothly and closely against each other. The obstruction may be invisible, and yet be powerful enough to cause friction which hinders the working of the engine and throws everything out of gear. A light cloud, that we cannot see, may come between us and a star, and we shall only know it is there because the star is not visibly there. Similarly, many a Christian, quite ignorantly, has something or other in his habits or in his conduct or in his affections which would reveal itself to him, if he would look, as being wrong because it blots out God.

Let us remember that very little divergence will, if the two paths are prolonged far enough, part their other ends by a world. Our way may go off from the ways of the Lord at a very acute angle. There may be scarcely any consciousness of parting company at the beginning. Let the man travel on upon it far enough, and the two will be so far apart that he cannot see God or hear Him speak. Take care of the little divergences which are habitual, for their accumulated results will be complete separation. There must be absolute surrender if there is to be uninterrupted fellowship.

Such, then, is the direction in which we are to look for the reasons for our low and broken experiences of communion with God. Oh! dear friend, when we do as we sometimes do, wake with a start, like a child that all at once starts from sleep and finds that its mother is gone – when we wake with a start to feel that we are alone, then do not let us be afraid to go straight back. Only be sure that we leave behind us the thing that parted us.

You remember how Peter signalized himself on the lake, on the occasion of the second miraculous draught of fishes, when he floundered through the water, and clasped Christ’s feet. He did not say then, ” Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord! ” He had said that before on a similar occasion, when he felt his sin less; but knew that the best place for the denier was with his head on Christ’s bosom.

So, if we have parted from our Friend, there should be no time lost ere we go back. May it be with us all that we walk with God, so that at last the great promise may be fulfilled about us, ” that we shall walk with Him in white,” being, by His love, accounted ” worthy,” and so ” follow,” and keep company with, ” the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.”

　

　

From “Morning and Evening” by C.H. Spurgeon

     How much of our conversations with others lead to any benefit?  Do we quibble and strive over things of no importance.?  What a waste to spend our time contending with people over things that don’t matter.

“Avoid foolish questions.”

Tit_3:9

Our days are few, and are far better spent in doing good, than in disputing over matters which are, at best, of minor importance. The old schoolmen did a world of mischief by their incessant discussion of subjects of no practical importance; and our Churches suffer much from petty wars over abstruse points and unimportant questions. After everything has been said that can be said, neither party is any the wiser, and therefore the discussion no more promotes knowledge than love, and it is foolish to sow in so barren a field. Questions upon points wherein Scripture is silent; upon mysteries which belong to God alone; upon prophecies of doubtful interpretation; and upon mere modes of observing human ceremonials, are all foolish, and wise men avoid them. Our business is neither to ask nor answer foolish questions, but to avoid them altogether; and if we observe the apostle’s precept

(Tit_3:8) to be careful to maintain good works, we shall find ourselves far too much occupied with profitable business to take much interest in unworthy, contentious, and needless strivings.

There are, however, some questions which are the reverse of foolish, which we must not avoid, but fairly and honestly meet, such as these: Do I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Am I renewed in the spirit of my mind? Am I walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit? Am I growing in grace? Does my conversation adorn the doctrine of God my Saviour? Am I looking for the coming of the Lord, and watching as a servant should do who expects his master? What more can I do for Jesus? Such enquiries as these urgently demand our attention; and if we have been at all given to cavilling, let us now turn our critical abilities to a service so much more profitable. Let us be peace-makers, and endeavour to lead others both by our precept and example, to “avoid foolish questions.”

From Winslow’s “Morning Thoughts”

     Sometimes we forget that as brothers and sisters in Christ it’s as important to look out for their reputation and their well being as it is our own.   The thing that distinguished the early christians was their love and commitment to each other.  It was the witness of that love that propelled christianity across the globe.  We must give witness to that same kind of love for each other in our lives.   

“Charity suffers long, and is kind; charity envies not; charity boasts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

TRUE Christian love will excite in the mind a holy jealousy for the Christian reputation of other believers. How sadly is this overlooked by many professors! What sporting with reputation, what trifling with character, what unveiling to the eyes of others the weaknesses, the infirmities, and the stumblings of which they have become cognizant, marks many in our day. Oh! if the Lord had dealt with us as we have thoughtlessly and uncharitably dealt with our fellow-servants, what shame and confusion would cover us! We should blush to lift up our faces before men. But the exercise of this divine love in the heart will constrain us to abstain from all envious, suspicious feelings, from all evil surmisings, from all wrong construing of motives, from all tale-bearing-that fruitful cause of so much evil in the Christian Church-from slander, from unkind insinuations, and from going from house to house retailing evil, and making the imperfections, the errors, or the doings of others the theme of idle, sinful gossip-“busy-bodies in other men’s matters.” All this is utterly inconsistent with our high and holy calling. It is degrading, dishonoring, lowering to our character as the children of God. It dims the luster of our piety. It impairs our moral influence in the world. Ought not the character of a Christian professor to be as dear to me as my own? And ought I not as vigilantly to watch over it, and as zealously to promote it, and as indignantly to vindicate it, when unjustly aspersed or maliciously assailed, as if I, and not he, were the sufferer? How can the reputation of a believer in Jesus be affected, and we not be affected? It is our common Lord who is wounded-it is our common salvation that is injured-it is our own family that is maligned. And our love to Jesus, to His truth, and to His people, should caution us to be as jealous of the honor, as tender of the feelings, and as watchful of the character and reputation, of each member of the Lord’s family, be his denomination what it may, as of our own. “Who is weak,” says the apostle, “and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?” Oh how graciously, how kindly does our God deal with His people! Laying His hand upon their many spots, He seems to say, “No eye but mine shall see them.” Oh! let us in this particular be “imitators of God, as dear children.” Thus shall we more clearly evidence to others, and be assured ourselves, that have “passed from death unto life.”

　

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