Is Your Eye on the Storm?

The age old question for those who follow after God and his Son is: "Why do evil people thrive and succeed and the righteous seem to suffer?"  As a new believer in my twenties, I found Psalm 37:4 and it told me to delight in God and he would give me the desires of my heart.  But in the verses preceding this one it says:

Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.

How does a believer trust in the Lord and the good living as secure people in a crooked and perverse world?  As I was driving and praying on Sunday I noticed on the left side of the highway as I headed north a bunch of dark storm clouds approaching over the Ohio hills.  On the right side of my car over the state of West Virginia, a blue and cloudless sky. It was if God was reminding me like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress by  John Bunyon, we travel the same road towards the Celestial City we call Heaven.  Like Christian, when we get our eyes on different circumstances and evil people, we lead our selves farther away from God.  The answer is knowing where to put my eyes.  The God who stirs up the whirlwind is the one who sends the gentle breeze soothing a sweat-filled brow.  The God who sends the tumult of a storm is the God sending gentle rain awaking sleeping plants from their winter's nap. 

If we focus upon the actions, activities, and successes of those who flaunt God's reign, our attitude becomes angry, bitter, and maybe even jealous of their success.  We wonder why God allows them to prosper and the righteous to suffer.  In doing this, we forget what verse three says:  Trust, Do, Live and Enjoy!!! Those who practice evil will dry up like the spring grasses of Israel hit by the dry winds which shrivel up the grass and flowers.  If we trust in his provisioning, does it REALLY matter what the evil person gains?  If we are doing good for the purpose of the Kingdom, should it PREVENT our joy by continuing to follow his plans?  If we are envious of the successes of evil ones, are really ENJOYING the life he has for me?

Thirty years ago my desire was to be the only Mentzer family member to graduate college.  I had no awareness of His plans for me.  If I had just kept my eyes on the financial rewards of the unbelievers around me, I would never know the joy of serving him.  My desires have changed from personal desires to what he desires.  I am not going to worry about the storm clouds which will come because I am trusting in the one who controls it all. 

THIS IS A REPOST OF A POST FROM TWO YEARS AGO.  I WAS TOLD A PORTION OF THIS WOULD BE IN A MEMORY BOOK FOR CAMP COWEN'S 70 YEARS OF PROVIDING CHRISTIAN CAMPING IN WEST VIRGINIA.  TO DATE IT IS MY MOST READ BLOG POST.

In John Denver's ode to country living, Country Roads, it speaks of West Virginia life and the beauty of its people. Yesterday we drove our daughter, Stefani, to just such a place. Sandwiched between the mountains of West Virginia and the Birch River is a place many in the state would consider "all most heaven" and for good reason. Camp Cowen is both rustic and beautiful with the cabins covered by a canopy of sixty, eighty and hundred foot trees that may have been around when West Viirginia became a state. As I watched the families bringing their children, I began to notice something in the faces of the adults. They looked around with growing smiles and longing looks as if they had come home. I was fascinated by the Cowen mystique since I had never gone to church camp as a child. Adults joined in with the children and they played bean bag toss. Others greeted other adults as long ago relationship of a by-gone day.

I asked Rob Ely, Director of Discipleship, Camping and Youth about this. Though this title is well deserved for the years of work he had given to Cowen and youth across the state, he is as much a kid as his charges for the week. When he smiles, it is infectious and inviting. Dick Clark has been called the eternal teenager but they have never met Rob Ely. While most ministers his age are settling into pastorates, he is still running around the camp in shorts, shirt and sneakers. As he greets the children who have come back year after year, Rob calls them by name. While the title is listed on the web page for the camp, words like coach, friend, encourager and lover of God are written across his countenance. When asked if any of the adults volunteering this week had once been children here, he advised me many had and said they were "giving back".

Susie, this week's director also added she found Christ here as a child and coming back yearly she developed relationship with people across the state who hold her in Christian accountability to the ideal of Cowen and prayed for her as well for this week. She further added that as she enters the gates into Cowen she feels the presence of God. Our daughter's counselers greeted each child in the cabin, helped them get settled and began learning their names. One was Emily, a married twenty-one year old college student at Concord who is seeking to enter medical school. She left her husband for the week to serve with little girls because she too had found Christ here and over the years knew this was a place of ministry for her.

We left for Cowen yesterday morning at 8 AM and returned from a four hundred mile plus trek about 10 PM. Thinking about this blogpost all the way home I realized the "giving back" was not out of obligation or debt but a profound commitment to share the same Chriist with other children just as it had happened to them. For the parents who journed long and for churches who make this a priority, the "giving back" may one day bear much fruit. My good friend Tom Smell has a picture of him when he was a few months old in the arms of a missionary at Camp Cowen, and if it pays off for Stefani as it has done for Tom, Susie, Emily, Rob and unknown thousands of people who have entered the gates of Cowen, then we have shown her a bit of "almost heaven".

Gossip's Purchase Price

There’s nothing so delicious as the taste of gossip! It melts in your mouth. Proverbs 18:8 (CEV)

 

The term gossip monger is an interesting word for participants of gossip.  Gossip is generally "rumor or talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature" causing damage or irreparable harm to a person's reputation. It is also used of someone who promotes something undesirable. A monger is a person who deals in a specific commodity--such as a fish monger.  The root for the term monger comes from the Latin for a dealer in slaves.  A gossip monger could be defined as a person dealing in gossip who enslaves a person by words which can never be silenced.  Gossip tends to spread like a fire  growing in size and intensity and eventually exceeds the original bit of rumor.  What may have been truth now becomes even more sensational and like the Internet, once it is out there, it is out there.  So if someone trades in gossip, what are the costs?

 A Transgression to the Law of Love.  Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan and the lengths he went to help an injured Jew.  This parable offended the religious leaders because Samaritans were half-breed Jews who only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament and did not worship in Jerusalem.  They were such a nice subject of gossip but Jesus used this man to show his disciples everyone is a neighbor and the Law of Love extends to all.  In a transgression of the law the person has crossed beyond the boundaries established by God. How can we say we love our neighbor when by our words or participation we enslave them!

  A Damage Reputation: Theirs and Yours.  Gossip strikes at the image of the person and its destructiveness relates to the idea of condemnation.  Those who have pronounced judgment upon the victim have tried, convicted and sentenced a person to humiliation, shame, guilt, and sorrow.  Sounds like a heavy judicial pronouncement to me.  However, the damage to your reputation is equally damaging.  God's word in Romans 1 links a gossip to such evil behaviors as evil, greed, strife, malice, slanderers, and they have no mercy or love.  The saying, "if they gossip to you they will gossip about you" makes you an untrustworthy person and even God's word says this.  In  Proverbs 11 says a "gossip betrays a confidence but a trustworthy person keeps a secret." 

So the next time someone tries to offer you a tasty morsel of gossip, try this:

"No thanks.  I am trying to live a better life for Jesus."  And they may say something like this: "What, are you trying to be holier-than-thou!" (By saying no you are making them aware of their failings.)  You can calmly says, "No, I am not trying to be a holier-than-thou.  I am trying to as holy as HIM!"  "Would you like to join me?"