Future Perfect

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. – Jeremiah 29:11

One of the things I miss when I am not at home is my own coffee.  I’m not sure why this is.  When I’m not traveling, I don’t mind at all getting a few cups of “foreign” coffee with breakfast at Aunt Martha’s or some other restaurant.  My daughter makes a good, strong cup of coffee about like what I brew.  In her case she is hampered by chlorinated or flavorless filtered water.   I’m probably just old and set in my ways.  The first thing I did after a weekend away moving furniture was make myself a modest pot of my own coffee. 

My daughter is moving to a larger, nicer place for which she is being offered a lease with an option to buy after a couple of years.  The house is old, built in the ‘60s.  It’s a little ramshackle, a little run down but still solid and settled.  It reminds me a little of an older fellow I know quite well who can now get a senior citizen discount without asking or flashing his ID.  No “Just For Men” for me. 

It is quite a change for my daughter who has gone through a tremendous transition in the last four years.   She has climbed out of the pit of addiction, found a new job and created a new, hopeful life for herself and her two children.  My complaining joints, especially my poor old, abused right knee, cannot drown out the happy song I hear in her voice.  It sounds like a polka.  Must be from her German ancestors on my wife’s side. 

I can hardly imagine much more of a turnaround from utter hopelessness with the loss of everything important to her to having a future and a hope.  Without some of that hope myself I’m not sure I would have made it through three consecutive weekends of physical effort, dozens of trips up and down stairs, carrying box after box, loading and unloading appliances and furniture, not to mention painting and papering walls and cleaning, always working against time to meet the deadlines.  We also had the record heat to deal with and not much in the way of accommodations. 

God, though, has been in it.  He worked all of the ends out, carefully and beautifully knitting everything together.  In spite of disobedience on the part of some involved, despite my short fuse and cantankerous attitude, God put it all together for us because He is Good.  He knows my daughter’s heart and my granddaughter’s heart. 

There are the old tales that tell of the Fair Folk stealing abused children from cruel and neglectful and unworthy parents.  But where do such little ones go if not to mothers and fathers that are more worthy of them – or perhaps to those who are in need of being made worthy?  Ah, me, indeed.   

Lacking patience or wisdom or any other good attribute that might make me deserving of such wonderful children and grandchildren, I can only love them and try to rise to the level of my blessing, to be whole for them, to be made whole by them.  I say, every once in a while, that everything I know, I learned from my oldest granddaughter.  And it is true -- everything worth knowing.

God doesn't miss much

So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and He took notice. – Exodus 2:24,25

The last phrase in the KJV reads something like, “and He had respect unto them”. Another translation says, “God acknowledged them.” God did not just look at the children of Israel in passing, and He did not respond to them simply because they were suffering. He remembered His covenant. The LORD put Himself into a contractual relationship with Abraham in response to Abraham’s willingness to believe. He restated this covenant to Isaac and to Jacob – especially to Jacob, changing his name to Israel.

(Abram/Abraham and Jacob/Israel had name changes. Isaac was named for the response that first the promise and then the actuality of his birth evoked, i.e., “Laughter”. Isaac was not renamed; he knew who he was.)

God acknowledged the legitimacy of the children of Israel – not as descendants of an earthly patriarch – but as His own children with whom He had a covenant and to whom He had obligated Himself.

When Jesus died on the Cross, He established a new and better covenant with all of humanity, an all-encompassing covenant. The Messiah, passing through pain, death, and the grave to a resurrected life, became the Israel of God, bringing salvation to all. As in Adam all died, it says, so in Christ all are made alive.

Oswald Chambers makes a couple of challenging statements about salvation. First, Chambers said, we should not push redemption into a future fulfillment: “Men are not going to be redeemed; they are redeemed.” We are not waiting on God to save us. He is waiting for us to enter into the covenant relationship with Him. Second, Chambers offers a slightly different take on the role of faith in salvation: “I am not saved by believing; I realize I am saved by believing.”

In Egyptian bondage, the Israelites did not feel much like children of God, heirs of a covenantal relationship that gave them access to the very Creator of heaven and earth. Nevertheless, this was the case. I may not feel like a child of God as I suffer in some bondage that seems as unbreakable as it is unbearable. Yet I am a legitimate son, a rightful heir of that better covenant in Christ.

We were talking about my granddaughter, EL-C, last night, reminiscing about little things that happened as she grew up. My daughter brought up a bike wreck that EL-C had when she was five or six. Their house was on a corner at the bottom of a steep grade. Grandma, Mom, EL-C, and I had been up at a little neighborhood playground on the other side of the block. Mom and Grandma ambled along while EL-C and I went on a little faster, rounded the block and started down the hill. Normally I could keep up with her on her bike, but the accelerating effects of gravity were not yet factored into her little organic calculator. Her bicycle tires were somewhat worn, and she did not apply the brakes anywhere close to soon enough. Couple all that with a moment of sheer panic, and the result was that she drove straight into the curb and did an impressive end-do onto a fortunately well-watered, plush lawn.

Amazingly, she broke her fall with her face. She has always been a talented child.

I got to her right away and scooped her up out of the neighbor’s yard. Her nose was bleeding but there was no other obvious damage. She was, however, wailing like a tornado siren. Her mother, still out of sight around the other corner, heard this and knew immediately it was her baby. Clogs shed, barefoot Mom ran down the hill, grabbed EL-C out of my arms as I reached the other side of the street, and carried her into the house to be suitably soothed and cleaned up. I took care of the bike. (On a side note, my granddaughter explained her accident by saying, “Poppy didn’t hold on,” -- that is, to the back of her bicycle seat. I didn’t bother to argue that Carl Lewis couldn’t have kept up with her.)

My daughter is a pretty good mother. Mothers will respond to the voices, and especially to the cries of their children. Normal people do not forget their offspring or ignore their suffering. God says that even if a mother could forget her child, He will not forget us.

If we are willing to believe what God says about us, willing to believe that we are His children, then we need not be surprised that He responds to our sufferings and breaks our fetters.