To Readers: A new computer system has caused the delay in posting this series of blogs.
In the small space Elijah lay on his mat, tossing and turning to find comfort. Praying he could sleep he found the mental peace begetting sleep had fled and carried somnolence away. Instead, his mind a beehive of issues he couldn’t resolve and questions he couldn’t answer, he could only WONDER at the circumstances that had brought him there, miles in distance and eons in perception from his work. With God as his teacher, Elijah had been his own counselor, absorbing and following the spiritual instruction given. Now, suddenly deprived of God’s presence and word, he had no counsel of value. He had found, in the isolation he welcomed the loneliness that only the community of believers could banish. He had found that the last person SELF needs in crisis is the SELF that caused or proved unable to manage it. Buckled by a woman’s rage, but demolished by his own cowardice, he searched in vain for the courage that had been his trademark. In a crack of the cave wall; mentally outside on the route he had walked watching for any hint of retrieval. Without result, leaving him afraid it had flown without return. Once anchored by faith to God, and always under God’s control, his life flew now one way, then another, unsecured. His had become a conflicted commitment, a Palm tree’s root, clumped together in a mass with no tap beneath to secure his confidence, now torn loose from all he had believed and preached, now flapping in the suddenly increasing wind that entered a room empty save for a man emptier still by losing touch with God. It suddenly seemed personal to him and he shielded his eyes before a glow it blew into the cavern. And out of the glow a voice…a too-familiar voice calling…, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Energized by it, and heard too often too many times before to mistake it now, his tortured mind suddenly became AWARE…. Yet, not so personal he considered it necessary to call the voice by name, and still impersonal enough he felt it easier NOT to humble himself before it. Indeed, proving that while the journey had left him physically exhausted, it left his mind even more acerbic, his temper more active, his complaint more pointed, his optimism totally degraded and his explanation of the most recent event 180◦ from accurate, save for his zeal for Adonai YHWH Sabaoth, “the LORD God Almighty. End Part VIII
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Though preachers must always preach God’s word, they often function as mere wall flowers. A story from the Country Houses of 20th Century England illustrates. The upper classes built and enjoyed those houses, to which they invited carefully screened peers for parties, hunting trips and discreet political discussions.
One such house hosted 1000 people, who came and went as they pleased. What interested me was the role of the hosts’ chaplain at the party. After each breakfast he read “a few short prayer”, after which everyone went wherever his pleasure took him on the estate until the next meal. He read “a few short prayers”. Few...short...canned prayers. Nothing heavy. Nothing challenging. Nothing worthwhile! Nothing taking his effort. Mere religious form. If a preacher is good for anything, it should be as a spokesman for God to his people. Should he excel in anything but that, he is really good for nothing! Forgive him his sins and bear with his faults, but hold him accountable for faithfully preaching God’s word. |
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