Bruce and I follow the Robert Murray M'Cheyne Bible reading plan. We read about four chapters a day and in one year we have read the entire Bible plus the New Testament and Psalms an additional time. We like the plan, but it's just a tool and there are a hundred other plans out there that are just as good. The point is to get you reading your Bible regularly.
One of the problems with a Bible reading plan is that it can become rote -- another thing to check off of the to-do list. I want to avoid that like the plague. This is my daily lifeline with God and I need to recharge and appreciate anew what a gift his word is. There are a couple of things I'm doing to try to make sure I always value my daily reading -- but that's not what I wanted to write about today.
We finished reading the book of Joshua two days ago -- so Judges is on tap. I have a wonderful Bible that Bruce gave me (the ESV Study Bible) and before I start a new book I like to read the study notes about it. The book of Joshua ends with his death and in the notes on Judges it indicates that this occurred in the mid-14th or late-13th century B.C. That got me to thinking about how hard Joshua's life was, but how all of the difficulties have been in the past for so long that I wonder if he even remembers them anymore. (I suppose you don't forget things in heaven, but I also don't think he is troubled by any problems or hardships he suffered in his 110 years on earth.)
I know there has never been heaven on earth (since the Garden of Eden, anyway), but in our own personal lives there are harder times and then there are easier times. I am more blessed than probably 99% of the people who have ever lived when it comes to material goods and physical ease, but we only know what we know and I look around me right now at the state of the world, the state of the country, the state of my mother's health -- and this is one of the harder times in my life. Don't spend any time pitying me (prayers are always gratefully accepted, of course) -- I am not about to jump off of a cliff or anything and I know how many people have it much worse. And in fact, I have been doing a pretty good job of handing everything over to God every day. There are things I would like to be different, but I tend not to be too much of a worrier. I will let God handle it.
But as I was reading about Joshua and thinking about how he ran his race and finished so long ago, there was a twinge of envy in my heart. I always feel that when I hear about a believer dying. I have sympathy and a broken heart for their families who will miss them so much -- but for them the good times have just begun.
I have absolutely NO intention of making this a political blog -- I will avoid it like the plague -- but for the first time in my adult life I feel adrift when it comes to politics. I can't vote for either of the major candidates, so where does that leave me? And I feel so alienated from people who I was supposed to have things in common with -- that they would nominate a man like Donald Trump to be the leader of the party that until now at least nominally stood for things like life, traditional marriage, character makes me feel like I don't belong anywhere. And of course that's true (when it comes to this world, I mean).
So the world is filled with terror, our political situation at home is a mess, I miss my son and his family and my husband (Bruce works out of town all week), my mother's health is not good -- I'm tired of all of this. So as I read about Joshua all I could think of was that the feeling that I have in the pit of my stomach is homesickness. I am homesick for a place I've never been before but where I truly belong. And I know I am not alone.
The famous C. S. Lewis quote addresses this beautifully: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
And there you have it. I wasn't really made for another world -- I was made for this one, but in its uncorrupted state. I was made to walk in the cool of the Garden with God and to converse with him face to face. I was made to rejoice and to praise him, to love my fellow man, to work and to serve with gladness. But when all of that was taken away from mankind our only hope became another world (or this world renewed, depending on your theology).
And there you have it. I wasn't really made for another world -- I was made for this one, but in its uncorrupted state. I was made to walk in the cool of the Garden with God and to converse with him face to face. I was made to rejoice and to praise him, to love my fellow man, to work and to serve with gladness. But when all of that was taken away from mankind our only hope became another world (or this world renewed, depending on your theology).
I told a young mother the other day that "the days are long, but the years are short." And it's true -- I am on the cusp of turning 58 and feel like I ought to be 28. When I am saying goodbye to this earth I will feel the same -- where did the years go? My prayer is to use whatever time I have left wisely (oh, I waste so much time!), to "redeem the time" so that one day I might hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant...enter thou into the joy of thy lord." And then I will finally be home.
