In a rush-to-market world, we tend to forget the context of stories, carelessly misplacing salient facts, skipping directly to the punch lines. We overlook the delays between promise and fulfillment. Writers and speakers are aware, if too much detail is added, readers and listeners will lose interest and tune out.
To illustrate, some have never had to limit their diet to foods in season. Planes daily move foods inter-continentally and we have grown accustomed to eating what we want when we want it. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Pierce, an Irish Canadian with flaming red hair and short fuse, told our class how, as a little girl, she saw oranges only once a year, in the toe of each family member’s Christmas stocking. Oranges seldom reached her village. When they did, her family was too poor to enjoy oranges more than once a year.
Growing up in Michigan, strawberries appeared on my family’s dessert plates only a few times, for about two weeks in early summer, when nearby farmers brought the best berries in the world to Detroit markets. We ate what was in season or canned foods. In contrast, this morning I sliced a banana grown in South America and added the color of fresh strawberries from California.
The wonder-filled, miraculous events Pat and I have experienced, occasions when God intervened in an unforgettable way, are all true. But, I omitted details in an effort to keep the story short, to keep readers reading. For instance, Pat and I shared five or more days of dry uncertainty between our offer on a house being refused and the miraculous events I related. Weeks of delay preceded Mr. Foreman appearing as an angel and rescuing Calvary Assembly.
One night, immediately before the heaven-sent events that led to the purchase of our first home, I was restless, sleepless. (My definition of worry is, “staying awake and reminding God of things I am convinced He has forgotten!”) I knew the right verses, could repeat anecdotes of God’s interventions, and looked confident in public, but, at night, when alone, I was a mess. After tossing and turning, hearing the grandfather clock chime 1:00 AM, 2:00AM ... Pat very comfortingly suggested, “If you have to stay awake, why don’t you get out of bed so I can sleep?” Such empathy!
Wrapped in a robe, I shuffled in slippered feet to a makeshift basement study. The Spirit prompted me to begin reading The Revelation. I reasoned, “Well, John did write that everyone who read the words of the book and did them would be blessed.” I need to be blessed!
The first chapters of The Revelation are a district superintendent’s worst nightmare. All but one church was in doctrinal, moral or ethical trouble. I missed the part about the radiance of Jesus in chapter one. I was preoccupied with my burden, my fear. I forgot who was presiding in the heavens. Following chapters are full of horses and horsemen. I found no solace or encouragement in pits, whore, or flowing blood. Besides, I was chilled, and alone, so alone.
Suddenly, amid all the despair, dread, and doubt the Spirit lifted The Eternal Word into time, my time. Into space, my space. In the darkest hour I had known to that date, “The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End,” appeared, not visibly, but surely, absolutely, unquestionably present. Simultaneously, I read chapter 11, verse 15, there, amid witnesses in sack cloth, seals, swords and bloodied streets I heard, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever!” I sat in silence, worshiped without voice. The place was too sacred, too holy. After a while, I closed my Bible and went back to bed and slept!
Israel’s Negev is a dry, barren, fruitless, huge and bland stretch of real estate. There are no mountains, no rivers, no trees. It is in the Negev where Abraham, the father of the faith, lived, built altars and pitched his tents. Moses herded sheep there – for forty years. Neither Abraham, nor Moses, lived to see the fullness of God’s promise.
Jesus spent less time in Jerusalem, the power place of established religion than he did in Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin. The spaces between divine interventions can appear as endless deserts.
A gospel song from my childhood seems to fit here.
The Lord's our Rock, in Him we hide,
A Shelter in the time of storm;
Secure whatever ill betide,
A Shelter in the time of storm.
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A weary land, a weary land;
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A shelter in the time of storm.
A shade by day, defense by night,
A shelter in the time of storm;
No fears alarm, no foes afright,
A shelter in the time of storm.
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A weary land, a weary land;
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A shelter in the time of storm.
The raging storms may round us beat,
A shelter in the time of storm
We'll never leave our safe retreat,
A shelter in the time of storm.
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A weary land, a weary land;Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A shelter in the time of storm.
O Rock divine, O Refuge dear,
A Shelter in the time of storm;
Be Thou our helper ever near,
A Shelter in the time of storm.
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A weary land, a weary land;
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A shelter in the time of storm.
Walk on dear friends! Jesus will deliver us safely to the promised destination!
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