Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Hey there, dear ones.

It’s going to be another day! The clouds are breaking up and the sun is shining through. I may need some sunshine heat as I carry on with the installation of graphics on this van. I didn’t get far with it on Saturday. It will be a challenge.

At the end of our little WOG, Becki and I quickly gathered nearly 2 more pounds of beautiful blackberries. It’s kind of frustrating walking along that roadway with all those beautiful ripe berries looking at us.

OK, let’s get on with it. But first, I’ll return to the house where Becki should have some nice breakfast-fried zucinni ready about now. I love eating according to the seasons—according to the menu the Creator provides—growing right out of the dirt. But once again, there’s no way that dirt could have thought this up!

Love, Dad/Ray.

Where can we hide? Where can we go? It’s like we are trapped. We’re fenced in on every side. We’re being bull-dozed by big political machines, religious machines, economic machines, educational machines, medical and pharmaceutical machines, ecological machines, ethnic and race machines, social crisis machines, land control machines—all kinds of machines—all pushing and shoving us into conformity to the liking of the operators of those machines. We get so oppressed by it all that we get motivated to organize and build our own bull-dozer machines to doze back. But then—it doesn’t really fix anything. All it does is contribute another machine to the bull-dozer “Demolition Derby.”

OK—I admit being kind of cynical about it all. But how can I not be? I’m inclined to regard my cynicism as realism because cynicism is not what I prefer. My Biblical worldview lends support to this real view—the hopelessness of man’s bull-dozer abilities to push things together into a nice pile of peace. After all, if mankind is truly afflicted with a universal NATURAL SIN NATURE, how could it be otherwise? My historical worldview also adds support. After all, real lasting peace has never happened before.

Think about it. In all the rhetoric and campaigning we hear being broadcasted from these bull-dozing machines, how many times have we heard any promotion whatsoever of a HEART AFTER GOD? None? Well, therein is our big real problem.

After all that gloominess, let me sign off with optimism—awesome optimism and hope. Peace is indeed available through the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). But it’s only personal. No one can have a HEART AFTER GOD for you any more than someone can eat a hamburger for you. This personal opportunity should also be viewed as a personal responsibility for the common good. It only makes good sense that “no chain is stronger than its weakest link”—and no group can know peace that is not made up of individuals who know peace.

Isaiah foresees a point in time when the “Demolition Derby” will cease—when the LORD “will make peace your governor and righteousness your ruler” (59:17). The description is indeed awesome. “The LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end” (59:20). But for now, hide this immediate promise in your heart: “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal” (Isaiah 26:3-4).