Home

          I've been thinking about home lately. The home Minnie made for us while the children were growing up. The home we had when the grandchildren were able to visit us very often. The home she and I had alone in Washington State for eleven years. And I'm thinking that home as God means for it to be should be a little taste of heaven while we're still yet so imperfect in this fallen world. We live among fallen creatures in a fallen world and sadly enough, we don't always help to make it a better place. And yet in spite of the rigor and the weariness of the daily chores and the unexpected problems that often arise, very often when love and kindness are shown in the family and we share in the excitement of learning and experiencing life as God intended it, “how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”

          Home should be a place of refuge where all are accepted and loved because each has his or her own place to be and a responsibility to contribute and a share in all the goodness that the family has together. And this goes beyond the confines of the place that houses the individual family as the greater family shares with one another and helps bear one another's burdens. At home you can “wonder aloud” about things and have help clarifying your thinking and learning things you didn't know or understand. You can have demonstrated from life-to-life “how then should we live?” You can learn and share and teach each other the great truths you are learning from the Word of God and learning how to walk in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

         At home you can walk by quiet waters and your soul can be refreshed and renewed each day. At home you find help with your problems. And you can share the excitement of the accomplishments God gives you. After all half the joy of the good things of life is sharing them with those you love.

        I said that I was thinking about “the home Minnie made for us while the children were growing up.” Actually we all made it together not any one person (and surely the husband and father has a major role to play, too), but a mother so often is able to set the tone for the home, the attitude that is picked up by the rest of the family. I think of Minnie's attitude of love and acceptance and hard work and cheerfulness and doing things with such a “willing heart.” Those are the qualities that all of us remember so well and wanted to emulate. So I pray for the attitude of all the mothers I know that they live up to what they know should be a good mother as described in Proverbs 31, for example. And I pray that the children will love their mother and father and honor them by obedience and a willing heart to do what is right. And may the children be kind one to another! I remember many times when the children were growing up and one of them said something too sharply to another, I would hear Minnie telling them from the other room in a kind, gentle voice herself, “And be ye kind one to another!” And the children responded and immediately softened their voices. I always loved to see that response.

        But think now how God is the “ultimate Home builder,” the One who invented home in the first place! How wonderful for a man and a woman deeply in love to get married and set up their own home and then through the glories of sexual relations (another creation of God's; He thought up and created the whole idea!) then a family is started. And what a good effect the children have on their parents! How can you continue to be self-centered when little children need your attention so much and so often? Having children is a major help in breaking our “natural” self-centeredness.

         So God started the whole thing by creating Adam and Eve with the capacities that they both had. 'God setteth the solitary in families.” Ps.68:6 “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.” Ps. 113:9 So God's wisdom, power, and grace are all seen in this basic institution of the home that God created.

       Think about the whole connotation of this well-loved word, “Home.” Consider a paragraph Jeannine wrote to me in an e-mail the other day:

"I was thinking on the bus this morning about what we were talking about last night when we had to end our conversation: God as the ultimate Home builder, resting place (He is Home), and provider of all the joy and comforts connoted by the word Home (not only the provider of it, but the creator of it, and the creator of even our capacity to long for and then enjoy Home). That is really mind boggling and I'm sure, completely unique among all of the alternative religions and philosophies. When we try to imagine what God is like, this is another way to see more of his traits and his love for us.” We speak of God as our refuge and strength, our resting place—which is another way of saying He is our Home. In Him we live and move and have our being. In Him we dwell! And all the joy and comforts of home that I was trying to describe a few minutes ago, it is He who created them and brings them in to being.         And then, she wrote that God not only created Home but He is also “the creator of even our capacity to long for and then enjoy Home.” And surely that is helping to prepare us for our Ultimate Home in heaven where Jesus Himself has gone “to prepare a place for us.” That's what we have at home and God Himself will dwell among us and He is our Father after which fathers on earth should pattern themselves. You have a longing for heaven because God actually created you for another world than this one. So when the Lord takes you home, you can say, “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. . . .” C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, p. 196. “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Phil. 3:20 ESV         Let's take it one step further: very often in our travels, we might be in Hong Kong, or Taiwan or Australia, or Europe, far from home and perhaps ready to go home then, I would tell Minnie, “Honey, my home is where you are.” And she understood and I understood. She was so dear to me that my home was wherever she was. When we get to heaven, we are going to realize that heaven is what it is because Jesus is there! And we are going to find perfect satisfaction and joy in His Presence. “. . . In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Ps. 16.11 [Being content just to be with her. Everything was “all right” if she was there. Contentment just being with her and in her presence.]

January 13, 2013

The Wonder and Mystery of our God-directed Lives

        Today is the 3^rd Anniversary of Minnie's Homegoing to be with the Lord. She is with Him now and “in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Psalm 16:11; 17:15

         Minnie never lost her sense of wonder at the goodness of God and the intriguing fascination of God's works in Creation. She herself was one of God's glorious works. She lived life with a sense of expectancy and joy. And at the end [though it was not the End, but the Beginning] she told Jeannine and me, “I feel that God has given me so much happiness in life! One of her favorite verses that she shared with me often was Ephesians 3:20 “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. . . .”

         One of the books she delighted in was Ravi Zacharias, Recapture the Wonder—which Minnie never lost! She was always so delighted in babies and little children and their enthusiasm, which she shared. She loved to do things for them and with them. And she laughed a lot as she took pleasure in life. She told one of our granddaughters that even with cancer she tried to take pleasure in the good of that day and enjoy the company of whoever was with her that day.

         Ravi points out that to maintain our sense of wonder we need a thankful spirit guided by truth. And that truth is personal; it is personified in Jesus Himself who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. One of the marvelous names given to Jesus 700 years before He was born was “Wonder” ! It comes from that marvelous Christmas passage in Isaiah 9:6

^“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

        All those names mean so much. This child who was to be born for us, sent from God Himself, is Wonder.” In Hebrew the word is a noun instead of an adjective, adding even additional strength to the meaning. Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word used to describe the marvelous wonders that God did in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. Implied is not only marvel but mystery. It is a personal relationship with the God of Wonder Himself that gives meaning, excitement, and joy to our lives. He is the “Emmanuel,” God Himself with us in the person of Jesus, the Sent One, the Messiah from God the Father.

      “Great God of wonders! All thy ways are worthy of thyself—divine.

And the bright glories of thy grace Among thine other wonders shine.

Who is a pard'ning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free?”

       It is in communion with God that we find that sense of wonder, rejoicing in the works of God and always aware of the mystery of knowing Him, “whom to know aright is life eternal.” “Enchantment in life can never be realized in some thing; it must ultimately culminate in a person.” “Just as gratitude requires someone to whom we can be grateful, truth requires someone because of whom truth is possible. In both instances personhood is indispensable to wonder.” p. 104 Ravi Zacharias

        An essential part of wonder is to understand and experience love. And that happens in our relationship with Jesus. Love is “the quiet confidence of belonging to someone other than oneself; a commitment to a cause greater than oneself; a relationship that makes choices apart from the self; it is the root of unending sacrifice. When that love is found, wonder is sustained even in moments of great fear. But the how and why of such a love is a challenge.”

        ^“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the [atoning sacrifice] for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” 1 John 4:10-11

                                                                               --Bill Burnside

February 15, 2010 Safely into His Heavenly Kingdom" "The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen." 2 Timothy 4:18 ESV Isn’t that a wonderful verse! What greater assurance do we need? Either from death or through death He will rescue us or deliver us and take us home to "the Father’s House," to His heavenly kingdom where we will dwell in perfect safety and joy and fellowship and pleasure throughout eternity. Minnie is there right now enjoying that fellowship with Jesus and with others, especially with her family. John Calvin wrote, "True salvation [is] when the Lord–either by life or by death–conducts us into His kingdom. And Paul, by ascribing to God this work of ‘preserving us to his kingdom,’ openly affirms that we are guided by His hand during the whole course of our life, till, having discharged the whole of our warfare, we obtain the victory." XXI, p. 271 Calvin, 2nd Epistle to Timothy We will live in God’s heavenly kingdom in the future in our glorified bodies. ". . . Whom He justified, them He also glorified." Romans 8:30 "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matthew 25:34 "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 1:11 The Apostle Paul "sat alone in a dark, filthy prison, facing Nero's certain sentence of death. He was not bitter but, like his Lord, prayed for his persecutors." He wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "The time of my departure has come. . . . The Lord will deliver me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom." 2 Timothy 4:6,18 Death was not something fearful to him. It was merely his "departure" and held no peril for him. Death was simply "the laying aside of his earthly dwelling." It was a move from his demanding and painful life on earth to the infinitely glorious life of peace and rest to come when he would forever be with the Lord.  One of the old Bible scholars from years gone by, William Barclay, explained what the word "departure" meant in the Greek language: it is from analusis which has several meanings and gives at least four vivid pictures of how the apostle Paul viewed his last days on earth before going home to be with his Lord:  1. It is the word for unyoking an animal from the shafts of the cart or the plough. Death to Paul was rest from toil. He would be glad to lay the burden down. . . . 2. It is the word for loosening bonds or fetters. Death for Paul was a liberation and a release. He was to exchange the confines of a Roman prison for the glorious liberty of the courts of heaven. 3. It is the word for loosening the ropes of a tent. For Paul it was time to strike camp again. Many a journey he had made across the roads of Asia Minor and of Europe. Now he was setting out on his last and his greatest journey: he was taking the road that led to God.  4. It is the word for loosening the mooring ropes of a ship. Many a time Paul had sailed the Mediterranean, and had felt the ship leave the harbour for the deep waters. Now he is to launch out into the greatest deep of all; he is setting sail to cross the waters of death to arrive in the haven of eternity." I should add just one word to that beautiful description, that which Jesus promised in John 14:3 "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." That word "take" (paralambano) is very strong. It means that the omnipotent, omnipresent Son of God will Himself come for each one of us when His time has come and personally take us home to be with Him. What great comfort Minnie and I found in these great truths. She knew Jesus was coming for her personally. Only a few months before she died, Minnie wrote these words: "Some of us know we are dying sooner rather than later. Others die with no warning. I have had a lot of time to think about death and dying. I know that Jesus will come for me and take me to heaven where I will be reunited with family members who have gone before. . . ." (Minnie’s Journal, p. 170) And He did come for her–one month ago yesterday. And she is with Him now: "that you also may be where I am."

Dying Slowly

        She knew what was happening. Three years of struggling with pancreatic cancer through surgery, chemo, and radiation had taken their toll. She wrote in her journal, "This is something that I had to face head on. We will all be faced with death as God did not create us to live on this earth forever. . . . Some of us know we are dying sooner rather than later. Others die with no warning. I have had a lot of time to think about death and dying. I know that Jesus will come for me and take me to heaven where I will be reunited with family members who have gone before. . . ."
        "Thinking of leaving those I love is painful, but I have to trust the Lord to be their comfort and to take care of them. It is wonderful that the Lord gave us memories so we can think back as promises that help us think ahead.  If we know the Lord Jesus, we will be together in Heaven."
         "I made a decision that I did not want a funeral mourning my death-but memorial services to celebrate my life and all the Lord has done for me. I know my loved ones will mourn, but I hope it will not be as the world mourns-but as people with confidence that their Mimi is in Heaven with the Lord."
          Facing death, Minnie had a tranquility of the soul, not dependent upon her doleful outward circumstances but on her inner strength from God. She told many people who came to talk to her that she had perfect peace within her heart. And she knew where that peace came from. She wrote, "May my family remember that my strength was from the Lord. . . . May the God of all comfort be our comfort. Let's be grateful for all the good years together."
          To the very end she wanted to comfort her family and reassure them that all was well. She wrote, "I hope my family will remember that I loved each one of them with all of my heart. . . . The oncologist was clear that medically, nothing else can be done. So I am where I have always been-in God's hands. . . ."
        Three things marked my wife's encounter with death: 1) looking to the Lord for strength and finding it there; 2) taking the perspective of eternity, confident that the promises of scripture were true. Two years ago I heard her pray, "Thank you, Lord, for 70 years of good health, strength, and energy. And 3) living life one day at a time, seeking the simple things in life she could be thankful for in spite of nausea, weakness and pain. There were times of respite and enjoyment and pleasurable conversation as her struggles brought us even closer together. She never stopped being thankful. One of the last things we heard her say was, "God has given me so much happiness!"
                                                                              -Minnie Burnside