704bKR DesertSchool

BUTUAN: SCHOOL OF THE DESERT

@@ Powell: Fight of Life

@@ MacArthur: Hand of God

@@ Scwarzkopf: Stick In There

@@ Eisenhower: Best Man

@@ Patton: Leadership Lesson

@@ Washington: Gray Service

@@ Rickenbacker: Gull Gospel

@@ Judge Fatigue

@@ John Hinckley Jr

@@ Elim House

@@ Chris Gardner and tears for scholar

MSC: DESERT CLASSROOM [BITTERNESS AND BLESSING]

Exo 15:22-27; … Matt 14:22-33; … Lam 3:18-24; …

@@ John Hinckley Jr

oo everything right but wrong

oo cycle: TRIUMPH [VS ENEMY], TROUBLE, TESTING, …

oo end point in Elim: BLESSING [VS SELF], …

@@ Powell: General, Vietnam, Segregation, Direction

@@ Judge Fatigue

@@ Ryan Carlos testimony

oooo Gold Garbage                           mox1wNewDoor

oooo CowboyCSCS                          mox2wClassroom

)))) THE WAY OF THE NEW DOOR

Exo 15:22-24; Exo 15:25-26, 27 … Matt 14:22-33; … Lam 3:18-24, …

@@ Powell: General, Vietnam, Segregation, Direction

@@ Gold Garbage

@@ John Hinckley Jr

oo after the victory of the red sea, into the desert of bitterness

oo similar to Matt 14:22-33, sea of galilee door [Chris Gardiner]  

> desert factor

> drink factor

oo understanding cycle of life: Triumph, Trouble, TESTING ON DEEPERS, …  

oo cycle: Celebrating, Complaining, and Condemning  

oooo Gold Garbage                            mox1wNewDoor

oooo Cowboy CSCS                    mox2wClassroom

oooo Judge Fatigue                     mox3wBlessing

)))) THE WAY OF THE CLASSROOM  

Exo 15:25-26; Exo 15:22-24, 27; … Matt 14:22-33; … Lam 3:18-24, …

)))) THE WAY OF BLESSING

Exo 15:27, 22-24, 25-26; … Lam 3:18-24; 1 John 4:10; …

@@ ElimHouse

@@ Ryan Carlos

@@ Washington: Gray Service

oo dimension of kingdom: beyond man

oo in bitter -- sweet: unbounding in the binding, bounding in the unbinding

oo testing of God

a) direction to God

b) path thru problematics of life

c) attending to principles of Heaven

d) doing the right

oo place of blessings in life in midst of desert

@@ Washington: Gray Service

@@ Eisenhower: Best Man

MoralCompass

mox1wNewDoor

mox3wBlessing

)))) THE WAY OF BLESSING

Exo 15:27, Exo 15:22-24, 25-26;… Lam 3:18-24; 1 John 4:10; …

@@ ElimHouse

@@ Washington: Gray in Service

oo period needed in healing

oo place of blessings in life in midst of desert

@@ Old Man and Gulls

@@ Powell: General, Vietnam, Segregation, Direction

@@ MacArthur and Soldiery

@@ Eisenhower and Best Man

MoralCompass

mox1wNewDoor

mox2wClassroom

)))) Truth #2: WE ARE NOT CONSUMED.

Lam 3:18–24; … Exo 15:22–27; 1 John 4:10; …

1 John 4:10 goes on to say, “ . . . but He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” When hopelessness comes, we need not be consumed by it. God’s Son forgives and heals.

)))) Truth #3: HIS COMPASSIONS FAIL NOT. The word compassion means, “to have deep sympathy.”

God is a Heavenly Father who WANTS OUR BEST, and every day He provides NEW HOPE and a FRESH START.

)))) Truth #4: GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS. Regardless of our emotional state, God is consistent and faithful.

Conclusion: Perhaps Lam 3:22–24 is the tonic you need for the beginning of a New Year.

-- Drew Wilkerson

RESTING ON THAT WORD [Verse, January 14]

Among the lesser-known heroes of the church is a man with the unlikely name of EBENEZER ERSKINE, who first fell in love with Exodus 20:2 at age ten when his father, REV. HENRY ERSKINE, was teaching on the SHORTER CATECHISM.

The forty-third question asks: “What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?”

The answer: “The preface to the Ten Commandments is: ‘I AM THE LORD THY GOD which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt…’” Young Ebenezer learned the whole Catechism, but this question took CENTRAL PLACE in his thoughts.

Eighteen years later he followed his father’s steps into the pastorate. But I began my ministry without much zeal, MECHANICALLY,… being swallowed up in unbelief. One day HIS WIFE grew fevered, and in her delirium, she CRIED OUT about her husband’s cold heart. Ebenezer, sitting by her, was pierced, and the old text came back to him: I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD.

Shortly after, he offered himself up, soul and body, unto God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I flee for shelter to the blood of Jesus. I will live to him; I will die to him.

Ten years later, now a 38-year-old pastor, he preached a powerful sermon on his old text: I am the Lord thy God. It made a lasting impression on his congregation and swept over Scotland in printed form.

More years passed, and Erskine gave out at age 73. One of his elders, visiting his bedside, said, “You have often given us good advice, Mr. Erskine, as to what we should do with our souls in death; may I ask what you are now doing with your own?”

“I am doing what I did forty years ago,” replied the old preacher. “I am RESTING ON THAT WORD, ‘I am the Lord thy God.’”

Reading: Exodus 20:1–11

I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, who BROUGHT YOU OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, out of the house of bondage. (Exodus 20:2)

MY HEAD TO MY FEET   [Day, January 14]     

WALTER LEWIS WILSON, medical doctor and Christian, agonized over his fruitless efforts at witnessing. One day in 1913, a FRENCH MISSIONARY visiting in the Wilson home asked the doctor, “Who is the Holy Spirit to you?”

Wilson replied, “One of the Persons of the Godhead … Teacher, Guide, Third Person of the Trinity.” The friend challenged Wilson: “You haven’t answered my question.” To this Wilson replied sadly:

“He is NOTHING TO ME. I have no contact with Him and COULD GET ALONG QUITE WELL WITHOUT HIM.”

The next year, on January 14, 1914, Wilson heard a sermon by JAMES M. GRAY, Reformed Episcopal clergyman and later president of MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE. Speaking from Romans 12:1, Gray leaned over the pulpit and said,

“Have you noticed that this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies? It is NOT THE LORD JESUS. He has His own body. It is NOT THE FATHER. He remains on His throne. Another has come to earth without a body. God gives you the indescribable honor of presenting your bodies TO THE HOLY SPIRIT, to be His dwelling place on earth.”

Wilson returned home and fell on the carpet. There in the quiet of that late hour, he said,

“My Lord, I have treated You like a servant. When I wanted You I called for You. Now I give You this body from my head to my feet. I give you my hands, my limbs, my eyes and lips, my brain. You may send this body to Africa, or lay it on a bed with cancer. It is your body from this moment on.”

The next morning, two ladies came to Wilson’s office selling advertising. He promptly led both to Christ, and that was THE BEGINNING OF A LIFE OF EVANGELISTIC FRUITFULNESS. Wilson later founded CENTRAL BIBLE CHURCH in Kansas City, FLAGSTAFF INDIAN MISSION, CALVARY BIBLE COLLEGE, and he wrote the bestselling ROMANCE OF A DOCTOR’S VISITS.

“With regard to my own experience with the Holy Spirit, the transformation in my life on January 14, 1914 was MUCH GREATER THAN THE CHANGE THAT TOOK PLACE WHEN I WAS SAVED December 21, 1896.”

(Romans 12:1-2, ncv) Dear friends, God is good. So I beg you to OFFER YOUR BODIES to him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That’s THE MOST SENSIBLE WAY TO SERVE GOD. Don’t be like THE PEOPLE OF THIS WORLD, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him.

(Romans 12:1-2, msg) So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take YOUR EVERYDAY, ORDINARY LIFE — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become SO WELL-ADJUSTED TO YOUR CULTURE that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be CHANGED FROM THE INSIDE OUT. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. UNLIKE THE CULTURE AROUND YOU, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God BRINGS THE BEST OUT OF YOU, develops well-formed maturity in you.

FINDING HER PLACE [Day, January 13]

Sometimes it takes awhile for young people to find themselves. AMY CARMICHAEL grew up in Belfast, enjoying a carefree life until her father died and left the family debt-ridden. The ensuing pressure helped direct her attention to spiritual things, and in 1886 she gave her life to Christ. She struggled vocationally till the words “GO YE” SO IMPRESSED HER that on January 13, 1892, she yielded to overseas service.

She sailed to JAPAN. But she didn’t seem to fit there, and Amy struggled to find her place. She left for SHANGHAI, then, to the dismay of family and friends, abruptly sailed for CEYLON. Returning to ENGLAND, she decided on INDIA.

But for several years, she couldn’t find her niche there, and she was often CRITICIZED by fellow missionaries.

But she gradually noticed that CHILDREN were drawn to her, so much so that Indian parents feared Amy was “bewitching” their youngsters. One day, she met A GIRL who had escaped from the HINDU TEMPLE with stories of horror.

The Hindus were secretly using children as TEMPLE PROSTITUTES. Evidently, PARENTS sold baby girls to the temple, and when the children were eight or nine, they “married” the idol and were pressed into harlotry.

Most people disbelieved such stories, and for several years Amy worked as A DETECTIVE, assembling evidence to prove the atrocities real. She rescued several more children, and by 1904, was responsible for 17 YOUNGSTERS. Amy was occasionally hauled into court for kidnapping, and DEATH THREATS were common.

But children multiplied on her doorstep, and by 1945, THOUSANDS had been placed in Amy’s DOHNAVUR FELLOWSHIP, a series of homes for outcast children. Many youngsters grew up becoming Christian husbands, wives, and leaders.

During these years, Amy Carmichael also made time for another ministry — writing. By the time of her death at Dohnavur in 1951 at AGE 83, she had written 35 BOOKS on her work in India and on the victorious Christian life.

She had FOUND HER PLACE and filled it well.

(Matthew 25:37-40) The ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink? When did we give you clothes to wear or visit you while you were sick or in jail?” The king will answer, “Whenever you DID IT FOR ANY OF MY PEOPLE, no matter how UNIMPORTANT they seemed, you did it for me.” 

ELIM HOUSE [Verse, January 13]

CAREY [FALWELL?] grew up running bootleg whiskey during Prohibition, aided by his beloved younger brother GARLAND, a likable chap with a grin that could melt an iceberg. But the brothers were star-crossed. Garland was wild and careless, flying along mountain roads in a black roadster, drinking heavily, causing trouble. One day Garland armed himself with two pistols and aimed them at Carey in a drunken rage. A dangerous cat-and-mouse game ensued, but Carey finally fired a shotgun in self-defense, instantly KILLING his younger sibling.

Carey never reconciled himself with the tragedy. Morning after morning, he visited Garland’s GRAVE, staring down, hat gripped in hand. Night after night, unable to sleep, he brooded at the table or in the barn, nursing a whiskey, trying to forget. Dark moods seized him and his drinking increased. Time passed, and he grew embittered. He eventually succumbed to CIRRHOSIS OF THE LIVER.

Against all odds, Carey’s son JERRY? grew up to be a minister. And it was JERRY who led church … to purchase a farm and establish there a TREATMENT CENTER FOR ALCOHOLICS. The first man to enroll was EARL THOMPSON, who had once helped Carey [Falwell?] smuggle his booze.

But what should the new center be called? As Jerry studied Exodus 15, he read of the Israelites going from the Red Sea to THE WATERS OF MARAH to THE WELLS OF ELIM.

There were LESSONS AT EVERY STOP, and along the way the Lord REPLACED BITTERNESS WITH BLESSINGS. The center was named ELIM HOUSE, A PLACE OF BLESSING. Soon other Elim Houses popped up around the nation, modeled after the one in Lynchburg.

One day, when Jerry took his mother to see Elim House, she laid her hand on his arm, and, eyes moist, said,

“Do you know, Jerry, if YOUR FATHER HADN’T DIED you might not have cared enough about the others to build this place.”

Reading: Exo 15:22–27

(Exodus 15:27) Then they came to ELIM, where there were TWELVE WELLS OF WATER and SEVENTY PALM TREES; so they camped there by the waters. 

CAREY [FALWELL?] grew up running bootleg whiskey during Prohibition, aided by his beloved younger brother GARLAND, a likable chap with a grin that could melt an iceberg. But the brothers were star-crossed. Garland was wild and careless, flying along mountain roads in a black roadster, drinking heavily, causing trouble. One day Garland armed himself with two pistols and aimed them at Carey in a drunken rage. A dangerous cat-and-mouse game ensued, but Carey finally fired a shotgun in self-defense, instantly KILLING his younger sibling.

Carey never reconciled himself with the tragedy. Morning after morning, he visited Garland’s GRAVE, staring down, hat gripped in hand. Night after night, unable to sleep, he brooded at the table or in the barn, nursing a whiskey, trying to forget. Dark moods seized him and his drinking increased. Time passed, and he grew embittered. He eventually succumbed to CIRRHOSIS OF THE LIVER.

Against all odds, Carey’s son JERRY? grew up to be a minister. And it was JERRY FALWELL who led his THOMAS ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH to purchase a farm and establish there a TREATMENT CENTER FOR ALCOHOLICS. The first man to enroll was EARL THOMPSON, who had once helped Carey [Falwell?] smuggle his booze.

But what should the new center be called? As Jerry studied Exodus 15, he read of the Israelites going from the Red Sea to THE WATERS OF MARAH to THE WELLS OF ELIM.

There were LESSONS AT EVERY STOP, and along the way the Lord REPLACED BITTERNESS WITH BLESSINGS. The center was named ELIM HOUSE, A PLACE OF BLESSING. Soon other Elim Houses popped up around the nation, modeled after the one in Lynchburg.

One day, when Jerry Falwell took his mother to see Elim House, she laid her hand on his arm, and, eyes moist, said, “Do you know, Jerry, if YOUR FATHER HADN’T DIED you might not have cared enough about the others to build this place.”

THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE   [Verse, January 12]

How odd that the most famous Bible in history should bear the name of a HARD-DRINKING, FOUL-MOUTHED, ego-driven HOMOSEXUAL who rejected all demands for reform within the church.

JAMES VI of Scotland, son of imprisoned MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, was raised in drafty Scottish castles by self-serving lords. He grew up religious and well-trained in theology. He went to church every day. But he was rude, rough, loud, conceited, and bisexually immoral. He was also shrewd. At age 37 he managed to succeed his cousin, ELIZABETH I, as England’s monarch.

As he traveled from Scotland to London, he met a group of PURITANS bearing a “Millenary Petition” signed by nearly 1,000 pastors. It demanded renewal within the church. The Puritans, stirred by the Geneva translation of the Bible and by Foxe’s popular Book of Martyrs, wanted to purify the church.

The ESTABLISHED CLERGY opposed Puritan demands, and the new king realized his kingdom was torn. He convened a conference for church leaders at his HAMPTON COURT ESTATE on January 12, 1604, and the Puritans vigorously presented their concerns. James rejected their requests, sometimes thundering against them, white with rage.

At the conclusion of the conference he flung his arm toward the Puritans, shouting, “I shall make them conform or I will HARRY THEM out of this land, or DO WORSE.”

Many of the dispirited Puritans, abandoning hope for the ANGLICAN CHURCH, began worshiping in small groups as they felt the Bible taught them. They were tagged SEPARATISTS, but from these persecuted cells came the BAPTISTS in 1611, the PILGRIMS who fled to America in 1620, and OTHER DISSENTING groups.

But on one issue at Hampton Court the king and Puritans had agreed. When Puritan JOHN RAINOLDS requested a new translation of the Bible, James promptly approved it, saying, “I have never yet seen a Bible well-translated. But I think the Geneva is the worst.” Seven years later the Authorized Version was unveiled, ironically making vice-prone King James ONE OF THE BEST RECOGNIZED NAMES in English church history.

(Proverbs 21:1-2) The Lord controls rulers, just as he determines the course of rivers. We may think we are doing the right thing, but the Lord always knows what is in our hearts.

THE GOSPEL OF MARAH

Exo 15:22-27

The SONGS OF MOSES AND MIRIAM are marvelous pictures of joy and praise, the celebration of God’s mighty deeds, and the people’s hallelujah to God’s delivering mercy. Three days have passed now, and they have come to MARAH. They are weary, despite the exhilaration they have so recently experienced. They are thirsty, but the water they have found is bitter.

Again there is a seesaw of prevailing moods, from CELEBRATING to COMPLAINING and CONDEMNING Moses.

Sometimes in our Bible study and in our preaching and teaching, we need to look for truth that is not so obvious, for opaque meaning, lessons to which we may be blinded by the dramatic. Not so, I think, in this passage. The lessons are neither subtle nor subdued. They are right on the surface, hard to miss even by those who try. You may find other lessons in this passage, but don’t miss these.

IN LIFE WE COME OFTEN TO MARAH

MARAH is not only the designation of a geographical location three days’ journey from the Red Sea in the wilderness of Shur; it is A PLACE ON THE LIFE-MAP OF EACH OF US. It’s not geographical, but circumstantial.

The Hebrew adjective MAR, from which the name Marah comes, means “BITTER.” In the Old Testament, this adjective is seen clearly in two verses from Proverbs.

First, Proverbs 27:7:

“A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb,

But to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”

Clearer yet is the picture in verses 3 and 4 of Proverbs 5:

“For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey,

And her mouth [speech] is smoother than oil;

But in the end she is BITTER AS WORMWOOD,

Sharp as a two-edged sword.”

“Bitter as wormwood.” Do you have any notion about that metaphor? Remember the lines from Edward Perronet’s great hymn “ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS’ NAME”:

Sinners, whose love can ne’er forget

The wormwood and the gall,

Go spread your trophies at his feet,

And crown him, crown him, crown him,

Crown him Lord of all.2

Wormwood is the bitterest of all wood — bitter as gall. In C. S. LEWIS’S delightful and provocative book THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, Screwtape was the major devil commissioned to tempt us. The lesser devil was Wormwood. No wonder C. S. Lewis named him that.

You get the picture. The Hebrew word mar is an adjective meaning “bitter” — so Marah is not only a geographical designation, it is A PLACE OF CIRCUMSTANCES, EVENTS, AND EXPERIENCES TO WHICH WE OFTEN COME IN OUR LIFE JOURNEY.

Don’t let that word “bitter” mislead you into seeking literal pictures. Let it be a metaphor to designate any place, any circumstance, any experience, any painful or estranged relationship through which you may be passing.

Let it refer to the ILLNESS that has ominously been designated “terminal.” Let it describe that DIFFICULT SITUATION to which you’ve come with your children. Someone has said that a parent is as happy as his unhappiest child. The fact that we parents love our children makes us vulnerable to our children’s hurts. The fact that we want the best for them causes us to be deeply sorrowful when things are not working out for them. Certainly, there are those times when our children bring us far more pain than pleasure.

So, let the word designate whatever place it is in your experience to which you’ve come BUT DON’T WANT TO BE. In Pilgrim’s Progress, BUNYAN referred to “THE SLOUGH OF DESPONDENCY.” That may be what Marah is all about. We become despondent because of the circumstances of our lives.

No one has described the feeling better than the psalmist: “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” (Psa 42:5a).

It’s true, isn’t it? If you haven’t had sorrow or bitterness, just wait — YOUR TURN WILL COME. In life we come often to Marah, and we get to the point where we want to cry with MARTIN LUTHER,

“I’m sick of life, if that is what you call it.”

GOD COMES TO US AT MARAH

Note a second truth: GOD COMES TO US AT MARAH. In fact, it may be true that God brings us to Marah. God was leading the Hebrews when they came to Marah.

This is a hard truth to reckon with, and there are no easy answers. Look at what happened to the Hebrews. They moved FROM TRIUMPH TO TROUBLE. They came through the Red Sea dry-shod, led by God. And there on the shore, safe from Pharaoh’s army, they sang joyfully:

“The Lord is my strength and my song,

And He has become my salvation” (v. 2).

Three days later, their triumph had turned to TROUBLE. There they were in MARAH, a place not of blessedness but OF BITTERNESS. And the Lord had led them there. Now that’s hard to take, hard to reckon with. Somewhere between the extreme notion that a severe providence plots every step of our lives and that everything that happens to us is planned and decreed by God, and the other extreme position that all is capricious, happenstance, and whim, we must find our place to stand. WILLIAM COWPER put it in a hymn:

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

With never-failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs

And works His sovereign will

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind A FROWNING PROVIDENCE

He hides A SMILING FACE.3

When you feel that the Lord has led you to Marah, when the searing question, “Why?” smolders in your mind, reach back for Paul’s word to the Romans,

“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him” (8:28, rsv).

The third stanza of Cowper’s hymn, partially quoted above, is my favorite:

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds you so much dread

Are BIG WITH MERCY, and shall break

In BLESSINGS ON YOUR HEAD.

That’s really the big point. Whether God brings us to Marah or not, He will come to us in Marah. Look again at the Israelites.

o     They moved FROM TRIUMPH TO TROUBLE.

o     Now they move FROM TROUBLE TO TESTING.

Look at verse 25: “So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them” (v. 25).

The phrase to which I call your attention is the last one: “He tested them.” The big question is not whether we can sing in our triumph at the Red Sea, but WHETHER WE CAN SING IN OUR TROUBLES AT MARAH. The proof of faith, the testing, always comes in THE BARREN DESERT AT MARAH, not in THE OASIS AT ELIM, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees.

The testing comes WHEN NOTHING MAKES SENSE, EXCEPT TO GOD. It’s the kind of testing that came to Job, and his faith lights our way: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

But there is more insight to be gained from the Hebrews. They went from triumph to trouble, from trouble to testing, and FROM TESTING TO TEACHING. Look at verse 26 again:

“If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord WHO HEALS you.”

There it is, the big point: “I am the Lord who heals you.” Don’t lose this point. God will come to us in Marah, and He will say, “I am the Lord who heals you.”

What a gospel! — and in the Old Testament: the Lord is OUR ULTIMATE HEALER. We go to a lot of different places for healing, and we give ourselves to all sorts of would-be “healers.” Yet it is the Lord who is our ultimate Healer.

MORRIS ABRAM, an Atlanta lawyer who wrote an autobiography after his recovery from cancer, discovered this. He entitled the book THE DAY IS SHORT. The title is taken from a Talmudic saying:

The DAY IS SHORT, the WORK IS GREAT…

It is NOT THY DUTY to complete the work, BUT NEITHER ART THOU FREE TO DESIST from it.

Morris Abram learned that wisdom in fighting the disease of cancer. He did all he could. He fought vigorously and strenuously. He never desisted from fighting, but he knew that, in the end, it was SOMETHING OTHER THAN HIS OWN EFFORTS that brought the healing. This is what he wrote:

“The tendency of the cancer to recur was held at bay or perhaps even wiped out by my will to live, by a new love, by new interests, by immunotherapy, maybe by hepatitis, maybe by good fortune, maybe by God… I give respectable scientific methods the credit due and RESERVE FOR THE UNKNOWN FACTORS THE AWESOME NAME OF THE MYSTERY WHICH I REFUSE TO CONFUSE WITH SCIENCE.”4

The Lord is our ultimate Healer.

Note also that His healing is perpetual. “I AM the Lord who heals you.” His HEALING NEVER CEASES.

And note finally that it is UNIVERSAL; it is available to all, and it is encompassing.

We see it, and we know it; but it’s easy to forget. The Healing Lord who continues to transform circumstances and persons always amazes us. We know that this happens, but when we see the miracle of it dramatically and transparently present in a particular situation, it always staggers and challenges our too-weak faith.

I remember being in a city in another state several years ago, and following a Sunday preaching service, I was visiting with a group of people at lunch time in a home. I knew the hostess from a conference I had led, but not the host—I’d never met him before. He was a hard-driving business man, the stereotypical workaholic who placed work above everything. The dream of the good life was the magnet that pulled him on.

It was also a situation I see so often. The wife is the religious one; the husband goes to church but is only present in body for the sake of the family. The wife is genuinely seeking a vital spirituality; the husband is too preoccupied with the so-called “real world,” caught in the phony idea that spiritual things are not masculine. But for some mysterious reason, John and I hit it off that Sunday afternoon. We found ourselves alone out on the balcony of his beautiful home. He talked honestly as I dared to probe a bit, and listen. By a miracle of the Spirit, soul touched soul. Only a short time before, the huge manufacturing business that he headed was swallowed up in a conglomerate, and he had lost his prestigious and powerful position. His world had crumbled and the “good life” that he had finally grasped was now fading. It was like sand running out of his fingers. This towering man was now feeling impotent, no longer in control.

He wrestled with this “lost dream” for over a year before he began to get a grip on things and move toward a degree of wholeness. Then something big happened in his life. He attended an Emmaus Weekend retreat and had a life-changing experience—life-changing in the sense that it gave him a whole new direction, but also a whole new approach to life and resources to deal with it. This was proven dramatically not long ago when his youngest son came “out of the closet” and shared the fact that he was a homosexual. I can only imagine how John would have dealt with this shattering experience, this Marah, back where he was when he and I first met. Now, having something new and dynamic going on within him—a Power not his own—he invited his wife and son to sit together and talk about this new situation. The conversation began, “Son, I want you to know there are four persons here—you, your mother and me, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is here because I’ve invited Him. I want you to know I love you and I believe the Holy Spirit is going to give us the wisdom and the power to deal with this situation.”

What could have been the most destructive estrangement a son and father could experience had been short-circuited by the power of the Lord who comes to us in Marah as the healing One. Grace, explained only by Christ’s Presence, was working in that situation that otherwise would have destroyed an entire family.

Not long ago as I was traveling through John’s city, I had a two-hour layover and we met for dinner. I could feel the Power stirring in him, and I could see it in the light on his face as he shared the healings taking place in his family.

I look back on the difference between John when I first met him and John as I know him now, and I can only exclaim: There is a gospel in Marah; the Lord comes to us there. And the Lord who comes is our Healer.

Dunnam, M., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1987). Vol. 2: The Preacher's Commentary Series, Volume 2 : Exodus. Formerly The Communicator's Commentary. The Preacher's Commentary series (169). Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH, AMERICAN

[James Poniewozik; Time, February 8, 2007]

She was NO ROLE MODEL, but she was AMERICA SUPERSIZED AND GONE SOUR. And I don't feel like judging her for it.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH, 39, died today. She wasn't a TV star, exactly, though CNN describes her as that; by the time she made her reality TV series she was already DISTURBINGLY DOWN THE PATH OF DISSOLUTION AND COLLAPSE, and it made her show excruciating to watch even for somebody paid to watch excruciating TV. [Update: Biography Channel doesn't waste any time -- they just announced a special for Saturday night.] She wasn't a supermodel, exactly, though she became famous as a Playboy Playmate and Guess jeans model. If I have to sum her up, she was an object, and AN OBJECT LESSON. She was somebody we spent a lot of time looking at, and then judging.

There was plenty that was tragic about Smith's life -- tragic in the common sense of "SAD": being entangled for over a decade in an ugly legal battle over the nine-figure estate of her late, octogenarian husband, her son dying just after the birth last year of her baby, and, of course, dying young herself and leaving her baby daughter in the midst of a paternity dispute.

But there was also plenty that was tragic in the classic sense of AMBITION, OVERREACH and DOWNFALL. She MADE HERSELF INTO MARILYN MONROE, right down to the collapse and early death -- that will probably be a line in all her obituaries -- but then Marilyn Monroe made herself into Marilyn Monroe.

Judge it all you want, there is SOMETHING ESSENTIALLY AMERICAN ABOUT ALL THE BODY SCULPTING AND IMAGE-CRAFTING. America is about new starts and self-invention, … ???[and the pilgrims and noble refugees don't have a monopoly on it. Smith was more self-made than most of us who call ourselves that.] …

Flame me, or flame her, if you want, but if Smith messed up her life, she did so through WANTING THE THINGS THAT SO MANY AMERICANS WANT -- FAME, FORTUNE, SUCCESS, NOTORIETY -- wanting them worse and single-mindedly and clumsily and ULTIMATELY SELF-DESTRUCTIVELY.

She was NO ROLE MODEL, but she was AMERICA SUPERSIZED AND GONE SOUR. And I don't feel like judging her for it.