Now Powered By Then
My faith journey began in June of 1970 at a Young Life Camp in the California gold country NE of Sacramento. Over the course of a week the camp speaker led us to see Jesus like never before, as God's answer to our most intimate and immediate and eternal needs. At the end of the week, the camp held a time of silence for each person to contemplate what we had learned. I found myself behind our cabin sitting on a stump. I think that I had always believed in God, but now faced the truth that God believed in me and loved me enough to send Jesus to all of us. On that stump I decided I wanted to follow Jesus, and even though I have wandered at times and lived a (typically) flawed life, that decision has marked my life for the better from that summer evening to today.
A few years ago while on a car trip, Claudia and I stopped by Woodleaf, the Young Life camp where it all began. It was off-season for camps and the place was quiet. We found the manager, told my story, and were given permission to wander around the property. While there had been many improvements, the footprint was still easily recognizable. I was flooded with memories and showered Claudia with story after story of the times I had been there.
We made our way up a hill to the line of camper cabins that were mostly unchanged. I found "Ponderosa" and looked it over inside and out. Wandering around back, there sat the stump. It was pretty emotional to rest on it again after all these years. Touching and feeling the physical reminder of an event that changed the course of my life was powerful and even a bit...holy.
Along the same lines of thought, after the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness since fleeing Egypt, the Exodus story, the Joshua-led Israelites were ready to ford the Jordan River and enter into the land God had promised to them. The recounting of the crossing is told in Joshua 3 & 4, and it is worth rereading. After the whole group crossed, Joshua had a representative from each of the 12 tribes take a large stone from the riverbed and build a memorial stack on the bank. Joshua says,
"...(the stack is) to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord....These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever....And they are there to this day."
This is like a verse in the old hymn Come Thou Font and is not readily understood today. It says,
Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thine help I'm come. And I hope by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
Deciphered, an Ebenezer literally means "a stone of help" and is just like the Jordan stones for the Jews and a stump in the Sierras for me. Physical reminders of the work of God in our lives power us ahead to new ventures, new trustings, new steps into unknown realms. Places, sounds, smells, textures, music can be, and are, touchstones of memory where God brings us back to propel us forward. To go back to a place and time when we knew God was real gives us lead in our pencil to write new stories of following Jesus and watching him work, and joining in the fun.
We all have them. Sacred places where we met with God. No matter how shaky faith may be today, we can draw strength from times and places and events when faith reached for the skies. Return to the stack of stones you erected to never forget that what was real and true then is just the same today, no matter how you feel. Jews traveled back to that place with children for generations to renew commitments and refresh faith. We can do the same.
So, friends, here's a challenge for the week: Go back. Go back, maybe only mentally, to visit the points along the way where you knew fresh faith and times of renewal and those places where and when you met with Jesus on your own stump, especially in those days when Jesus seems far away and silent. Tell someone about it. (Tell me! I'd love to hear your story) It is worth the trip, and you can never tell how it might launch you into new lands and new adventures. No reason not to believe that the best is still ahead of us.
Let your now be powered by then. Let's go!
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. Nelson Mandela
And some music for the middle of January...
...and a funny duo for a Toosdey
The burial service for the elderly woman climaxed with a massive clap of thunder,
followed by a bolt of lightning,
accompanied by even more thunder.
“Well,” said her husband to the shaken pastor when all the commotion ended, “she’s there.”
I arrived early to the restaurant and the manager asked, "Do you mind waiting a bit?"
I replied, "Not at all."
"Good," he said, "Take these plates to table nine."