The Pilot

There are benefits to being my age. We have the privilege of putting away childish things and childish people: bullies, legalizers and non-stop talkers who never listen.  We don't have to show up for every event. We can take a nap for three minutes and feel refreshed. We can have last night's spaghetti for breakfast.. We can pass on becoming involved in every looming squabble.  We can sleep on the deck if we want to.  We can watch an old movie that doesn't showcase a couple thrashing around in bed after the first kiss. We can decide not to go to the community swimming pool when we hear a rumor that the water temperature has been dropped a couple of degrees.  We can cry ourselves to sleep from loneliness for our life mate and son when the tsunami breaks loose.  We can take high-powered meds for relief from pain and choose not to think about our liver that may be screaming,  "Stop! You're killing me!"

In these blogs I have been remembering details of our travels I was too busy to document when we were racing through life.  As we de-planed and folk asked "How was your trip?"  all we could think of was how good it would feel to sleep in our own clean bed, eat food that didn't have unidentified objects in it and swallow a drink of water from any old fountain.  That question, "How was your trip?" is as unfair as: "How are you?" I usually answer with: "Which part of me do you really want to know about?"

It's taken all these years to figure out what our trips were about...for me. Oh, I know that the mission/teaching trips were for those we counseled, encouraged, prayed and cried with. ...but what did I learn that was a "need to know" for my own journey?   What did the ancient Greek men teach me as we sat and talked for two days in the market place on Patmos?   Why was it important for me to learn from the Lady in the Lobby in Tel Aviv that in Israel if one is not a Muslim or Jew, that person is dubbed a "Christian"?  Think of the ramifications of that lie!   What perspective did I gain from a shouting Arab preacher on a Sunday night in Jerusalem?  O.K., let's go there. If I have told you this story in a previous blog, please humor me.

Before we left for this Middle East trip our Bakersfield churches were being tormented over the hot-potato subject of Armenianism versus Calvinism. Actually there should be no "versus".  I believe it was Spurgeon who answered when asked how he reconciled the two: "They are friends and friends don't need reconciling." 

There we were in Jerusalem on a Sunday night. The night before we had been soul-jolted by personally hearing the stories of fifteen Holocaust survivors.  Ted's stomach was queasy and he wanted to sleep.  I felt antsy, so went to a phone book and looked up the names of churches,  called one, got the pastor on the phone who told me his service started at 7 P.M.  I hailed a tall turbaned Arab driver and away we went, searching for the church. An hour later, we were still searching when we spotted a few arm-waving people hanging over a balcony. The pastor had failed to mention that his church was on the second floor of a nondescript building with no visible house number.  He headed into his message, aimed straight at me. ...in two languages.  Then he asked: "What does your husband do?" "He's a pastor."  "Does he believe in closed communion?"  "Uh....no. He believes that no one should be excluded from taking Communion if they want to."  Voice and fist raised,   he replied:  "I could never fellowship with your husband!  I just left the staff of a church down the street because they don't believe in closed Communion!"  That explained why there were only six people  (his wife, his three kids and his mother-in-law)  listening to this man rant in two languages.  Right then, I gained perspective about the doctrinal disagreement back home.  I was ready to face whatever had been gut-wrenching before we left and head for America and home the next day.

I have just finished reading and dispensing to the Thursday girls the little book:  "These are the Generations" by Mr. and Mrs. Bae, released by "Voice of the Martyrs".  Some of the people of one of the Thursday girls are these very North Koreans, bringing this story up close and personal.  If the propagators of socialism reach their relentless goal of taking over America, your descendants will suffer in just this way.  I suggest you read the book.

There are a couple of things I consider worth dying for: 1) You are "right with the Father".   If you have Jesus in your heart you deserve to know that.  2)  ...the privilege of loving people until they can believe they are "right with God".   In a nutshell,  that's "discipleship".  Knowing that He was leaving us with enemies that would fight us every step of the way as we obeyed His assignment, He comforted us with this promise: : "And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age!" 

                                     OLD HYMN:  "Jesus Savior, Pilot Me'

Jesus Savior, pilot me over life's tempestuous sea
Unknown waves before me roll
Hiding rock and treach'rous shoal
Chart and compass came from thee;
Jesus, Savior, pilot me.

When at last I near the shore and the fearful breakers roar
'Twixt me and the peaceful rest
Then while leaning on Thy breast
May I hear thee say to me,
"Fear not, I will pilot thee."

Love,  Jo