My Divine Tour Guide

 I was thinking of the metaphor of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, which is a beautiful metaphor but basically meaningless to the contemporary American society because we do not have shepherds.  We do not get the fullness of meaning from it like the people of Bible times, or people in countries that still have shepherds the way they did in Bible times.  The first thing that came to my mind that might be a contemporary metaphor is that of a tour guide.

When you engage a company to take you on a trip, the tour guide has decided the route you will take and the sights you will stop to see.  The guide arranges all the transportation, the hotels, and the places to eat.  They tell you what to expect and they make explanations when necessary as you go along the journey.  If an emergency arises, you call the guide and they help with whatever the need is.  

All the responsibilities of the trip are on the guide.  All I do is pay for the ticket and make personal choices in a few things, but otherwise I just enjoy the trip.

I have paid for my ticket by accepting Christ as my personal Savior.  He is now my tour guide for my journey of life.  Part of His "job" is to plan my journey, where I'll go, how long I will stay at each place, it's all laid out for me to follow along.  He will take care of me and make sure I have everything I need for my trip and will make sure I get home safe and sound.

So far, for 70+ years now, He has done a wonderful job at being my tour guide.  I plan to let Him guide me for the rest of the journey until we reach heaven.

Jesus is my Good Shepherd and my Divine Tour Guide.

Productivity and Coronavirus

I know this stay-at-home time due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on people in many ways, so what I am going to say here certainly is not intended to lessen the difficulties caused by this, but I must say that these past 9 or 10 weeks have proven to be very helpful to Russ and myself for getting some projects done that we never seemed to have time to do when we had our regular schedules of activities.  In that regard, I almost hate to see this come to an end!  And I should warn you that this is a longer-than-usual and more-photos-than-usual post!

Let me see ... just what have we gotten done?

Household jobs ... new door handles on our outside doors

 and new knobs on all our kitchen and bathroom cabinets, PLUS I cleaned all those doors and drawers before we added the knobs.

Then there are all the cards I have made and mailed ... about 70 of them as of this writing.  I have tried new techniques and used up lots of my "stash" of supplies.  That is a good thing!

This next photo should actually have two of these in it ...

I got the manuscript for my book (actually it is mine and Russ' since some of his poetry is in it too).  I had been working on it for quite a while and have been able to finish it up and send it off to the publisher on April 29th, a red-letter day for us!!

The other disk is the slides I have digitized and just completed this morning!  3,107 photos spanning about 70 years!  Oh, my goodness!  I had not counted up the span of years until this very moment and I am stunned that we are old enough to have slides from that long ago!!  Yep, I guess we both were that young at one time!  As we have done those slides, Russ and I have laughed and cried and remembered all the ways God has blessed us with His blessing of peace and joy through the years, even in the hard times.

 Here is a sampling of Russ through the years...

When he was a college student, attending a summer training program with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

That is him, that dot near the top of the antenna he helped rebuild as a missionary with West Indies Mission (now WorldTeam) in Haiti after a devastating hurricane destroyed the other one.  He had worked in Iowa building the antenna parts, then went with the parts to Haiti.

After the antenna was completed, Russ worked as an engineer and disc jockey for the radio station.  One of the programs he did was "slow English" in which he read books and the Bible slowly so people who were learning English could follow along.  That is what he is doing in this photo:

After being in Haiti for about 4 years, he came home to the US and married Joyce, and then along came Anna Marie.  They dedicated her in church in South Carolina.

In the meantime, I was in Lebanon, working with the church in Beirut and surrounding area. 

Here I am pictured with some members of the church I worked in.  My housemate in the 3rd from the left and I am at the far left.

When the civil war in Lebanon forced me out, I went to live in Madaba, Jordan, where I taught a wonderful group of ladies.  I have such fond memories of all those years!

The bottom line is that the past couple of months of self-isolation, albeit challenging, have been most productive and I am thankful for them.

Jesus was walking ahead of them

Mark 10:32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them.  And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.

 Once again in the life of the disciples Jesus led the way.  Even type-A personality Peter followed Jesus wherever Jesus wanted to go.  And in this scenario once again Jesus was “walking ahead of them."  It is a good reminder to me of my own personal spiritual walk.  Jesus walks ahead and I follow.  It would have been interesting to have been there to get a better sense of what amazed the disciples, but I know that for myself I have often been amazed at how God has led my steps through the years.  This verse reminds me that I can follow His steps with amazement because I am walking close behind Him, but if I fall back and follow from afar, I could be following afraid rather than amazed. That appears to have been the case for those who were not so dedicated to following except out of curiosity.  I would rather let Jesus walk ahead of me and follow as an amazed but close disciple.

Shut in

Genesis 7:16b And the Lord shut him in.

Noah did not (probably) totally understand what God was about to do.  He had never experienced a flood of any kind, especially one like what was about to happen.  However, Noah had a strong relationship with God.  He walked with God (6:9), he found favor in the eyes of the Lord (6:8), and he obeyed everything God told him to do (7:3).  Because of this total communication and obedience, God took care of him.  He may not have understood the importance of closing the door in preparation for the flood even so God shut him in.  In that phrase I find great courage and comfort because it reminds me that even in my unfamiliar life events that I could not totally prepare for ahead of time, God will shut me in.  I will be safe.  I will be secure.  I won’t have to know or understand everything in order to be kept in safety by God because I am walking with Him and obeying Him just as Noah did.

It never fails

Acts 16:6-7, 10 …forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia … the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them … And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

The way God directs the life of the person who trusts in Him remains somewhat of a mystery to me even after having had Him leading me for almost 70 years now (ever since I was six years old).  I call it a mystery because there is no way for me to understand how God knows what is best for me, no way except my faith in God Himself.  There are times when circumstances make it clear that God is saying “no” to something even though there is no clear indication of the “why.”  Even when God is clearly saying “yes, this is the way” we do not always know why.  We merely step out in faith, in obedience, trusting God’s omniscience.  He has never misguided me in all the years I have allowed His Holy Spirit to “forbid me,” to “not allow” me, or to “call” me into a path of service and obedience.  I am grateful for His faithfulness.

He knows my name and uses it!

John 10:3b-4 He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

I see two wonderfully encouraging things in these verses that give me courage for the day ahead, so full of unknowns.  First of all, God knows my name and leads me by name.  My leading from God is personalized for me as an individual.  He knows my name!  Then, because I am known by Him, He leads me.  Secondly, I know Him by His voice.  Because He has called me by name, I recognize His voice and am able to follow Him.  When I am lagging behind, He calls my name so I can catch up.  When I get distracted He calls my name so I can get refocused.  When I become afraid, He calls my name and when I hear His voice I am comforted that He is near-by and is leading me because I am one of His own.

My plans

Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.

I never noticed this verse before.  I was more familiar with the later verse, v.9, where it says we humans plan our course, but the Lord establishes our steps.  But here the concept goes even further, even more detailed because this verse says if I commit even my concepts for activity, the Lord will establish those plans that my heart is making and thus my steps will also be established.  It all really boils down to being totally committed to God and allowing Him to manage my life for me.  So … at the beginning of my day I say to Him, “Lord, I want to be in control of my activity for today and I want to be a blessing or an encouragement or a disciple in whatever way You ordain,” then He gives me the ideas of what I should do that day and every event or encounter will be part of His plan and part of His establishing of my steps.

Crying out to God

Psalm 107:27b-28 They were at their wits’ end.  Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.

This psalm recounts numerous scenarios in which people found themselves in trouble, distress, or turmoil (mostly of their own making) yet when they cried out to the Lord, He came to their aid in one way or another.  In each situation, God met them, and they were challenged to give thanks to God.  It is all summed up in the verses at the beginning of the psalm: “Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story…” and then at the conclusion of the psalm as well: “…let the one who is wise … ponder the loving deeds of the Lord.”  And what is it He has done?  He led them to peace and security (v.7), He gave them freedom (v.14), He healed them (v.20), He gave them peace and guidance (v.30).  As I look back over my life, I can see ways in which God has done this for me, even though at times I had wandered away from diligently following Him.  I have found peace and security even when I faced potential kidnapping in war-torn Beirut.  God gave me freedom to choose a library career after my time overseas.  He healed me when I was suffering from a penicillin reaction just days before my wedding.  He gave me peace and guidance as I sought to follow His direction for my life when considering big steps such as marriage, my promotion to Library Director, and my involvement in leadership in the Association of Christian Librarians.  I have had great blessing in seeing God lead my and meet my needs at every step.

Glean in this field

Ruth 2:9 My daughter, listen to me.  Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here.

Boaz’s field was the one where Naomi knew Ruth should work in because of his connection to her family, so Ruth was there, working.  Boaz had a kind heart, made obvious by these words to Ruth when he learned who she was.  Sometimes God uses other people’s wisdom to help us be in the right place and to stay there even though the staying might be difficult.  I often remember the wise counsel of a good friend when I was in one of those difficult places.  She suggested that I attend library school while I waited for God to give me clear direction as to my next step and recovered from a very emotionally difficult time.  Looking back, it was God’s way of directing me into my next step, one I probably would not have had to courage to take any other way.  Don’t go looking to change your location just because you are feeling like a stranger … the grass may seem greener on the other side of the fence but you can’t know it really is so stay where God puts you and wait to see what He has planned.  Ruth had no way of knowing at the time of that first encounter with Boaz that she would end up marrying him and thus becoming an ancestor of Jesus Himself.  If she had not stayed and gleaned in that field, her life would have ended up totally different.

Advancing to the hill country

Deuteronomy 1:6b-7a You have stayed long enough at this mountain.  Break camp and advance into the hill country…

There comes a time when it is more beneficial to move out of my comfort zone and into new territory.  When I have stayed long enough at my current level of spiritual activity and am ready for a new challenge, then it is time for me to make advances into a new area.  Because this is usually not what I want to do, God usually has to tell me to do this, either through His Word, or through the message of circumstances, just as He used Moses to tell the Israelites they had stayed long enough at that mountain, the place of safety and security, and move on to the place of greater vulnerability, the hill country.  I have seen this happen several notable times in my life and as I reflect on those experiences I can see God’s gentle hand leading me into each new territory.  Sometimes it was just His voice to my spirit (such as His call to me to missions work and later to retire to care for Mom); sometimes it was His direction through circumstances (such as my move from war-torn Lebanon to Jordan and again to marriage to a widower); sometimes through other people (such as the advice of the friend to go to library school).  Each time it meant my moving into a new place, breaking up my personal “camp” and advancing to the next area.  Those were the places of the promises of God, not the safe mountain.