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- Written by: Don Goulding
“Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him.” God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)
My kayak was a mile from the shore in Washington State when twin rushes of air erupted three hundred feet away. Two orca whales surfaced to check me out. My heart pounded as I took in every bend and scar on the triangular fins on their backs. The magnificent creatures dove again and I made an adrenaline pumped race into their swirling water.
Then it hit me. I only saw the dorsal fins and not the three ton animals below the waterline. Alone in the open water, I didn’t want to bump into orcas, only to see more dorsals.
I often approach the crucifixion of Jesus like I approached those whales. I accept the historical facts of his death and resurrection, but I flee from an encounter that could destroy the old me. A safe dose of forgiveness at the surface is fine, but don’t take me down to where my heart must change.
Instead of paddling in the shallows of worship styles and pew designs, it’s time to plunge into the fullness of what happened on the cross. By the discipline of meditation on the gospel, the Holy Spirit carries my heart to depths where I can’t depend on intellect alone, to where love becomes the medium around me, and the reality that God died for men is shocking in its enormity.
Below the waterline of grace, I can’t contribute to salvation. I’m not capable of defending myself or of even breathing down there. I can only gape at how big is his mercy. Flailing sinner that I am, I lose every hope of survival except by the beneficence of the whale before me.
That perfect sinless creature might easily swallow me. Instead, he nudges me back to the surface. When I break through I have something new, not more head knowledge but more love. For who can encounter that majestic entity, be spared by him, and not love in return?
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- Written by: Don Goulding
[We are] always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:10)
Life and death are two great enemies, and my body is their battleground. They are both inside me, plotting the demise of one another. Only one can win for eternity.
Wars are won by a series of victorious battles, and triumph only comes to me as I choose life in the daily skirmishes. That sounds simple enough but death is a wily enemy. It flays living gifts and pulls on their skin to pose as life. Family, jobs, food—any day I concentrate on a gift more than on the Giver, then death has won.
The secret power to win this war is found in the death of Jesus.
Jesus’s death was not death to life, it was death to death. He died to defeat death at the final resurrection, and now in my person. I am to carry his death to death and apply it to whatever opposes God’s kingdom.
Pride will never make it into God’s presence, so if I humble myself now, then death dies and life lives.
No bitterness is permitted into the City of God, so by forgiving others now, death perishes and life rises.
Like Paul before me, I want to fight my battles well. I want to carry the death of Jesus with me.
For today, it's enough if I can remember death to death equals real life.
Prayer: Jesus, help me carry your death to the things of death.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
For who concedes you any superiority? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Corinthians 4:7)
Five Africans and I were stuffed into a smallish motorcar in southern Nigeria. We plunged over jungle ruts that became a single track. The front bumper parted eight foot tall sword grass like the Red Sea. When we came to a wide river, I thought our trip must end, but we hailed a dugout canoe and paddled on. On the other shore, we abandoned our shoes and slashed our way through an emerald forest with a machete for another hour.
The destination was the palm thatched village of Ndinkasi, where they had little value for modernization, money, or modesty. The tribal elders informed me that no white man had ever been in their village. They treated me like royalty with long stares and great respect.
Many are the times when I have observed missionaries playing into the reverence the poor give them. I have succumbed to the temptation of that pedestal myself. It’s cultural centric snobbery at its worst when we claim superiority because of our manufactured possessions, that rot even as we hold them. Western affluence overrates temporal comforts and discounts the unencumbered life that waits for eternal blessings.
The joy in the heart of an African child is far more significant to God than the ambition of an upwardly progressive materialist. He applauds the one and temporarily abides the other. The children who ran up to touch my white skin and giggle had a beautiful existence to which I could only aspire.
It was only with the deepest admiration that I humbly offered those villagers the one treasure that would complete an already rich life—Jesus. I had nothing else to give.
Prayer: Holy Jesus, may I never claim to have anything except you.