No Crystal Ball, No Wayback Machine
December 31, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Announcements, Benevolence, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Community, Dying to Self, Faith, Godly Character, Humility, Joy, Maturity, Obedience, Perseverance, Prayerfulness, Relevance, Spiritual Warfare Feedback : 10 comments
I remember Monday, April 7, 2008. I walked down to the creek beside our home and sat on the bridge. It was easy to pray on such a beautiful day. The cerulean sky erupted in white, pierced by the rays of an energetic sun, while a casual cloud or two drifted by, oblivious and serene. Winter had fled, replaced by a warmth that seemed to radiate from all the new life growing green around me.
And when I prayed, I thanked God that things had finally turned around. That the last several years of struggle were over. That everything in the world finally seemed right for my family. That now was a time to let down the guard, to let the watchmen rest, to know peace instead of strife and uncertainty. I thanked God with tears in my eyes. Our new dog, which had wandered into our lives a few days previous, probably wondered what kind of blubbering owner she had come to choose. I didn’t care; I was happy.
But now the dog is gone. Many things I thanked God for that sunny April day are not the same, for mere hours after I prayed that prayer of gratefulness, the world fell apart.
It seemed cruel that the weight that long crushed us lifted so briefly, only to be replaced by a devastating burden my wife and I could not have imagined if you gave us a year to write out all the possible twists and turns life can take. So it is living as dust.
As 2008 comes to a close, it ends as a year no crystal ball might have foretold.
You would think that at 46 I would have completed my growing up, but God has many surprises among His riches, and growth at this late stage would not have been one I would have guessed.
But this is what I have to say to you:
God still cares about you and me.
Sometimes the worst events in life have a wisdom of their own, even if we are not smart enough at the time of their coming to see it.
Ten thousand flaming chariots surround the ones the Lord loves.
You and I are not clever enough to chart our own way.
No one can live without the support of others.
Tough times make for tough people, but only if they learn to believe and trust the Lord.
Humility must come at the time of greatest need or else that need will go unfilled.
There are no crystal balls, no wayback machines, so learn to live in the present.
That which we fear will own us in the end, if we let it.
Each of us must walk through the Valley of Despair, though each valley is unique for each person.
Let go and let God.
I can’t tell you in detail what happened this year. Google has an elephant’s memory and never forgets. But I want to thank all of you who prayed. 
It may be a cliché to say that I could feel those prayers as this year lurched and stumbled along, but I did. And to those few who supported my family financially this year through donations through Cerulean Sanctum, my lasting gratitude goes out to you. As I said, no one can live without the support of others.
This has been a hard year for many people. 2009 promises to be even harder if trends continue as they are. The economic downward spiral will test many. Some will face, like we did, health issues that will test their mettle. (I just learned that David Wayne of Jollyblogger is facing stage 4 liver cancer that has metastisized.) Tomorrow is an uncertainty.
While some will rejoice in 2009, others will weep. But whatever happens, know that the Lord is with you and will never stop being with you because He loves you with an indescribable love, no matter what you are going through.
Tags: Crystal Ball, Disease, Dread, Dust, Faith, Fear, Frailty, God's Faithfulness, Hope, Illness, Trust, Uncertainty, Wayback MachineRelated posts
The Long, Dark Eternity of One Soul
December 29, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Apologetics, Boldness, Church Issues, Evangelism, Godly Character, Love, Maturity, Oddities Feedback : 23 comments
I met Douglas Adams at my first MacWorld in 1997. I was manning the technology demonstration booth for Apple when he popped his head in to ask me a question. It took all of a split second to know who he was just by sight. After all, he was my favorite author. No set of books made me laugh more than The Hitchhiker’s “Trilogy,” and humor is darned hard to write.
So there I was, starstruck.
Adams and I chatted about his upcoming computer game, Starship Titanic, and how it was taking forever to debug and get perfect. Talk shifted to upcoming Apple hardware. As an Apple Master, a sort of celebrity endorser and Mac evangelista, Adams received complementary equipment from Apple. We must’ve talked for a half hour about what was coming down the pike.
I didn’t see Adams again until MacWorld 2000. At that time, I was no longer working for Apple but did high-end Mac support for NASA as a contractor. Because I gave hardware and software advice to NASA honchos, I got to go to MacWorld. In the tunnel under the street that connected exhibition halls, I ran into Adams again and went up to say hello. He recognized me right away and noted my tag said that I was now at NASA. We talked about that, then I shifted the conversation to talk of a Hitchhiker’s movie. Adams told me he had just completed what he thought would be the basis of the screenplay. I was elated, but I could tell Adams was frustrated with the progress. He told me the screenplay-writing process had really taken it out of him. He added that Starship Titanic’s underwhelming sales had been a disappointment and that he didn’t want to see that happen with the Hitchhiker’s movie.
We talked until the surreal happened: Sinbad, the comedian, walked up and joined the conversation. The three of us, all above 6′ 3″, dominated the center of the tunnel as people streamed around us. But though I’m a raging extrovert and conversationalist, I met my match in Sinbad; I sensed that it was time for to me to bow out. I said goodbye and hustled on my way.
A little over a year later, Adams died unexpectedly of a heart attack.
As much as I thought I knew something about Adams, it somehow did not dawn on the me that the man was known as one of the world’s foremost atheists. (Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion is dedicated to Adams.) Looking back at Adams’s writings now, I wonder how I could have missed it.
In a way, my naïveté didn’t matter. Here was a man, like most men, estranged from God. Estranged at a level so deep that he had rejected the existence of all spirituality. There I am, a representative of Jesus Christ. And yet with that man mere months away from eternity, the contents of my last words to him were wood, hay, and stubble.
Today, I sit here typing and my soul grieves. It weeps because I am not serious about eternity. Next to nothing in my life manifests my belief that an eternal hell is real. When I look around, what scares me more than anything is that I’m more serious about hell than most Christians are. Yet my actions speak louder than words.
It seems to me that all Christians must deal with the truth that they themselves deserved hell before Jesus saved them. People may deal with it at different times in their Christian walk, but deal with it they must.
But what separates a real disciple of Christ from a DINO (Disciple in Name Only) is that the real disciple stares into the pit of hell and is so shaken by the view that all distractions in this life pale compared with working to get the Gospel out to the lost, no matter the personal costs.
I don’t think enough of us Christians are getting to that point. What else explains the feebleness of our outreach to the lost? We live as if there were no eternity at all.
Just like the atheists do.
Tags: Adams, Atheism, Atheist, Christian Testimony, Disciplemaking, Discipleship, Douglas Adams, Evangelism, Lost, Richard Dawkins, TestimonyRelated posts
Frailty, Thy Name Is Christmas
December 26, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Jesus Christ Feedback : 4 comments
Norovirus.
That’s what the formal name for the bug. For us and our extended family at Christmas, norovirus swept through the ranks and reduced “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” to a lot of toilet-hugging. I can’t remember the last time I got a stomach bug, maybe a decade or more, but I, and everyone around me, will certainly remember Christmas 2008.
Four years ago it was the genuine flu. My son got it two weeks before Christmas, then I fell ill. Then the family came in from other parts. It must’ve lingered because most got sick within hours of showing up, it seemed.
But nothing matched the power of this norovirus. Fortunately, it only lasted about a day, but for a day it kicked everyone like a mad mule.
God came down from heaven and lived as a man. You’ve got to believe that He picked up a virus or two while on Earth. He can identify with all our frailties, right?
That fact that God can identify with our frailties makes me love Him all the more. He knows that you and I are dust. He knows because He lived as dust, even though His body never saw decay. His living as dust makes the Resurrection all the more compelling. He is the firstborn among all brethren, and His rebirth is my promise.
Even in dust, even in the midst of frailty, there is hope.
For Jesus is not just our Lord and Savior; He is our brother.
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Love’s Pure Light
December 24, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Benevolence, Boldness, Creation Care, Creativity, Discernment, Dying to Self, Faith, Godly Character, Grace, Holiness, Hospitality, Humility, Jesus Christ, Joy, Love, Maturity, Obedience, Perseverance, Prayerfulness, Simplicity Feedback : 3 comments
Darkness.
I noticed darkness more this year. The world seemed dimmer and more unfriendly. This Christmas, the most glaring effects of that darkness are the gloom hovering over the world economic situation and the lack of Christmas lights.
A couple weeks ago I noticed the dearth of Christmas lights compared with last year. People just didn’t put them up. Electrical bills are too high, I guess. Or folks suffered from the fatigue that comes when times are bad, so the lights became just another thing to do that took too much effort.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The babe in the manger outshone the star that signaled His birth. He wasn’t just a source of light, He WAS Light.
And when that tiny child became a man, He said something radical to all who love Him and honor Him as Lord:
“You are the light of the world.”
Light gives birth to lights, and those lights will send the darkness fleeing.
If the Lord would have us honor Him as did all those who came to His cradle in those first days of His birth, He would say that He has lit the flame in us with His own lifelight, now we are to be the light in the darkness.
At this blessed Christmastime, People of God, show this dark world the light.
And Maranatha.
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