Recently, after reading a book about the life of Jesus, I decided it was time to read through the Gospels. For the most part, I’m taking it a chapter a day.
This week I read the Parable of the Sower, one of Jesus’ most well-known parables, in Mark 4; it’s also found in Matthew 13 and Luke 8. The teaching focuses on four outcomes of the sown seeds: stolen, short-lived, choked, and fruitbearing.
Keeping your path receptive to the sown seeds requires diligence. Diligence against predators. Diligence to protect roots. Diligence to prioritize eternal things. Diligence to stay hungry and thirsty.
The featured picture on this post is from my back yard. Fortunate for me, HOA fees keep the community where I now live quite immaculate. In the month that I’ve lived here, it’s clear diligence is heavily disciplined.
The state of my heart and soul is no one else’s responsibility. I can’t pay a fee for someone else to be diligent on my behalf. Pretty sure that leads to wrong priorities, unprotected and rootless living. If my heart was originally set on eternity, it’s in my best interest to diligently maintain that origin.
I’ve had fences on my mind. Apparently, they have permanent residence and need to be managed.
This is my way of understanding a season I’ve recently emerged from, a season I always seem to have a foot in. I call it the what’s next season. That question keeps a firm grip on my brain, if I let it. And that’s where the fences come in.
Sometimes I recognize it; sometimes I don’t. The temptation to look over the fence. The temptation isn’t necessarily about looking for greener grass. It’s more like, “What’s over there? If it looks good, should I find a way over there? Should I be looking for a gate? Looking at the field I’m in, there’s probably a better one on the other side of part of this fence, right? I just got to keep looking. Seek and find.”
While chewing on these questions this week during a prayer moment, a connection was made that made me say, “Well that’s interesting.” The connection was to a verse from Ecclesiastes, a book containing a look at forever fences. Here’s that verse:
He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. -Ecclesiastes 3:11 NASB
Oddly, my mind relaxed. The connection: Because eternity is placed in my heart, I am always going to be tempted to look over the fence. And I’m not alone in that. Every human asks, “What’s next? Is this it? There’s got to be more, right?” We ask it in different ways, seek the answers from different sources, but we ask the same questions.
The lessons that seem to be on repeat during a what’s next season are 1) Embrace Now and 2) Balance Anticipation. As I thought about these lessons, another uplifting passage came to mind. It’s from an equally encouraging chapter, this time from the New Testament. Hebrews 11 contains a roster of fellow fence gawkers who are described as sharing another top of mind focus. Check out verses 13-16:
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They didn’t receive the things God had promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a long way off. They openly said that they were outsiders and strangers on earth. 14 People who say things like that show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 What if they had been thinking of the country they had left? Then they could have returned to it. 16 Instead, they longed for a better country. They wanted a heavenly one. So God is pleased when they call him their God. In fact, he has prepared a city for them.
You see why fences have been on mind? It’s actually good stuff. At the end of it, I find myself in excellent company, both in the past and the present. I say the present because these thoughts led me to three songs that I gravitate toward when eternity is on my mind.
So at the close of this month, this week, this Thanksgiving weekend, I encourage you to take 11 minutes, stare at the eternal fence, and listen to these fellow “longers for a better country.”
To begin his podcast episode entitled “Quiet Compounding,” Morgan Housel shared this quote by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “Nature is not in a hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Housel then added these thoughts:
So think about giant sequoias, and advanced organisms, and towering mountain ranges. Nature builds the most jaw-dropping features of the universe, and it does so silently without trying to get attention-where growth is almost never visible right now but is staggering over long periods of time
Because his podcast is about money and finances, you can imagine where he goes from there for the next six minutes (click here to listen). When I heard this, my mind went down the personal growth lane. For that matter, life in general.
Of all the thoughts available to chase, mine went toward the gift this visual offers. Along with our striving for vocational success or relationship health or spiritual depth often comes a dump truck load of impatience. The vision demands speed, the approval starts the countdown, and the comparison creates competition.
Culture loves demands, countdowns, and competition. The countercultural eternity in our hearts draws us to pause, reflect, and look up.
May we grow in our trust that what God is after in every part of our lives will be accomplished at the right time. Rushing is futile. Hurrying is human.
I had forgotten how much I liked playing that Yamaha grand piano. The lower octaves have deep, rich tones that feel human. If it weren’t for the occasion, I could have sat there all afternoon.
The occasion was a memorial service. They had asked for 15-20 minutes of prelude music, mostly hymns. Normal.
What wasn’t normal was no one was in the auditorium at that time. They were all in the lobby. So like on Sunday mornings when the worship team starts a service to 25% of the eventual crowd, I started playing thinking it was a cue. Nope. I pretty much played the entire prelude to an empty audience. Or so I thought.
Truthfully, I was glad it was empty. Back in the day, the situation would have annoyed me. But not on this afternoon. I just relaxed, sort of pretended I was in a studio or living room. Let the songs go wherever they wish. Play a verse here, repeat a chorus however many times I want, move around between octaves, just improvise freely. I think I must have stuck on a medley of “More Love To Thee” and “I Need Thee Every Hour” about five minutes. Wasn’t planned, but certainly flowed. Albeit late, the group gathered, and the service got under way.
Unbeknownst to me, the service was streamed, even the prelude. My friend who put the gathering together texted me that evening to say folks from Georgia appreciated the piano music prior to the service. I had no idea. I’m guessing had I known I might have approached things differently.
How often I’ve missed moments like this because of who’s in the room. Focusing on the wrong person or the wrong motive downgrades everything. So the challenge can be to always play as if the room is empty, at least of humans. Play from the connection that goes beyond the gut to full body, mind, and spirit in order to commune with the Giver of music.
I believe those moments are glimpses of eternity. I wasn’t expecting that glimpse when I sat down at that Yamaha. That’s something beautiful about how God relates. I believe he loves to catch us by surprise, when we aren’t expecting it. Since He placed eternity in our hearts, only He seems to know when and how to give us a peek. When He does, it’s a peek into so much more than an afternoon here on earth.
A video project was on the agenda. These projects have moving parts, but this one had more than usual. Within minutes of starting to set up, it was clear plan A wasn’t happening. On to plan B.
While editing after recording, plan C came into view. Doesn’t always happen and isn’t always better, but the end result was an improvement over the initial vision.
When we entered 2020, we had plans, visions, expectations. Then the balloon fell over. We were forced to develop and carry out plans we didn’t even know were possible. Flexible, adaptable, fluid mindsets aided our finishing the year, in some cases better than the initial vision. Balloons went from flat on the ground to soaring high in the sky.
As we look around, we see various stages of other’s balloons. Not everyone’s is back up. Not everyone’s plan B or C worked out. Not everyone’s mind has reset.
2021 will start differently than 2020. We enter hoping to see all the balloons upright, maybe even flying together. Our hopes can best be grounded by commiting to supporting others whose balloons are still on the ground or will fall over just like they’ll be there for us if ours does.
One thing we know for sure, 2020 isn’t ending with God off the throne. There is coming a day when he will make all things new. “These words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:5) May these words be enough to keep the air in balloons, to keep them from falling over.
Yesterday I posted thoughts from Bruce Wilkinson’s book A Life God Rewards. Before leaving that, here’s one other quote that could impact your day.
Most of our life happens after our physical death.
That’s “chew worthy.”
Of course, he’s referring to the belief of eternal life. Can’t say I’ve heard anyone put it like this. Gives it fresh reflection.
To make it more clear, he gives six main events of forever life: Life, Death, Destination, Resurrection, Repayment, and Eternity. The thought that this life we know is just a dot on an unending line might bring you joy or fear. Wilkinson’s objective of his book is to help you not wonder or worry about what might await you outside the dot. What you believe and how you live now can give you hope for the rest of “most of your life.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart…”
This verse explains why a pandemic like COVID-19 creates such response. In our hearts we long for beauty and eternity. Anything that smothers that longing is threatening and unnatural. The promise of beauty and eternity gives us reason to desire heaven more. Why?
Eternity won’t have restrictions
Eternity won’t be isolating
Eternity will be peaceful
Eternity will contain yet-to-be-seen beauty
Yesterday a thought came to me while visiting a friend who is dying from cancer. He talked about all the different birds that visit his backyard feeder every day. Made me wonder, “Can you imagine what the wildlife in heaven will be like?”
No pandemic can threaten eternity. Nothing will ever again separate man from God. So much beauty…for eternity.
If awe is a longing, then embedded in that longing is the cry for a destination. And if awe requires a destination, then every moment of awe in this life merely prepares us for the incalculable awe that is to come. You just can’t write a book about awe and not talk about eternity. Perhaps we can find no more real and present argument for heaven in the angst that we all carry in the face of the temporary and dissatisfying awes of the present. Whether we know it or not, the awe of every human being-that desire to be amazed, blown away, moved, and satisfied-is actually a universal craving to see God face-to-face. All the awesome things in creation point me to the awesome God who created and holds them together, and his presence is the destination where my hunger will finally be satisfied. God designed this present world to stimulate us so we would hunger for another world. On the other side, we won’t need the fingers of creation pointing us to God’s awesome glory because we will see that glory face-to-face and dwell in the light and heat of its sun forever and ever. We will finally stand in the actual presence of God, and we will bask in heart-satisfied awe, never to long again.
This paragraph comes from the epilogue of Awe, a book I first blogged about in 2016. I just finished my annual reading of it. I committed to read it annually to renew my awe. But I also read it this week in order to consider developing and offering a study of it for groups at my church. If you attend First Baptist Bradenton, stay tuned.
While reading the epilogue, I also couldn’t help but think about Frank (see post from May entitled Serving Frank). We celebrated his life yesterday. His longing is over. His heart is satisfied, never to long again.
John Gregory 