Tag: eternal

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Not Yet Home

krisshetter

First published on December 8, 2023 as part of the Soli Deo Gloria series.

“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14:13-14

I had just found out that my boyfriend of three years was seeing another young woman behind my back. I didn’t know her, but she apparently knew all about me. I discovered this betrayal during a surprise visit to my (soon-to-be ex) boyfriend’s house –finding the two of them together. Now, looking back, it seems almost funny that he ran away and she stayed to tell me about the affair. I drove away, anger, sadness, betrayal, and confusion swirling inside me.

As I made my way home those emotions turned to despair. At 18 my world revolved around him. I was crushed and felt broken. Just a few miles from home, driving on the freeway, I did the unthinkable.  I looked up and said, “I’d rather die right now.” Then I let go of the wheel.

Thankfully, the usually busy freeway was almost devoid of traffic as my car veered out of its lane and crossed two others. Then came a whisper: He isn’t worth your life.  As I grabbed hold the wheel again I realized it wasn’t time for me to go to my eternal home.

I’ll admit that a couple of other times in my life I’ve wished it was my time. The last time I felt that way I finally sought help and realized my menopausal body was in complete disarray. With a caring, thoughtful doctor I went on a small dose of antidepressants to get me through this life transition. At the same time I turned and grabbed hold of the Lord. And I asked Him to heal me.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” John 14:1-4

This week my church has taken a deep dive into this passage. This idea of “going home.” The promise Jesus makes to His disciples, and all other believers, is that He has made a beautiful, comforting place for us. We only need to seek Him and believe. But at rare times we yearn so much for that place we go ahead of God and try to take a shortcut. We want to be in control of that timeline because of pain and sadness.

Friend, I want to remind you, however, of two things. First, when Jesus took the glorious and awe-inspiring step to leave His earthly home and join us in the flesh He declared the Kingdom has come. We look to the heavens and dream of that place. But Jesus brought the Kingdom to us. John the Baptist was the first to herald this truth.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Matthew 3:2

He came so we would experience great joy, love and peace through Him in this earthly kingdom. He came to give us the great command to love one another as He loves us. We can experience His peace and love right now. We just need to ask Him to show us the path. Throughout Scripture, He reminds us that His great love is not only for His people collectively, but for each of us individually.  He loves every single hair on our heads. He can wipe away our tears with a gentle reminder that He loves us so much He took on our pain and suffering.

Secondly, He came to prepare us for an eternal kingdom. He wants each of us to complete our God-given purpose while we are here for a relatively short time. We have a purpose and He has a plan. That purpose? To glorify Him each and every day through our works.

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”  John 14:12

Jesus never promises us a physically easy life. A life full of rainbows and unicorns. In fact, He makes it clear to the disciples that we may even be despised by following Him. But He does promise that we won’t be alone, that we can ask for help and He will provide. That we will experience the fruit of the spirit when we love others. And when the time comes we will be welcomed home to join in His glory.

He asks us to live outwardly: serving, washing feet, loving, and making peace.  Not worrying about today or tomorrow but trusting in Him. Keeping a watchful eye for the smallest of blessings and sharing them with others. He asks us to live our best and brightest life in service to Him. When we obey and trust in the Lord we find our despair, our anger, our hurt shrink as our hearts grows bigger. Sounds a litte like the Grinch, doesn’t it?

While we aren’t promised to never experience loss or pain we are promised our great Comforter. When He left the heavenly kingdom He opened Himself up to tears, physical pain, and even death. He knows how you feel.

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. … I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” John 14:15-19

Jesus in the most glorious of ways lives in us so that we may live to glorify the Father. To look outward so that He may heal us inwardly. And when we have run our race, touched as many lives as He has planned for us, squeezed every last bit of love we can from our bodies in service to others, He will surely welcome us home.

May all Glory be given to Him alone. Amen

Friend, if you are experiencing overwhelming despair and sadness first look upward to the Lord for help. Seek immediate assistance through the many resources available in your community — possibly through your church, a Christian counseling group or a hotline. If you have a friend or family member you can go to knowing you will be received well, call them today and tell them you need help. You are precious my friend. And you are needed here for a specific piece of God’s plan.

If someone you love or know has talked about suicide here’s some ways to respond (from the Mayo Clinic)

  • Get help from a trained professional as quickly as possible. Your friend or loved one may need to stay in the hospital until the suicidal crisis passes.
  • Urge the person to contact a suicide hotline.
    • In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or use the Lifeline Chat. Services are free and confidential.
    • U.S. veterans or service members who are in crisis can call 988 and then press “1” for the Veterans Crisis Line. Or text 838255. Or chat online.
    • The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S. has a Spanish language phone line at 1-888-628-9454 (toll-free).

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Enjoying the Cycle of Life & Death

krisshetter

First published March 18, 2024 as part of the Enjoy Life: From meaningless to meaningful series.

I had a dream the other day that I had died.  I didn’t die in the dream; I was already dead.  In the dream, I was aware of my death and now “living” in an idyllic New England-style bay village.  The whole situation seemed a bit quirky and yet normal.  There was the typical mom and pop breakfast and lunch café, an ice cream shop on the corner, and even a small inn with a welcoming lobby bar featuring wine nights.  My death-fellows walked about in full acceptance that this was their final destination.  They were friendly and colorful.  It all was so normal yet I kept saying, “surely this can’t be it?”

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

Ecclesiastes 3 might be one of the most well-known chapters in the Bible simply because in 1959 singer-songwriter Pete Seeger wrote the song, “Turn Turn” or “To Everything There Is a Season.” The Byrds made the song famous in the 1960s, drawing its lyrics from Ecclesiastes 3.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain that which is to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time of love, and a time of hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

Seeger’s motivation was to emphasize the last line in King Solomon’s list of cyclical life – peace.  But Solomon’s goal was to remind us again that the world keeps spinning round and round and at times may seem so meaningless.  He reflected on wickedness and judgment – a judgment that would be sought out at each of our deaths.

Death, my friends, comes to us all.  We may want to dance around that truth with familiar colloquialisms such as, “If I die….”  But the truth of death stares us in the face each year when we reflect on the people we have “lost.”  “Lost” as though we don’t know what happened to them or where they went.  Maybe they’re wandering around in some idyllic New England town.  Maybe they are in a fiery furnace.  Or maybe they are “with the Lord.”  

As a Christian, I know there are two roads to take toward death: 1) the way of the world and sin which leads to terrible judgment and hell or 2) the way of Jesus, leading to the glorious New Eden in which love abounds.  For the non-believer they may have chaos in their mind when they ponder death. If they’re atheists, like my father, they might believe that when we die we just disappear into nothingness. Others might hope for something better — like free ice cream for life, surrounded by Golden Retrievers. Many might imagine a walk up to the “pearly gates,” standing before an angel with a book of “infractions and do-goods” hoping the balance sheet is in their favor. For the atheist or confused, none of what they believe has as solid a foundational truth like the Bible.

For the Christian, we can look at Solomon’s list of “this and that” with comfort.  By trusting in God and His promises, we can seek Him in every circumstance, both the seemingly good and bad.  Each season Solomon describes contains complexity: sorrow may carry blessing, and even joyful seasons may contain loss.

“Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” John 16:6-7

The disciples were facing the truth about life.  We will die.  Jesus was the only one to ever know the exact day and hour.  In that death notice, however, Jesus gave them the preview of the blessing to come – the gift of the Holy Spirit. They still grieved mightily, but when the Holy Spirit descended upon them, they remembered His words and were healed.

Part Two of Enjoying the Cycle of Life & Death where we discover there are no “ordinary people.” Click here for part two.

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The Eternal God

krisshetter

“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” – Psalm 90:2

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” – Revelation 1:8

It is Jewish tradition to end a teaching with a doxology.  And in those doxologies the eternal nature of God is reinforced. Christian heritage picked up this same tradition adding the Trinity to our doxologies.  You are probably familiar with this one:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son:

and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:

world without end. Amen.

The concept of eternal or never-ending finds itself throughout history in books, movies, poems, etc.  The Spaniards, led by Ponce de Leon, once searched for the Fountain of Youth, thought to be in Florida.  You can see this supposed fountain in St. Augustine, Florida for a mere $21.55.  

Then there’s the tech billionaire Bryan Johnson who spends $2 million a year trying to keep from growing old and dying.  I, for one, would use that money to have a lot more fun with the limited time I’ve been gifted.  We are promised throughout the Bible that our lives are like the wildflowers or the prairie grass.  We bloom greatly then in the morning we dry up and die.

Sounds inspiring doesn’t it?  But the hard truth is our short, maybe 80-90 years, on this blue planet really are microscopic in God’s universe.  He is the only eternal being (well, the Trinity is but let’s not go down that rabbit hole today!).  He is the Alpha and the whatever comes after forever.

I find it sad however, that people like my father get stuck on the “but what was before God?” or “how was God formed?” questions.  For Christians who believe the Bible to be inerrant we just say we don’t know.  It’s a mystery.  Because there still are mysteries in life.

“Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.” Psalm 102:25-27

There’s a comfort in knowing that God is outside our time.  Because time is what brings so many of us anxiety.  Getting to appointments, preparing for a certain event, looking towards our death or that of a loved one – these all bring a level of worry.  But the eternal promise God gives us through faith and surrender to Him should relieve us of the scary things of this world.

World View vs God View

Wars and rumors of wars is how Jesus put it.  Financial collapses and environmental disasters, world-wide pandemics and rising dictators bring us a near concern.  But with our eyes set on standing with Jesus in the eternal Kingdom we should be able to have peace through so much of this.  He has told us that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not ours.  That’s because He sees the big, eternal picture.  He has worked out the best plan for all time. We know that in Him believers have eternal victory in all things.

For now, we must accept the many mysteries of God.  One day when we are re-united with Christ, we will hopefully see all so much clearer.  Until then,

“To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Timothy 1:17

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From Why? to What?

krisshetter

Lessons from Cherith

He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Luke 24:38

During the time in my own land of Cherith, a place where I was separated from my home, my regular way of life and exposed to great sadness, I so needed to rely on the vast promises of God.  Yet each day I battled the “why” of it all.  Why didn’t the cancer doctors see and recognize the increased cancer markers in my beloved mother-in-law’s blood tests?  Why did each visit to the emergency room end without answers?  But more importantly, why would this woman, a shining light for God, an inspiring gift to everyone around her, a woman, as her pastor reflected at her funeral with a beautiful aura surrounding her, be stricken with cancer and taken so soon? Why God, oh why?

How often have we lamented that why question in our lives?  Why are we suffering financially?  Why is my child rebelling?  Why is my marriage on the rocks?  Why did I suffer that abuse?  It seems as Christians we are expected to answer those questions.  I believe many of us avoid speaking the Gospel to our friends, family and neighbors out of fear of being asked those why’s of life.  In fact, as a young college student who was approached one day on my campus by two religious folks, I too asked the big why – why is there suffering?  You see I believed in God but didn’t really know anything about Him.  Unfortunately, neither did these two young proselytizers.

I recently heard the statement: “If we view the world as a Christian, it all makes sense.”  On the surface that’s a real head scratcher since this world seems so upside down especially now.  Broken families, broken lives, so much pain and death abound.  But take a step back, way back to Genesis 3.

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Genesis 3:17-18

And that’s just a taste of what man’s rebellion wrought.  Creation is currently at odds with God.  And just as cells divide and life moves without our intervention, our world around us is no longer under our full dominion.  So yes, there’s floods and fire and famine and cancer.  And it has absolutely nothing to do with whether we are a good person or not.  In addition to this result of The Fall, we became separated from God, always seemingly looking for ways to buck His system.  And we face the consequences for our actions, both individually and collectively.

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’” 2 Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”  Exodus 5:1-2

And we know how well that went for Pharoah.  But what was Moses’ first reaction after Pharoah knuckled down and made the Israelites work harder?  “Why?”  He asked God why did He have to make things worse and why did Moses have to be the brunt of everything?  From a Christian point of view, we should say, “There’s consequences in this world when anyone chooses to not submit – whether you choose to believe in God or not.”  This is not “Karma,” it’s simply a cause and effect of acting outside God’s desires for us.  

And while we may cry out, “why?!” in the moment whether in situations of our own making or of those in which we have no power, we need to remember the “what.”  What is God doing in me or even in the world?  What is God expecting of me as a believer? What is the promise I can hold on to?  The early Israelites had a decent excuse.  They didn’t know God as well as we do now.  They didn’t have all the stories of how He has rescued and protected His people.  They didn’t have Jesus’ brother James telling them there will be trials and in them they need to seek the lessons of God.  They didn’t have Jesus come to earth and die for their sins.  They didn’t have the Book of Revelation.  But we do.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

So, each day as I sat beside Bev’s bed as her body succumbed not to cancer but to an infection, I battled the “why” demon. I wanted someone punished.  I wanted someone to suffer like I was now suffering.  Then I heard a whisper, “She gets to come home to me.  And you need to see what I am teaching you.”

You see even in her suffering, on her death bed, this Christian called Bev was a conduit for Jesus.  A teacher and a comforter.  I finally realized it didn’t matter the “why.”  For one, there really were no answers that fully satisfied.  At times like that we just need to submit to God’s sovereignty and say, “I don’t know but He does.”  The only real answers that I continued to come back to were the “what.”

What did I truly believe about God?  And what was He trying to teach me?

Christian Friend, if you earnestly believe the Bible, believe that God is the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and all it’s inhabitants, if you believe He is sovereign and He sent His Son to die for our sins, if you believe that there is a place greater than Eden awaiting us then you could understand why Bev wasn’t worried.  Why she could make us all laugh at her darkest hour.  Why, in the middle of a conversation she looked over my shoulder, waved and with a child-like voice exclaimed in joy, “Hi Jesus!”

2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? John 14:2

You see I didn’t need to know the answers to my worldly questions and I definitely didn’t need retribution.  I needed to remember that Jesus hates death because it’s a sign of our broken world.  And He is right now preparing a room more beautiful than I can imagine for even me.  When He comes back we will all be raised up to live forever in a beautiful place that has no suffering, no death, no pain, no war, no hate, no fear.  And that is just what I needed to learn.

Are you asking “why” in your difficult time when you should be asking “what?”

What is the Lord teaching or asking you right now?  

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“Those” Seasons

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Hello friends!  It’s been a while since I’ve added to my blog.  For the last few months I’ve been in one of “those” seasons.  Loss, heartache, questioning, along with so many conversations with God and His Holy Spirit.  As James reminds us,

“Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”  

And ain’t that the truth.  

We have a few roads from which to choose when we go through our difficult seasons.  We can beg the Lord to go back to the familiar and comfortable.  We can rush our minds to the other side of the trial either imagining an outcome far worse or far better than we hope or fear.  Or we can learn a bit from Jesus’ brother and “let this perseverance finish its work so we can be mature and complete.”  In other words, we live in this God-given moment right now, seeking His blessings, seeking His voice, and seeking the lessons to be learned.  

The day I wrote this post my devotional reminded me to not work for food that perishes but for the food which endures eternal life. (Charles Stanley, Every Day in His Presence) I was admonished to change my point of view and not focus on the problems right in front of me but rather what God’s interest is in developing me for His eternal purpose.  And very importantly, asking for help in learning His lessons quickly so that His peace and strength would again be my resting place.

During these last few months I’ve also been deep dive into Priscilla Shirer’s study on Elijah with my BSGs.  As usual, God is using all of my life to teach me about standing firm in my faith and stepping forward in trust.  And as I have prayed to God to reveal to me my next blog series I kept hearing the phrase: “Lessons from Cherith.”  You see, Elijah had to spend a lot of time alone, facing his own trials before he was ready for the “big show.”  In that time, some of which was in the area called Cherith, he had to choose to either trust God’s eternal plan for him or not.  He had to remove so many well-honed cultural and religious thoughts of “the way things are supposed to be” and instead see how God works.  And he had to decide to stand out amongst the crowd.

And although my “Cherith” hasn’t lasted for as long as Elijah’s or even as long as Jesus was in the wilderness, I learned some valuable lessons while communing with the Holy Spirit.  In the next few weeks I’d like to share some of these with you.  To hopefully help us realign our lives to be Christian lives, lived out for all the world to see.  For our friends and neighbors and co-workers to be spurred to ask why we seem different.  

Friends, we can’t keep wandering through the wilderness of this earthly world living up to its standards.  It’s time to take our hard earned lessons from “those seasons” and put them to work for the glory of God.