I was reading the Bible at the breakfast table to my children in my best effort to uphold the Tim Berrey tradition while he was away for the week teaching a CEP (Continuing Education for Pastors) class in Mindanao.
We were in the book of Revelation, and at first I had everyone's attention. (Dragons! Beasts! Trumpets!) But then something happened. First David saw the toy zebras and wanted them. He is at that age of toddlership where children repeat the same thing over and over until you acknowledge that you heard it. "Zebra, Mommy? Zebra? Zebra?" Then, just as I assured him that I had accurately interpreted his words (but that he needed to wait until we were done reading to play with the zebras) and began to read again, the toast popped up. Our toaster is uncertain how to go about its job. Sometimes the toast is white and sometimes it is black. We love it anyway, but we know we have to babysit it. So the kids were all telling each other to go check the toast. Finally we got that settled (perfect toast), and I began reading again. And then. . . Just as I was reading about how the accuser of the brethren is conquered by the blood of the Lamb, one of my boys saw his own revelation: a dead cockroach under the table. Actually, it wasn't dead. It was still in the lala land bugs go to when they end up on their backs. His legs and feelers were still waving, but he wasn't going anywhere. The Word of God is far more important than that. "We will take care of him later," I announced, mustering up my best Mommy voice. And we finished reading. Powerful passage. They forgot about the cockroach until I kept my promise and "took care" of him later. "Eeewww," my boys said, with evident enjoyment. Zebras, toast, and cockroaches. They pull our attention away from the one needful thing. The most important part of the day. The thing without which we cannot spiritually survive in this world. What takes your attention away from the Word of God? The zebras were toys. There is nothing wrong with them. But they are not something to focus on, either. We adults have our own toys. (Hint: most of them are on our computer or cell phone.) Are they drawing our attention away from the Word of God? The toast was breakfast. Food. A necessary thing. But even the necessities of life have their place. We cannot let them take precedence over our Word time. Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The cockroach? Well, we all know what kinds of revolting, despicable things there are out there. (Some of those things show up in movie theaters around Valentines Day.) Don't play with them. Don't dirty your hands and your lives with them. Kill them. Practice radical amputation when you find them infesting your life. Cockroaches are scum-suckers. Bottom-feeders. Dead or alive, they are creepy-crawly disgustingness. It is better to enter heaven with one hand or one eye than to be cast out forever because that part of your body kept you from the Lord. Let's be as hasty to kill the moral scum in our lives as we are to kill the cockroaches under our tables. Zebras, toast, and cockroaches. It is a new day, a new week. A new start. Give the Lord the first part--the best part--of your day. When you read the Word, focus. Don't be distracted. My personal rule of thumb is that God gets my time and attention before I turn on my computer or open a book. Unless there is an emergency or an urgent need, nothing comes before my time with Him. It is a habit that has become a tremendous blessing to me. And, if you have children, the best thing you can do for them today is to help them, also, to focus on the Word. Zebras, toast, and cockroaches. The Word of God is far more important than these things. I spoke a few Saturdays ago to a Ladies' Fellowship about Rest for Weary Mamas. I found the topic intensely personal, as the last several months had been so busy that I was not sure I really knew what the word rest even meant anymore. My nights were short and naps had become a distant memory. I was the ultimate weary mama. I was so busy I was afraid I would not have time to adequately study this topic of rest. And when I say that I was busy, I don't mean I was busy as in, "I really should write a blog--it's been two months" busy. But more like, "My husband is gone for the week to Mindanao on a ministry trip and I have two two-year-olds who thrive on getting into everything and if I skip homeschooling this week my first grader will have to skip summer this year and my laundry is piled to four foot five and I really, really need to go grocery shopping or we will have to turn to foraging." And beyond the extracurricular writing and the mundane necessities of life lay a whole list of things I really should have been doing: potty-training my two-year-old twins, for instance. Writing music for an upcoming flute group piece. Talking through our goals for the year with my husband and putting them in writing so that we can move forward on accomplishing them. Finishing the English translation of a Tagalog song I had been working on for months. Preparing for my Saturday talk, especially. All of those things were important. Many were urgent. But the thing that put me over the edge that week was the fundraising concert our Bible college held the week before my talk. The first half of the concert was a compilation of music written and performed by BJMBC faculty, students, and their church choirs. One of the goals of our Music Director, Doug Bachorik, is to mentor Filipinos in producing quality Filipino music for churches. It was a joy to hear some of that music at the concert. I was remotely involved in the first half of the concert as a flute player for a lovely piece that my friend Asenath Cadavos wrote and sang. (It just so happens that my husband was teaching a group of pastors at her church in Mindanao the same week we were preparing for the concert here in Manila. God's small details in life are like the stitches on a piece of vintage French lace: intricate, intertwined, and beautiful.) Although my part in the concert was small, it still required attending some practices and the rehearsal. Which meant that my family was fractured that Friday. Two of my children attended the rehearsal with me at the Meralco Theater, my husband flew in from Mindanao and took a taxi directly there to meet us, a friend drove our other two children and guests there, and another friend babysat my twins at home. Me. . . I just prayed really hard that everybody ended up at the right time in the right place. Which amazingly, by the grace of God, they did. And the concert was a resounding success. The second half of the concert (which I thankfully was able to sit through as a member of the audience) was the Asian premiere of Dan Forrest's Requiem for the Living.
This piece shatters all preconceptions about what music with deep religious overtones and Latin texts might sound like. It is powerful, gripping, and transparently honest. Dark but far from bleak. An explosion of joy and reverence. If you have not heard it yet, stop reading this post right now and go here for an unspeakably riveting experience. Ideally you should listen to it with a translation in front of you so you can understand what is being sung. Because there is no English in the entire piece. The whole thing is in Latin. . . almost. Now, my life is like that French lace, and one other detail that God sometimes stuns me with is the fact that during the one (and only) year of my high school teaching career, one of the classes I taught was Latin. To Koreans. In English. (I was qualified for that because I actually studied Latin for about one year, as an audit, while I was swamped with work and graduate classes. Scary.) But still. . . My Latin is rusty at best. I was thankful for the translation in the program booklet. I hope you stopped reading and listened to the entire piece. If you did, you probably noticed that in the last movement, Lux Aeterna, the sole line of English was this: "Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I assume that this is the composer's way of turning an incandescent English spotlight on that ocean of roiling Latin and illuminating the one great, irrevocable rock of rest for our lives: Christ Jesus. If you have Christ, you have rest for your soul. Eternal rest. Requiem eaternam. That is the kind of rest that matters the most. Our house guests that week were dear friends of ours from Singapore. I was writhing under the knowledge that they were going to sit patiently through a concert that literally had no English in it. I don't regret that fact for their sake anymore. The music was incredible, and since the English was in the program, I am sure they were as blessed as I was. But that gem of English at the end would have been worth it all anyway. As for me, God spoke to me through His Word set to music. He reminded me that I can go ahead and weary myself with all the every day busy-ness of this life, all of the chaotic Vanitas Vanitatum, because He Himself provides my rest at the end of it all. There remaineth yet a rest. I may be short on rest physically. But spiritually? Aaaah. Now that's a different story, because I have a light and easy yoke on my shoulders, and my Yokefellow bears the brunt and the bruises of all of my burdens. He shares the load. And He is meek and lowly of heart: instead of cracking the whip over me, He is the One who gives me rest. Both now and forever. I rode to the ladies' fellowship with my friend, Doctora Ina Bunyi, who was also speaking that day. On the way, we discussed the busy week we both had. I discovered that my lack of sleep the night before was far eclipsed by her lack of sleep the night before. She taught on rest that day with a little over two hours of sleep logged the night before. Some people might find that ironic. We did not. We found it amazing. God-honoring. Self-emptying. Because the kind of rest we spoke of and needed was not physical rest--although that is also important--but the spiritual rest Christ offers to all who come to Him. And God knew we needed to live this truth before we could speak to others about it. Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Eternal rest through His salvation. Daily rest through His Word. Have you come to Him yet? Has He given you rest for your soul? Is He giving your daily rest through His Word? I only see white and gold. One internet source says that I am in the majority: 76% to 24%. Which means that the majority of us are. . . Wrong. Even though our perceptions scream that we are right. And even though many other people agree with us. It is funny when it is only an optical illusion about a dress. But what about when it is a spiritual illusion? What about when the majority of the people around us are being fooled into thinking that marital infidelity is more fun than marital bliss? The consequence of that is weighty: a generation of children growing up in single family homes, emotionally maladjusted. What about the Australian woman I met on the island of Palawan last year, who was so evangelistically vegetarian that I heard about it before I had even known her 10 minutes? She was appalled by the deaths of animals in slaughter houses, condemned to die in order that people might, well, eat. But when I brought up the horrific reality of abortion, she brushed off the slaughter of innocent babies as an unfortunate necessity. That woman is suffering from a terrible spiritual illusion. What about those who honor the sins that God calls an abomination? Masterminding movies that treat it as funny or hip. Promoting those who do such things to roles as talk show hosts. God calls it an abomination. Man calls it cool. Spiritual illusion. But the biggest spiritual illusion of all is the one that is driving many people right down a wide path leading straight to destruction. The vast majority of us here on earth are on that path. It is the illusion that we can save ourselves. Or worse, that we don't even need saving. That there is no such thing as sin. That there is no such thing as hell. That, in fact, there is no such thing as God. Or if there is, we certainly can't know Who or What He is. I think that this latest web-based viral opinion poll proves that the vast majority of people can indeed be dead wrong. The dress is clearly blue. All we needed was proof. Someone snooped around and located the source of the dress. When we go there--to the creator of the dress--we see the dress in the light of reality. We know the truth and the truth sets us free from the optical illusion. So also, when we go back to the Creator of this world, we get truth.
Sanctify them through Thy Truth. Thy Word is truth. (John 17:17) I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. (John 14:6) And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32) Are you putting your faith in spiritual illusions? You can be set free. Get to know truth. Don't just stick with majority opinion. The majority can be wrong. The internet proved it last week. Do some snooping around. Go to the Source. Find truth. And when you find truth, you will find Jesus Christ holding out His hands to you: He is the way, the truth, and the life. Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14) |
Tim and LauraTimothy and Laura Berrey are missionaries with Gospel Fellowship Association. They share a passion for missions which has taken them to several countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. They currently minister in the Philippines. Want articles like this delivered to your inbox?
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