–Stephen Bly  (Shadow of Legends)

       “Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you!  I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”

                    –Isaiah 46:4 (NKJV)
—————————-
               “My hope is built on nothing less
               Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
               I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
               But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”
                         –Edward Mote

I wrote last Friday regarding the losses that occur during life.  Since I received a few comments I decided to look at the remaining losses that come our way according to the article I read.  One thing I want to say, all the things that the writer said weren’t bad.  During life there will be losses and change will occur no matter what we try to do to stop it.  Aging will happen, the seasons come and go, life hits us, health issues arise, career changes or no long is apart of our lives.  Friends move, die, new ones come.  Yes, life is full of changes, my real problem with the article was that there was too much humanism.  Rarely did it speak of going to God’s Word for the answer, or seeking the Holy Spirit’s help in guiding, or praying, or ….  See my issue?  So let’s continue.
     Hmmm, I can’t remember what I was going to write…oh, that’s it, the sixth loss that comes our way is the loss of memory.  Here’s the answer:  nutrition.  Yep, health issues lead to forgetfulness, but also nutrition.  Avoid desserts, eat more rosemary and turmeric.  Change things in your life.  Sounds so simple.  But why not try prayer?  Do we forget the comic “B.C.” where the man goes up the mountain to the old sage?  The old with their sound advice.  Yes, sometimes things will be hard to recall.  Yes, some people do get dementia and Alzheimers.  Fear might come when these terms are mentioned, but where is God?  Moses’ eye was not dimmed, can we not have faith that our mind will be the same way?  And if it does, I go back to my major premise–trust in God.
     Here is another one I do not understand–the loss of faith.  It would seem to me with a life of living for the Lord that faith would abound.  I know for sure that the devil attacks using the mind, and he will use different thoughts and tactics as we get older.  My Mom, bless her, would sit in her recliner, twiddle her thumbs, and get angry over the past.  Regrets would flood her.  I used to talk to her and would ask, “is there nothing good from to the past to reflect upon?”  But she preferred to dwell upon her regrets.  The past is gone never to return so why use it to buffet yourself?  Hasn’t God been faithful?  Dwell upon Him.  His mercies are new every morning.  Don’t age the winter of your life bring your faith low for in actuality it brings us closer to God.
     Dreams.  Dreams are gone, things you never did or achieved are no longer accessible.  We have the notion that we must complete our “bucket list.”  I could deal with this area for some time, but I will suffice that dreams that did not materialize are a gift from God.   I fully believe the words of Psalm 37:23, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way.” (NKJV)  God delights in our way and He directs our steps.  Dreams didn’t work out–thank God.  Many times they were false, materialistic and self-centered.  Get a grip on the Word of God, not on lost dreams, and perhaps not even on creating new dreams.  Thank God for “unanswered prayers.”
     Then there is the loss of passion.  Woe is me, nobody likes me…do I really have to get up?  There goes our mind.  The author says that the excitement about new projects is gone as is the fervor to set new goals.  Why?  Put this and dreams together–if someone would have told me I was going to become an educator when I was young I would have laughed.  When strangers would come to the house I would run and hide underneath the bed.  Then when I took my first practicum in college, I said no way!  No way!  I would not teach.  Ah, but God had a different plan.  I would not have dreamed of teaching and I spent a year short of forty doing just that.  Isn’t God grand?  Writing?  I would never have thought that I would be writing books, yet I have now written fourteen novels.  See…the bottom line is that God is in charge.  Don’t try to create something that is not to be, yet allow God to work in your life.
     The last lost are the “piles of losses” in our lives.  Throughout life we tried to accumulate.  For what?  Loss upon loss.  Perhaps we try to live too complex a life, we seek more, then more and have lost the simplicity of serving God in whatever capacity we can.  When we dwell upon all our “losses” are we not being self-centered?  Are we not seeking something more than the kingdom of God?  Maybe we have forgotten that we should “hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matthew 5:6)
     Yes, change is inevitable.  No matter what, the gray hairs, the feeble knees, the wrinkles are going to come.  That is if you live long enough.  Too many losses?  Hmmm, count the years, look at the miles–see where God has brought you.  More and more I find myself trusting in the Lord.  More and more I find my mind looking at the kingdom.  More and more I hear the old hymns well up in my soul.  Yes, we all have losses throughout life.  But we also have the Good Shepherd.  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”  (Psalm 23:4, NKJV)

               “It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus;
               Life’s trials will seem so small, when we see Christ;
               One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrows will erase,
               So bravely run the race till we see Christ.”
                        –Esther Kerr Rusthoi

               –Ernest Haycox  (Guns of Fury)

       “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'”

               –James 4:15 (NKJV)
———————————–
               “There is a God
               Almighty God
               Creator of heaven and earth and all there is.
               There is no other
               All will discover,
               When time is through and eternity begins.”
                       –unknown

Our thoughts of God are too human!
     Enough said, that should do it for today’s devotion.  But then again, how else can God’s creation think?  I hate the phrase, but we are only too human.  That’s one reason why God uses metaphors, analogies, and other means of speech to describe Himself.  We have really no idea of the majesty and august supremacy of God.  We only have the Bible that records some of His deeds on behalf on His people.
     As I have written before, man tries to lower God.  He tries to bring God down to his level.  One reason is that man cannot comprehend the infiniteness of God and all of His attributes.  A second reason is that man doesn’t like to think of himself on a lower level.  My, my, shades of Lucifer.  No wonder Jesus told His disciples to just be glad that their names are written in heaven and not be prideful of what God had given them.
     Man, with the aid of Satan, has always tried to bring God down.  He has made images of an invisible God.  He has worshiped idols of God made by his own hands; idols that cannot do a thing.  He manufactures God into what he wants Him to be, and to be around when he wants Him to be around.  Ahh, but God is always there.  God will do all that He has designed to do.  Even at the end of the Tribulation when the Antichrist declares war on God, God’s will will win out.  All that He has decreed He performs.  As the psalmist wrote, “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” (Psalm 115:3, NKJV)
     Isaiah carries this thought, “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.'” (46:10, NKJV)  Look at the mess the world is in.  Wars, famine, pestilences, terror, confusion, and guess what–it is only going to get worse.  That’s why we need to put our trust in the Solid Rock.  The Ancient of Days is our fortress and our foundation.  We cannot comprehend the supremacy of God, but we can trust in Him.  I don’t care, Democrat or Republican, demagogue or tyrant, king or dictator, none of them can stand against the decrees and supremacy of God.  Maybe it would be good for all of us to read Revelation over and over.  Just ponder for a while the following:

          “Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse.  And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.  His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns, He had a name written that no one knew except Himself.  He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.  And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.  Not out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations.  And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron.  He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.  And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:  King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
                    –Revelation 19:11-16

     I know this is very similar to last week’s study on the decrees of God, but it is so pertinent for us to realize that our God is supreme!  No one or being can thwart His purposes and that includes His care for His children.  We can count on Him; know that He is there!  Because He is supreme we can trust Him with and in every aspect of our lives.  In the words of Arthur W. Pink, “Here then is a sure resting-place for the heart.  Our lives are neither the product of blind fate nor the result of capricious chance, but every detail of them was ordained from all eternity, and is now ordered by the living and reigning God.”

And her hand was soft and trembly

       That night underneath the tree,

       When I couldn’t help but tell her

       She was ‘all the world to me.'”

                    –Charles “Badger” Clark  (“A Bad Half Hour”)

 

       “Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it, if a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised.”

                    –Song of Solomon 8:7 (NKJV)

———————————————–

               “Have I told you lately that I love you?

               Could I tell you once again somehow?

               Have I said with all my heart and soul how I adore you?

               Well darling, I’m telling you now.

 

                     “My world would end without a mem’ry of you,

                     I’m no good without you anyhow.

                    Oh, have I told you lately that I love you?

                    My darling, I’m telling you now.”

                            –Scotty Wiseman (released by Gene Autry)

 

A little mushy?  Perhaps, but it was my wedding day 53 years ago.  Whoopee, my mercy–the years.  If you miss Miles today, don’t fret, I’m sure he’ll show up sometime this week, but today I need/must focus on our anniversary.  I am reminded this day of the words from Genesis 2:18, “And that LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.'” (NKJV)   The King James renders this, “I will make him a help meet for him.”  However, I really like how the NLT translates this phrase, “I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

     For sure, Annie was made just right for me.  No other person could have put up with me and she has definitely been my helper.  By my side each step of the journey.  The NKJV Study Bibles states this regarding the helper, “This helper (or partner) would be truly fitting and fully adequate–just right.”  It is not a demeaning term, in fact the Study Bibles goes on to relate that this term is used to describe God when He comes to our aid.  Man cannot fully be man, woman cannot fully be woman without this relationship for the previous phrase states that “It is not good for man to be alone.”  This verse is more than just friendship; it goes way beyond that concept.  If we grasp the idea of the husband/wife relationship it is as if God Himself were there helping, guiding, advising, aiding through life.

     I read an article (sometimes I wonder where these guys come from) that stated that it is not love that sustains a marriage.  I get the drift of where the author was coming from, but he is missing something very important regarding love.  Love (agape) which is God-love already has commitment within the context.  It was love that kept Christ on the cross–commitment to you and to me.  Within agape there is commitment, as well as duty and obligation.  Jesus said if you love Me you’ll keep my commandments (John 14:15; 15:10; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 6).  Also true, though to a lesser degree is the love (phileo) of a friend or brother.  Commitment is implied with that type of love as well.

     The husband is to love as Christ loved the Church.  Love–commitment, obligation, duty–to his wife.  And the wife is to obey (whoops) her husband, because of the same reason–love.  They do not collide, they do not oppose each other.  Love/commitment work together in the relationship of husband and wife.  One finds it hard to obey if the husband is not committed to love them and take care of their needs, not just physical and material, but emotional, mental, and spiritual as well.  The same is true for the husband must know that his wife is with him through this rugged thing we call life.

     It was now over 54 years ago, in the school cafeteria I was glancing around and saw his pretty young gal cocking her eye at me.  My eyes stopped their wandering and I cocked an eye back at her.  We sat for a few seconds, cock-eyed as could be–the rest is history.  No, we haven’t gone through life cock-eyed, or ever half-cocked, but with dedication to each other and to the Lord.  How many more years are left?  The Lord only knows, but we’ll make the most of them–together!

 together and there’s nothing binds men together like sweat and gunsmoke.”