DayBreaks for 6/29/20 – The Old Made New

DayBreaks for 6/29/20: The Old Made New

Today I celebrate by birthday. Do you remember how much you looked forward to birthdays when you were a wee kid? Somehow, as I’ve passed through decades of life a lot of that excitement has worn off and I wonder how many birthdays I have left in this old body of mine.

While walking the dog yesterday morning, I was listening to Zach Williams song, Face to Face, and these words struck me: There’s a day, coming soon Where the old will be made new And Heaven’s glory shines like the morning Before our eyes. I’ve often contemplated the promise that all things will be made new, but more often than not I think about a new heaven and new earth: new mountains without erosion, new galaxies without supernovas, new oceans filled with undying life, new skies without pollution…in short, I tend to think of “things” that are old (for the mountains and canyons of this earth are far older than I) being made new in their pristine wonder and majesty. And I look forward to seeing all those things when they are made new again.  

But as I walked, it struck me that part of what is old is me… and part of the old that will be made new is me. I have known that intellectually for a long, long time, but it really hit me this time as I’m celebrating my 68^th trip around the sun.

I recall when I could run like the wind and never get winded. I could leap like a frog and touch the rim of a basketball hoop even though I’ve never exceeded 5’8.5” in height. I had boundless energy and strength. Those days are gone. My bones, muscles and sinews are old and creaky. As I watch my grandchildren run and laugh and leap, I’d love to be able to run and play with them in those ways without fear of my heart seizing up on me or a brittle old bone snapping in two! Alas, it will not happen again in this world and for the most part I can only watch and enjoy watching them delight in their youthful bodies.

But I will run again. I will leap again. I will never age, for part of the old that will be made new is “me”. God has already been working on making my heart, the inner me, new again-but the day will come when the outer me will be made new again. That’s something to look forward to. I long to run and not grow weary or fear brokenness.

In his mercy, when I see Jesus face to face, God will make all that is old, frail, fleeting, flawed, degraded and broken down full of life, vigor, strength and power – and better than it has ever been. What a glorious day that will be!

PRAYER: I praise you, God, that you have the power to make the old new and perfect. Help us not fear that doorway that leads to such healing, but to look forward to the change you will bring to fruition in us! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright by 2020 by Galen C. Dalrymple.  ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 5/18/20 – Time and the Lord’s Plan

As earth-bound creatures we are also bound by time. We have watches and phones and computers and sirens and even the sun and moon mark the passing of time for us. We can’t get away from it. We often feel there isn’t either enough, or there’s too much of it. But have we really considered how it is the servant of the Most High?

We are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the day of this writing, in our county alone in Illinois 5,904 persons have tested positive and 298 have taken their last breath. We are all anxious for time to pass and this to be over. We hope for a vaccine to put it behind us.

What does all this have to do with time and God’s plan? Consider this: imagine taking a 3 year old to the doctor and the doctor says it’s time for the child to have a vaccination. And just before the needle is inserted into the child’s arm, there is great weeping, fighting against the invasion of the needle into the tiny, flailing arm. The screaming is heartbreaking. Does the child than the doctor for that shot? No! Even the mother or father are heartbroken for what the child is going through.

But imagine, years or decades later, an outbreak of the disease sweeps across the face of the earth. People are sick and dying. But the one who was that young child does not get the dread disease because of those few moments of pain as a child. You see, the vaccine protected the child and it was only through the passing of the time that the child can appreciate what the parent and doctor did years before.

There are many things that happen to us that are painful. Like that young child we wonder why our Father put us through them, why he led us bear the pain in our lives. But know this: He never causes pain except to prevent greater pain for us. Only in hindsight can we see how these things may have saved us even greater pain and loss. Time has been the servant of the Lord in such cases.

The present pandemic, well, it is painful. But we are being taught lessons, lessons we may not even be aware of at the present. Yet there is a purpose – a far greater purpose that we cannot envision – and we have God’s promise that ALL His plans for us are for our good. Find comfort in that promise!

Jeremiah 29:11 (MSG) – I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.

PRAYER: Lord, we are impatient and have such limited sight into the reasons for all that happens. May we trust you so much that we can endure with patience the present pain to know that there is purpose for all that happens to us. And give us the wisdom to wait for the understanding with faith in you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright by 2020 by Galen C. Dalrymple.  ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 5/04/20: The Hallway Through the Sea #25 – The Last Tear

The following is the latest in a series of daily meditations amid the pandemic. Today’s musical pairing: a simple version of “Give Me Jesus” by Sara Watkins. All songs for this series have been gathered into a Spotify playlist.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. – Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. – Revelation 21:4 (NIV)

Meditation 25. 3,305,595 confirmed cases, 235,861 deaths globally.

The Bible ends with an ecstatic vision. A new heaven and a new earth—and a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband (Rev. 21:2). A voice cries out from the throne of heaven and declares, Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Rev 21:3–4).

The heavenly proclamation includes an allusion to Isaiah 25:8: The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.

It easy to forget how astonishing this is. The Jews had come to recognize that God is far greater than any other god people had ever imagined. They did not worship many gods and spirits. They worshipped a single God who created all things simply by speaking them into being. And yet that God, a God of transcendent power and ineffable majesty, also cares about the most minute sorrows of his people.

I live in a high and holy place, God says in Isaiah 57:15, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit. We may be tempted to dismiss it as a poetic sentiment. We shouldn’t. There is nothing more true than this. The immensity of the love of God is in the intimacy of his care. No sorrow is so small it escapes his attention. The God of the universe, the same God who set the span of the cosmos and rules over all time and space, gathers our tears in a bottle. For each of us. Our sufferings are remembered in God. Even the sorrows we never disclose to any person on the planet reside in him eternally…(Click here to read the rest of this devotion.)

PRAYER: There will come a day when the last tear is shed. Then, O Lord, we will live among you forever. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

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DayBreaks for 10/8/19 – How Much Longer?

DayBreaks for 10/08/19: How Much Longer?

From the DayBreaks archive, September 2009:

My kids are grown and gone, but I can still recall the family trips and the question that never stopped being asked: “Daddy, how much longer until we get there?” How do you explain time and distance to a 3 or 4-year-old? It is an impossible question to answer. The closest we could come to an answer that satisfied them was “It’s about 3 whiles”. (A while was half of a cartoon show – thus 3 whiles would be about 45 minutes!) Just saying, “A little while” didn’t work, so you had to be precise about how many “whiles” would be required!

Our souls long for the answer to that question, too, don’t they? In Revelation 6:10, the martyrs are pictured under the altar in heaven and they ask the same question: How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?  It is part of our human condition that we must wait – and wonder, “How much longer?” How long will I live with this disease? How long must I struggle with this sin? How long until my son/daughter realizes they are heading the wrong way and come back to God?

In addition to trying to answer our kids’ questions about how long something would take, we’d say, “You’ll have a great time when you get there. Trust me.” In his book, When Christ Comes, Max Lucado talks about our spiritual life in the same way and suggests that Jesus gives us the same answer. He can’t tell us how long or why it should take so long for one simple reason: our minds aren’t capable of understanding it any more than my children could understand my explanations of time and distance, so he says simply, “Trust me. You’re going to love it when you get there!”

How long must you struggle with your health, your life, your problems, your grief and pain? I can’t tell you specifically. Job 14:1 says – Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.  The most honest answer I can give you is this: you’ll struggle with those things “as long as earthly life lasts”. But those six words are powerful because they remind us that this life is earthly, another life is coming, this life will come to an end and we will reach the destination, and when we get there it will have been well worth the wait.

Then, in heaven we may turn to our Father and ask, “How long will this last?” And His answer will be the sweetest music we’ve ever heard: “Forever, my child, forever!”

Prayer: Lord, how we long to be with you and celebrate your greatness with the saints of all ages, to see you and hear your voice!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright by 2019 by Galen C. Dalrymple.  ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 6/14/19 – The Most Frequently Spoken Word in Heaven

What is your conception of heaven? Do you picture it as some sort of ethereal, cloudy, up-in-the-air-somewhere existence? You probably don’t picture it as floating around on a cloud with a harp, but you might picture it as a place where all that happens is singing praises 24×7 in a world where 24×7 is meaningless because time is no more. While I deeply love worship, I certainly hope there’s more to it than that – and I think it will be much more than that!

You know what I look forward to? Meeting Jesus and loved ones and great people of faith from all the ages are part of it, and I hope that my beloved pets will be there. But what I really look forward to is learning constantly and getting answers to the things that I don’t understand while I’m limited by my finite mind and the view from this world’s portal.  

C.S. Lewis once said that the most frequently spoken word in heaven would be, “OH.” As in, “Oh, now I understand.” Or, “Oh, now I see what God’s plan was.” Or, “Oh, now I see the reason for the trial I went through.”

Can you identify with that? I sure can.

We are told that God’s plan will work out for us for the good if we love him. But that doesn’t mean we understand why babies are stillborn, why someone kills one of our children in an act of violence, why cancer stalks us or why we are rejected and cast out. I honestly don’t think we’ll know those answers until we get to heaven. I suspect I’ll be saying “Oh!” a lot. For now our challenge is to trust him that all that happens is meant for our good and not our harm.

Jeremiah 29:11 (CSBBible) – For I know the plans I have for you—this is the LORD’s declaration—plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

PRAYER: Give us patience and perseverance, Lord, until the answers to our confusion are made clear! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright by 2019 by Galen C. Dalrymple.  ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 3/25/19 – The Three Mile Per Hour God

We love shortcuts, don’t we? Why? Because they are faster and save us time so we can move on to the next thing on our To-Do list or calendar. But, perhaps like me, you’ve found that the shortcuts often aren’t shortcuts, but long-cuts that wind up spending you more time in the long run. There’s an old saying that was common in the high-tech company where I worked that went like this: “There’s never enough time to do it right the first time, but there’s always time to do it over.”

Something I’ve learned over the year is that anything that is of truly lasting worth takes time. It takes time so raise a family. It takes time to make a good marriage. It takes time to build a career of integrity and honor. It takes time to be sanctified and learn to live a Godly life.

So here’s what may seem a contradiction: it’s not only better to go longer but better to go slower, too. In the short film, Godspeed, there’s a pastor who at the beginning of the film says these words: I’ve been running for most of my life, running through life to get somewhere else. But the things about running is that you miss most things, and if I kept running, I was going to miss everything.

The film describes Jesus as the “three-mile-an-hour God” because he walked everywhere he went. You may drive on the freeway at 70 miles per hour, or ride a bike at 15 miles per hour, but when you walk (3 miles per hour) you really noticed things. You can stop and smell the roses (literally), appreciate the sound of the birds or a brook or the wind in the trees, take the time for a conversation with a stranger or friend. As life shows down, it gets brighter and more spectacular because you have time to appreciate the miracles you encounter.

Consider this passage from Jeremiah 6:16a: This is what the Lord says, ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls.

Can you, just for today, test out the “long and slow” theory in your pace of life? If you can’t today, how about tomorrow or on the weekend. Take an extra moment to speak with a neighbor. Instead of praying while you drive, stop for a few quite minutes. Instead of parking as close as you can and then running into the store, park at the back of the lot and take the time to look up, look around, look within. And when  you take the time to walk slowly on the long roads, I believe you’ll find Jesus walking with you. He never rushes!

PRAYER: Help us take the long road so we may walk it with  you and revel in your creation and presence! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright by 2019 by Galen C. Dalrymple.  ><}}}”>

 

DayBreaks for 3/14/19 – How Jesus Waits

From the DayBreaks archive, March 2009:

Oh, boy.  As I write this, I’m waiting for a phone call that I hope won’t come.  It is Friday night and I’m finally home and this is the last thing I have to do this week before I can take some time off.  But…I got a phone call not long ago.  I may have to take someone down to the emergency room.  I hope not – I don’t want this person to be injured (they are, but the question is whether or not they need to go to the emergency room because of it), and selfishly, I must confess, this has been a hectic week and I’m tired and I’ve been looking forward to a quiet evening at home with my wife and two dogs and maybe playing with my camera a bit (one of my hobbies).  Waiting…tick, tock, tick, tock…I don’t like waiting.

This morning I waited for my wife to get ready to drive to Santa Rosa.  At the store, we had to wait in line to buy a couple books.  Then, we had to wait in line at Circuit City (they were having the final 2 days of their going out of business sale and it was a madhouse).  We went to Jack in the Box (a cheap date meal!) and had to wait there.  I wonder how much time we spend on average in waiting? 

We are an impatient lot.  If we wait for what we consider to be too long of a time, we get angry and insolent.  After all, we have places to go and things to do and people to see, right?  Waiting…tick, tock, tick, tock…I don’t like waiting.

I don’t like people to have to wait on me.  Let me be 20 minutes early rather than 10 seconds late.  I’m happy that way!  But then I often have to wait anyway because the person I was to meet with isn’t ready for me yet!!!!  Aarrrghhh!!!!

Have you ever thought about Jesus and how he must wait?  He’s waiting to hear the word, “Go!” from the Father to return to the earth and sift the wheat and tares.  He’s waiting to cast Satan and his angels into the pit.  And here’s a shocking one: in the Lord’s Prayer, he prayed “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  I think he’s still waiting for most of that to come true, too, don’t you?

How does Jesus wait?  Calmly, patiently.  Of course, he has an advantage over us: time has neither hold on him nor bearing over him.  We have finite time.  Maybe that’s why we get so impatient.  But we need to learn to emulate Jesus in our waiting as well as in our walking.  We can redeem the time we spent waiting by meditating on a passage of Scripture, on singing a song to the Lord in our head or out loud (depending on the circumstances).  We can read a Christian book (please, preferably not fiction – but something with some real meat to it).  We can talk to those around us about how much joy and peace we have – and who knows, maybe the conversation will lead to the point we can share our faith.  It’s a much better way to wait than by fuming.

Prayer:  Jesus, may we learn to redeem our waiting time and to honor you in it!!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright by 2019 by Galen C. Dalrymple.  ><}}}”>

 

DayBreaks for 1/04/19 – The Passing of the Shadow

DayBreaks for 01/04/2019: The Passing of the Shadow

From the DayBreaks Archive, 01/05/09 (modified):

Whew.  The holidays are now over.  It is a bittersweet feeling, isn’t it?  On the one hand, I love the excitement and joy of the holidays, and the chance to share that with family, loved ones and friends.  I love the Christmas carols and was surprised to find some of them playing in the malls this year. I love the bright lights and colors, and yes, the nuts and chews of Christmas from See’s Candies!

But it isn’t long and the holidays that have been so long awaited are over and done with.  The family has returned to their own homes and gone back to work, the Christmas decorations have been pulled down and boxed away for another year, the candy is gone (thank goodness!) and the Christmas carols and tree have been tucked away for 11 months.  And – I’m tired. 

As I was reflecting on this one day, I was watching our old dog, Rainie.  She’s 12 years old now and she’s clearly winding down.  She walks with a strange, stiff gait because of some arthritis in her hips, and if you look into her eyes, they are not dark and clear – they are milky and a bit subdued.  She is afraid, or in a bit too much discomfort, to hop up on the bed as easily as she used to.  Now, at night, when she comes back into the house, she will whimper and whine before even attempting her leap of faith up to the top of the mattress.  And she huffs and puffs a lot more than when she was younger.  It saddens me to see this happening before my very eyes and to be powerless in the face of the inexorable march of time.  And then I realize, I am on the same march, head down as I trudge the pathway before me.

The passing of the holidays and the winding down of life have parallels that can teach us.  We start out exuberant, full of excitement and energy.  We hurry here and there because the world is so big and there is so much to see and do and we don’t want to miss a moment of it.  But then, as with Christmas, the holiday is over before you are even fully aware that it has begun.  Old friends and family are no longer around.  We find ourselves more fearful of running around too far from home, and we also whimper and whine as we rise or recline on our bed.  Not to mention the eyesight. 

This is the way of all flesh.  This is what makes our God and His promises so precious – He does not grow old, tired, and weary.  He doesn’t get cataracts.  His bones don’t ache and generate the whimpers that accompany old age.  And He promises us that the day will come when we will be like Him in that regard.  We try to imagine a life without any sort of pains or sadness and we cannot grasp even the tiniest crumb of that reality.  But we do long for it.  The life we so longed to live when we were younger has been spent somehow, somewhere – like a shadow passing in the night, soundlessly and quickly, not even leaving footprints behind.  Hold on to the fact that the shadow is passing, but it isn’t passing from daylight to darkness, but instead the shadow is passing to daylight, from earth to heaven, from mortality to immortality, from death to life.  And there shall be no more weeping.

PRAYER:  Lord, life often feels like both a blessing and a burden.  Thank you for the promise that you will make our joys even greater than anything we have experienced in this lifetime, and that you will remove our sorrows eternally.  Thank you, that Jesus “is the life!”  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright by 2019 by Galen C. Dalrymple.  ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 8/20/18 – From the Perspective of Years

From the DayBreaks archive, August 2008:

At the risk of being premature and appearing to be wise and all-knowing, I’d like to share something with you that I think I have finally managed to learn in my 56 years of treading this earth.  Are you ready?  Here it is: life is not about now.  Oh, I know that there are bills that must be paid NOW, there are decisions that must be made NOW, there are chores and responsibilities that have to be met NOW.  Oh, yes…don’t forget taxes that must be paid!

But that’s not the stuff I’m talking about.  I’m talking about important things, things that I just wasn’t emotionally, mentally or spiritually equipped to even begin to grasp until now.  Perhaps it’s because I’m starting a new sermon series about all the things that Scripture talks about as being unseen that it’s just now coming clearer to me.  Still, I’ve struggled to find a way to express it myself, and then I finally ran across something that Elie Wiesel wrote in From the Kingdom of Memory that seems to me to say it perfectly.  (Wiesel, of course, is a holocaust survivor who has written and spoken eloquently about that horrific time in history, and about life in the aftermath.)

Here’s what Wiesel had to say that seemed to put this all into perspective for me: “Well, yes, at the time I was too young to understand that eternity does not exist except in relation to the present.  I was not mature enough to understand that it is eternity which lends this moment its mystery and its distinction.”

We are so preoccupied with living life to the full in the here and now, thinking that it is what is happening to us that gives life meaning and direction.  It is not so.  Surely, it must not be so!  It is what lies ahead that gives our lives now meaning and purpose, for we were not meant to live this life forever.  If the amount of time we spend here on earth versus in eternity is any indication of the relative importance, it is eternity that must dominate our consciousness and our thinking.  We must find the way to do this without abandoning the present, but also without ever making the fatal mistake of thinking that this life is what it is all about.

Have you noticed the context for this passage from 1 Corinthians 13:9-12? – For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

In the context, Paul seems to be speaking, at least partly, of eternity – it is then that we shall see face to face, we won’t be trying to hold on to foolish things of this world any longer.  All that occupies us here, tends to be childish compared to ultimate realities.

PRAYER: God, give us eyes to see this life through the clearer glass of eternity that our priorities and attention is focused on things above and not things below!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

PRAYER: Father, help us choose the things that are beautiful to you and that lead to life! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

COPYRIGHT 2018 by Galen C. Dalrymple. All rights reserved.

DayBreaks for 8/10/18 – Listening to the Explosion?

Listen to this statistic: knowledge is exploding at such a rate – more than 2000 pages a minute–that even Einstein couldn’t keep up. In fact, if you read at a normal reading rate for 24 hours a day, from age 21 to 70, and retained all you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished. (Campus Life)

An amazing statistic, isn’t it? Now for a real shocker: when do you suppose that statistic was compiled? It may alarm you that these statistics do not take into account the Internet – not at all! They do not even take into account the personal computer. And, why not? It is because the statistics are from 1979.

One source I consulted said that the sum of human knowledge is doubling every 12 hours! Think about that for a minute. Think about what you were doing yesterday afternoon, just 12 hours ago. Think about how much knowledge and information there was since the beginning of time until that time just 12 hours ago. And now for something really depressing (especially if you are trying to stay on top of what’s happening in your work/school, let alone in the world as a whole): while you were sleeping overnight the amount of knowledge you need to learn to just keep up doubled. What are we to do? How can we feel grounded, rooted?

We can’t know it all, nor should we expect to. But it is crucial that we learn not the glut of information that is screaming down towards us on the information super highway, but that we learn something that will sustain us for the days to come, even for eternity. In the words of Jesus, the Prophets from of old proclaimed: It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. (John 6:45, NIV) What God’s word teaches us is timeless and need not change, grow or expand. But are we so busy trying to stay relevant with human knowledge that we are no longer listening to God?

Daniel 12:1-4 (NIV) – At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people–everyone whose name is found written in the book–will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”

PRAYER: Guard our hearts and minds by Your Word and Spirit, Lord! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

COPYRIGHT 2018 by Galen C. Dalrymple. All rights reserved.