Eating Eternity

Posted on November 13, 2025 by Mark

I was surprised by how much I liked rock-climbing. In graduate school, a classmate took me to a 30-foot boulder at the edge of Pullman. With practice I got better and better. I learned the grace of holding on to the rock just hard enough not to peel off but not hard enough to exhaust myself. Arriving at the top was exhilarating.

School was the opposite in every way. One class was followed by another, one degree by another. All my goals were long-term and somewhat vague. What would I actually do with degrees in English? In contrast, climbing a rock was wonderfully concrete. Getting to the top was a quick and definite achievement—even though no one was there to applaud my 30 ft ascent.

Even Christians are attracted to obedience that results in quick and concrete achievement. This is true even if we are free of selfish ambition. I wish serving God was more like rock-climbing and less like sowing seed. Broadcast sowing, as described in Matthew 13, is hit and miss. Where the seed lands is a matter of chance or the wind. Some lands on hard ground, some on rocky soil, some in the weeds, and some in good soil. And then there is the wait and the possibility someone else will harvest what you planted (see John 4:37). Only time will tell.

Turns out, I don’t have much appetite for eternity. For instance, this last year I have done no teaching or preaching. Even though both of these bear fruit slowly, compared to my life of prayer and care-giving, these are more like rock-climbing. I must confess, I am only beginning to develop an appetite for work that bears fruit only in eternity. All those who pour out their lives, sometimes for decades, caring for a handicapped child or a parent with dementia will only be rewarded when they see Jesus face to face. I wish I were okay with this.

My efforts to start a home group here in Gardner failed. Most people at the church I attend do not know me and I think few of them live in this area. (If I attended the church longer, I would worry that the lack of interest was because they did know me.) I asked the Lord why I was bothered so much by the small group failing. The answer formed in my heart and mind was, “You don’t take eternal reward seriously, you want fruit you can eat this side of eternity.”

I don’t think God wants us to stop enjoying rock-climbing, doing things that bring a concrete and measurable results. Preachers can enjoy people being blessed or even saved through their preaching. Teachers can delight in the “Aha!” moment when a student understands something. Both can enjoy those rare moments when years later someone shares how much their ministry or teaching helped them.

But the ministries of prayer and caregiving, when done with joy and presented to Lord with love, bear a rare and different fruit. Because no one sees or knows, this beautiful fruit is unblemished by personal ambition or a need for validation. The sweetness of the fruit is the love and pleasure we see in the eyes of Jesus. It is the joy of loving someone with Jesus as you serve and pray.

I want to follow Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well. His disciples had gone into the town Sychar to buy food and left Jesus alone at the edge of town. When the disciples return, they are amazed that Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, was talking to a Samaritan woman. In fact, this conversation is one of the longest one-on-one exchanges recorded in the gospels. The ministry of Jesus had already gone viral, and he was drawing bigger crowds than John the Baptist had (John 4:1). Yet, here he was revealing himself as Messiah and offering eternal life to a lone Samaritan woman of dubious reputation.

Jesus’ disciples offer him some of the food, but he says he has food they don’t know about. They are puzzled so he explains, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and bring it completion.” Like the disciples, I am only beginning to understand what it means to live and serve only with an eye on eternity and what is valued by God. The Father’s delight is the eternal food that feeds our hungry soul.

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For a Long Time

Posted on November 1, 2025 by Mark

This is our second autumn in Kansas. We have a wonderful assortment of oak, ash, and maple trees whose leaves flash every color from purple to scarlet. Yesterday we saw a bright red oak catching the setting sun in its translucent leaves. The tree radiated joy as the leaves danced in the breeze.

I told Teckla, “I enjoy the changing colors of the trees in our neighborhood.” She quietly said, “I have liked them for a long time.” I did not explain that we have only lived here a year and a half. Even though I knew her comment was the result of her dementia, she expressed a profound truth. 

Every new beauty is an old friend. Every taste of Eden, no matter how new, is also something ancient. Every new insight is also a memory of an old truth. Joy flows from a timeless place of beauty. God’s steadfast faithfulness is new every morning. God is always doing a new thing that feels old because of God’s unchanging goodness and majesty.

While looking through old pictures the other day, Teckla picked up a picture of herself in high school and exclaimed, “She is gorgeous!” She was baffled and embarrassed when I explained that it was her. Her memory loss allowed her to see her own beauty more clearly. And of course, it awakened me again to her beauty—especially her beautiful modesty and selflessness.  Everyday Teckla is learning something old and new. Me too.

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A Violent Halloween Meditation

Posted on October 31, 2025 by Mark

Huge monsters, ghouls, and skeletons crowd the yard of a neighbor a few blocks away. Some are 10—15 feet tall. Zombie and skeletal babies crawl across the lawn between the plastic skeletons of dogs. If prizes were given for Halloween decorations, this family’s house would win. All the images are, however, of death and evil. Nothing is cute.

I have an odd and persistent desire to smash all the decorations to smithereens with my hefty walking stick. Not as a sneaky Halloween prank; I would do it in broad daylight—a frightening juggernaut of arthritic kung fu. When confronted I would simply say, “From all your decorations I assumed you would like some real evil—some devilry. I thought you would like some of the real stuff.”  

I would not go on a rampage out of anger or any puritanical rage against pagan traditions, but as a thought experiment. Do we really want all the evil and death that many (not all) Halloween decorations celebrate? I think a real zombie would be heart-breaking. I have known and loved heroin and meth addicts. I have sat between the graves of my mother and father and prayed for God to save the life of my son. Despite all the celebration of death in his yard, I doubt my neighbor would want the real thing in his house.

The owner of the house seems nice. I complimented him on the cool turtle skeleton he had—even though anatomically incorrect.  I have noticed he puts up no Christmas decorations, but that could be out of exhaustion and a lack of storage space. Perhaps it is out of religious conviction or the lack of it.

But here is the point of the thought experiment. Unlike Christmas, Halloween decorations of this sort do not represent anything we want—only what we fear. We cannot threaten Christmas decorations in the same way. We cannot say, “So you are celebrating light and beauty and love—take this! More lights, wads of tinsel, and piles of presents!”

We also do not want Halloween to bleed into the rest of the year. On the other hand, we hope the kindness and love of Christmaswill last throughout the year. Every charity wishes people’s Christmas spirit would last. And although we put away the decorations in January, it is always with some sadness—it is never with the feeling that we have had enough beauty and joy.

Perhaps the paradox of celebrating death and evil at Halloween and yet not wanting real death or real evil, explains why masks of real monsters (like Hitler or John Gacy) are not popular. And to be charitable, perhaps playful celebrations of death and evil serve to disarm monsters of their power. For one night we tame our monsters and play with them. After all, I, and the boys in my neighborhood, played war all day long in the summer, turning every stick into a rifle and every pinecone into a grenade. We, of course, would have hated real war.

But these decorations seem more like celebration than play; the monsters and skeletons flirt with evil and give the adrenaline rush that fear brings. I think our culture celebrates too many things we do not really want. Pop music often celebrates sexual promiscuity and drug use that no one would want for their kids. (I could be overestimating the parenting skills of Cardie B. and Nicky Menaj.) Movies romanticize adultery and divorce which in real life are all misery. Aging counter-cultural professors urge students to challenge authority but, oblivious to the irony, bristle when students challenge their authority. In this web of lies, the worst may be that we can sin and evil and avoid all the consequences.

There is a kind of dishonesty in all this posing. We should want for ourselves, and for our children, whatever we celebrate. The poet Byron, like so many rock stars after him, discovered that cultivating his image as a tragic bad boy sold more poetry. So it may be that there is money to be made in all this posing. It is estimated that as a nation we will spend 13 billion on Halloween. Adult Halloween parties are becoming more popular, so this is not just money spent on candy.   

I love autumn and even love the fun of Halloween. I like seeing the kids in costumes and I think the play is healthy.  It is regrettable that as our society has become more secular that the day’s connection to All Saints Day has been lost. We owe a debt to the dead, and today we too easily regard those who came before us as dead weight in our march to Progress. Skulls and bones can remind us to be humble. Death and judgment await us all, but this is not the purpose of Halloween skulls and skeletons. In fact, it is undead that celebrated.  

I once brought tears to the eyes of a student while discussing vampires. She had been reading the Twilight series which focuses, I believe, on a love triangle between Bella and a vampire and a werewolf. Her eyes brightened when I said I like vampires. But she teared up when I said, “I like the thought of driving a stake through their hearts.” I had just read Abraham Stoker’s Dracula which emphasized the heroism of those who hunted and destroyed Dracula. Stoker presents Count Dracula as “white maggot”, not a tragic hero.

For the same reason, I like the huge ghouls and monsters in my neighbor’s yards. But if all my neighbor’s decorations end up broken and torn, I promise, it will be the gusting Kansas wind that did it.

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Do You Miss Him?

Posted on October 13, 2025 by Mark

I think I was as surprised as my student by the question. We were in a scheduled conference to discuss the topic of her research paper. Recently, some celebrities were choosing to begin families without the help of man, so there had been quite a bit of debate about whether kids needed two parents or, at least, two parents of different sexes.

After discussing how psychologists and sociologists would approach the question, we outlined the research questions that her paper would answer. We discussed the importance of letting facts speak for themselves, looking for the consensus of experts, and giving due attention to minority positions.

Before she left, I asked her why she chose this topic. She explained, “My father left our family when I was four and I think my mom has done an incredible job raising me. I don’t think kids need a mother and a father.”  I agreed that her mother had done a good job and could certainly be proud of the good student her daughter had become.

As she was putting her notebook away, I gently asked one last question: Do you miss him? Immediately her shoulders rose and fell, tears streamed down her face. She pushed back her long black hair, wiped away her tears, and said, “I guess it is not as simple as I thought. I may need to rethink my topic.”

She eventually wrote on different topic. In the spring a year later, she came bounding up to me in her cap and gown. Shen pointed to a large group of her family that had come up from California for her graduation.  She whispered in my ear, “My father is here. We reconnected.” She was radiant.

This true story continues to teach me. First, it illustrates how certain we can be that our culture is right even when everything in our heart protests. The idea kids don’t need a mother and father continues to be dogma for many. And this despite all the evidence that kids with a mother and father on average do better than kids with just one parent. We may cling to this idea partly to be kind to single parents raising their kids alone. No one wants a divorced parent to feel guilty or discouraged. But the sociological evidence for the advantages of two parent homes is indisputable.

Second, I am certain that it was the Holy Spirit that prompted me to ask the question. It was a simple question but asked at the right time and in the right way, it was powerful. I want to always be tuned to the prompting of the Holy Spirit—even when in conversations about mundane things.

Last, this story seems to illustrate, in miniature, Augustine’s claim that we all have an empty God-shaped hole in our heart that only He can fill. Many today are utterly certain their lives are fine without a heavenly Father and that He is not needed. But like my student, they are missing someone they have never really known.

There is, however, evidence that on many college campuses the Holy Spirit continues to ask, “Do you miss Him?”  

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Mysteries So Bright

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Mark

I dislike mysteries, at least theological ones. Saying something is a mystery has always seemed like an escape from logical consistency. Like most evangelicals of my generation, I see my faith mostly as a set of beliefs that can be rationally explained. I can recite four different orthodox theories of salvation, atonement, and eschatology. Like a good Berean, I am committed to testing everything against the Scriptures using sound exegetical principles. It is good to love God, but we need to know exactly who we are loving.

I like precise language about God. So, when someone says, “Trust God,” my response has been “For what?” I do not want to trust God for things He has never promised to do or give, lest my trust for God be blown out of the water. I trust that God will always be with me, but not that I will always sense his presence. I trust God to wring all the good He can from tragedy, but I do not trust Him to shield me from tragedy.

As a teacher, I have little patience for inspiring sermons of where we ought be spiritually. Such sermons are like describing a beautiful fishing hole but refusing to give directions to the spot. I like to know the five steps to spiritual maturity, the four keys to powerful prayer, the seven principles of prophetic ministry.

Despite my love for clarity and reason, I have been haunted by the second stanza of the hymn “Crown Him with Many Crowns”. Matthew Bridges wrote: “Crown Him the Lord of Love! Behold His hands and side/Rich wounds yet visible above, in beauty glorified/No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight/But downwards bends his wondering eyes, at mysteries so bright” I asked myself whether some mysteries might be not the abandonment of clarity, but the rather too much clarity, too much wonder, too much glory.

I felt the truth of this idea before I understood it. As is so often the case, Teckla led the way. We were walking home together after saying goodnight to the grand-kids, when she suddenly stopped. Turning her face toward me, she said, “I love you.” Her words were so tender and deliberate that I knew she was trying to say much more. I told her I loved her and then asked, “Do you know my name?” She squeezed my hand and said, “I don’t remember.”

And it was okay. I could have said, “How can you love me if you don’t know who I am!” If I quizzed her, I would have discovered she has no memory of most of our life together. In other words, she has no rational basis for loving me. Yet, the depth and power of her love was real. I could only “wonder at a mystery so bright.”

These days, I love Jesus this way. Even though I remember and can recite all that Jesus has done for me, I find myself simply loving Him. I have not kept accounts and decided God has dealt me a good hand. I have no words to explain how His love is shining through my son’s death and Teckla’s dementia; this is a mystery of light, a mystery of love. I trust Him.

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Time on My Hands

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Mark

Just when you think you are past all the temptations to live a fleshly life, you get old. It is not sensual pleasure, but rather the love of comfort that entices you. All the aches and pains make comfort paramount. And worse, retirement has given me the freedom to do whatever I feel like when I want.

While teaching, my life was structured by a drive to and from work, office hours, classes, meetings, and stacks of papers to grade. Work dictated when I went to bed and when I got up. I had gotten in the habit of reading my Bible and praying for about 20 minutes in the morning. I did not have to make many decisions about how to spend my time.

I tried to be a good a steward of the little time that was my own. Throughout the day, I tried to stay tuned to God’s voice and lean on His love and wisdom while teaching or interacting with other teachers. Imperfectly and sporadically, I would try to practice God’s presence.

I thought being retired would make staying tuned to God’s presence easier, but having no demands on my time makes it more difficult. All day long I must decide how I should spend my time, what will please God, what will bless others, what is wise, and what will bear fruit. More time on my hands means more temptations to just do what I feel like doing when I feel like doing it.

I don’t think I have this much free time since junior high and maybe in high school. (I would have had less free time if I had ever done homework.) It is humbling to admit that old folks like me can be as moody and sullen as teenagers. We may be more likely to take a nap than throw a tantrum, but we are still tempted to walk in the flesh instead of the Spirit.

These are not temptations to do evil things but to simply walk according to my own compass and moods. Our culture often justifies this self-centeredness. Retirees are often told it is now time for them to do what we want. We have earned this “me time”. I can’t, however, find anything in the Scripture to justify this. We now have greater freedom in how we can serve God, but we are not free to serve ourselves. We must resist the temptation to do good things instead of the best things.

My solution has been to pray carefully about how my day should be ordered. Little by little God and I are adding habits and routines that make it easier to walk in the Spirit instead of my decrepit and aching flesh. More habits means fewer decisions, and fewer decisions means I am less likely to obey my feelings instead of God.

Of course there are always decisions to make. The goal is relational. I want my habits and routines to tune my heart to hear God’s voice. I want to co-labor with God and live in communion with the Father and Son. Odd as it may seem, letting God structure my day frees me to hear and obey the voice of the Spirit. Routines make me more flexible and spontaneous.

For instance, yesterday Teckla and I abruptly took off into the woods at Big Bull County Park and hunted for pawpaw trees. Before we left, I did my little routine of praying, inviting God to speak to me, and actively listening to God. I do all this in a journal I keep. It is habit I keep with difficult because I always afraid God won’t speak or that I will just hear my own thoughts.

The only words I wrote down after listening to God were: “Go look for pawpaws.” I honestly wasn’t in the mood. My allergies were bad, the ragweed was blooming everywhere, and in all my hiking I had never seen ripe pawpaws. Nonetheless, Teckla and went on a three-hour hike, shook pawpaw trees, and came home laden with fruit. I got a delicious lesson in seasons, obedience, and fruitfulness. Turns out that my allergies had kept me out of the woods during the season the fruit ripens.

I would not have had this spontaneous and instructive adventure had I not stuck to my routine of praying and listening. Yes, I should already know this. It is embarrassing and humbling to be 71 years old and again learning that abundant life comes from staying connected to God in prayer and obedience.

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Walking Home

Posted on August 15, 2025 by Mark

The sun was setting behind the warehouses as Teckla and I walked home after getting hugs and saying goodnight to the grandchildren. We live only a few blocks away, but sometimes I like to ask Teckla to lead us home. When we got to the corner, I asked Teckla whether we should go to the left or right.

She was baffled but not distraught. I simply waited as she looked up and down Popular Street. Her blue eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “Mark!” Almost immediately her face fell as she mumbled, “That isn’t a direction, is it?”

“No,” I said, “but that’s okay.” I humbly realized that for Teckla, in the fog of dementia, “Mark” was the right direction. Whether we had gone left or right, I would have gotten her home. She trusted me.

Who she went with was more important than which direction we walked. Of course, my heart toward Teckla melted, but at the same time I realized how often I have not known the right direction. In our polarized society, there is a lot of pressure to choose between left and right.

When forced to choose, I often say, “Jesus.” I am sure we will make it home.

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Holy Ruts

Posted on August 13, 2025 by Mark

In my love of spontaneity, and abhorrence of routines, I am probably a child of the Sixties and Seventies. I have, until recently, viewed routines as recipes for boredom. “Getting in a rut” meant the same old thing, worn out and pointless. Not only were ruts dull, but they were often, I thought, mindless.

People at church sang the same old hymns each Sunday—first, second, and last verse. We often prayed the same old prayers each Wednesday. Folks stood up and gave the same testimonies each Sunday night. At school I knew Catholic kids who walked in the tighter and older ruts of Mass. For most of them, as far as I could tell, all the traditions had no impact on how they lived.

In recent years, however, I have discovered the beauty and value of ruts, especially those that open our lives to God’s voice and grace. This may seem obvious to many, but I grew up in the evangelical tradition that emphasized crisis experiences as the key to spiritual growth.  I have also sojourned in the charismatic tradition that values walking in response to the voice of the Holy Spirit. I have, wrongly I now think, assumed that routines get in the way of moment-by-moment obedience to God’s voice.

Ruts keep our wheels on the road even when the road is slippery and treacherous. During the trauma-filled years we were struggling to keep Peter alive, I wrote out a verse on  3/5 cards every morning. I wrote the verse and a blessing on the cards and gave one to Teckla and one to Ari. I carried mine throughout the day as I was teaching. I would discover it or older ones smashed in my pocket or in a book. But I would read it several times during the day.

The rut of writing verses on cards saved my life—or at least my faith. Not only had Peter been in and out of ICU’s, often near death, but Teckla had a bilateral partial mastectomy to remove breast cancer. I had my cancerous prostate out. Teckla had a malfunctioning gall bladder yanked. And then Teckla was diagnosed with dementia. I would lay all this before God but hear nothing but “Trust me.” I did not sense God’s presence or feel His comfort, but each day I carried His Word in my pocket. His Word carried me through a time when my despair and pain was too loud for me to hear His voice. Holy ruts kept me on the road and out of the ditch.

A second rut was the men’s Bible study at the Presbyterian church. I often did not want to get up extra early to make to the seven o’clock Bible Study. It was low-key. We often had breakfast sandwiches from McKay’s Market. We took turns reading verses from a book of the Bible. We shared prayer requests, but usually not our feelings—which was oddly comforting. Yet, Carl, John, Jack, Tom and Marc were Jesus to me during a terrible time. The Bible study was a simple and holy rut that kept me on the road in the storm.  

The more holy ruts we have, the fewer decisions we have to make each day. This matters because every decision opens the door to distractions or simply doing what we “feel” like doing. These days Teckla and I begin each day by reading Scripture aloud, singing hymns together, and praying together. I don’t always feel doing this, but this rut has turned out to be a blessing. We invite God into our day. We begin the day more alert to His presence and tuned to His voice.

Making fewer decisions may seem less spiritual. However, the point is to choose habits that turn our hearts toward God and toward His will. We are probably not choosing whether to get into a rut—just whether the rut will be one made by our flesh and our feelings, or one made by God’s wisdom and truth. Doing only what we feel like doing is a rut that takes us in circles. Holy ruts move us closer to God.

Of course, ruts are only as good as the road’s destination. We need ruts that take us to transformation. Holy ruts make more like Jesus and teach us to walk by the Spirit and not the flesh. Refusing to be tossed around by our feelings anchors us and strengthens us as followers of Jesus.

A few days ago, I planted iris bulbs in the flower bed along the house. My childhood friend, Kirby, sent them to me from Oregon. I have watered them every day, but I don’t see any signs of life. But I will keep at it. We are often too quick to abandon a holy habit because we don’t immediately detect spiritual growth or benefits. My irises won’t bloom until next spring, but I will be patient.

It is nearly impossible to evaluate where we are at spiritually, but examining our habits is good place to begin. We can aspire to be intimate with God, to hear his voice and walk in careful obedience, but fail simply because we don’t habitually do anything to give more of ourselves to God. It is like aspiring to run a marathon but never getting out of bed and actually running.

In the fields around here (Gardner KS) there are still many ruts. The Oregon, Santa Fe, and California wagon trails converge here. In places the ruts, not covered in grass, are several feet deep. It is easy to imagine how important the ruts were during the thunderstorms that wash over this part of Kansas. It would be nearly impossible for a wagon slip-off the road even in a storm. Our nation was settled and built by people who got in a rut. Perhaps the kingdom of God needs more people moving in holy ruts.  

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Teckla’s Double Portion

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Mark

For a second Sunday in a roll, Teckla has given me a double portion of the Lord. Where I go to church, Vineyard Community Church, communion is done by people walking to the front and taking the bread and juice and then returning to their seats. Teckla and I walk up together and have communion together at our seats while the worship team sings softly. It is not very liturgical but works well. It has become a moment I treasure each week.

The last two Sundays, however, there has been an awkward moment when we get back to our seats and I see Teckla has taken two cups and two pieces of bread. She always hands me the extra one. Rather than trying to explain that I already have both, I simply take communion twice with a grateful and broken heart.

My heart is broken because Teckla’s dementia has made such a simple thing difficult. Sometimes she holds the little cup and doesn’t remember what to do. I whisper, “This body of Christ broken for you. This the blood of Christ shed for you” We muddle through communion together in our seats. And are blessed.

I am grateful because all these years I have been married to a godly wife whose heart is to give. If a good wife is a gift from God, in Teckla I have received a double portion of goodness. Her sweetness shines through her clouds of cognitive impairment. Again and again, like this morning, God’s grace has flowed from Teckla to me.

I may have been playing the role of priest to Teckla this morning, but the love and grace of Christ flowed from Teckla to me. Dementia is terrible and hard in many ways, but not beyond the beauty and love of Christ. It is just like Jesus to make flowers of grace bloom in the compost of our pain and loss.  

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The God of Now

Posted on July 17, 2025 by Mark

Both the young and the old are tempted to live in the future. As a college writing instructor, I have spent much of my life helping young people prepare for the future. Especially in recent years, college freshmen entered my classes with a lot of anxiety. Even those with a strong faith in God had a hard time focusing on what God might be saying and doing in their lives in the now.

Christian young people sometimes had a call to some kind of ministry as pastors or worship leaders. Those from more charismatic backgrounds had prophetic words spoken about how God would someday use them. Too often, however, their concern for the future left them unengaged with God in the present. Honestly, I was much the same when I was religion major at a Christian college. I believed, someday, God would use me.

Much of my life, rightly or wrongly, I have prayed for a revival or visitation that would set the hearts of God’s people on fire with a holy passion for God and evangelism. Not only have I prayed for that day, I have tried to be ready to catch that wave. But in all this longing and interceding for a visitation from God, I have sometimes postponed joy and failed to celebrate God now. I sometimes lost the rhythm of mourning and celebrating, fasting and feasting.

I am seventy-one. Like Maple Street in Myrtle Point, my street here in Gardner takes me to a cemetery. When Teckla and stroll under its huge maples and oaks, I wonder if it is time to buy a plot. The cemetery is wedged between train tracks. Day and night, the dead are shaken and perhaps sadly mistaken when Gabriel’s trumpet turns out to be the horn of a passing train. Even at my age, it is easy to let the future eclipse the present.

I look at the past too. I miss friends left behind in Oregon. I miss my son, Peter, who he was and who he was meant to be. If I think of what should have, could have, might have been, I despair. There are so many “if only’s”. Past missteps and tragedies can create present paralysis. It is tempting to hunker down and prepare for the next heartbreak, the next loss. As minds and bodies age and fail, it is easy to cringe and whimper.

I miss the forests, beaches, and mountains of Oregon. Kansas is different, and it is easy to let the difference blind me to the beauty of the hardwood forests, windswept prairies, and clouds racing across blue skies. In missing Oregon I am not just missing the beauty, but also the memories made in these places: beaches, trails, rivers, and even specific trees that are woven into my life with those I love.

We can, however, connect to the future and past in ways that nourish our present experience with God. I have chosen to relate to the past with thanksgiving. I thank God for all the footprints Teckla and I have left in the sand of Oregon beaches. I thank him for the wildflowers at Euphoria Ridge. I thank God for the faithfulness of God’s people who have loved and helped us through our many losses. I am also nearer and more certain about the hope of glory: of being raised again in Christ and made like him. This hope explodes despair. Our gratitude for God’s past blessings and our hope for glory should free us from the tyranny of past regrets and future fears. We are free to ask God, “What now?”

Whether you are 17 or 71, (or dyslexic) God’s answer is always, “Me”. We are to walk in relationship with God. Be filled with His Spirit and led by His voice moment by moment. We can practice the presence of God and let God move through us now even as we prepare to be used by God in the future.

I have been breathing this prayer, “Lord, bless me and make me blessing today.” I pray this with the expectation God will answer me. I invite the Holy Spirit to tell me who to pray for and how to pray for them. Sometimes I declare blessings over those I love. Sometimes I am led to write a note, reach out to a friend, or do something for someone. Living in the moment means letting God be with us in the small things and small places of our daily life.

As a teacher and student, a present tense walk with God means inviting the Holy Spirit to read books with me and give me His thoughts. I invite him to help write things that are both honest and true. Often some emotion, image, or idea rings true, but is like a piece of a puzzle that only God can fit into the Truth, His Son.

Practicing God’s presence will be different for everyone. One of my sons, who is a carpenter, had a dream of Jesus showing him how to start a cut without the saw jumping around. Recently, while counseling someone, I found myself asking God to change their OS and download new drivers. God speaks our language. God is with us in our us in all things that make us who we are. The glorious paradox is that the more we are surrendered to Christ and become like Him, the more we are uniquely ourselves as created  by God.

Maybe at every age, we must resist the tyranny of future fears and past regrets. People my age feel the approach of death in their joints and bones. But young people face many other challenges—finding a career, finding a spouse, navigating all the financial challenges that lie ahead. But whether young or old, we serve a risen Savior, who is Emanuel—God with us now.

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