Don't Live in Prison

Last weekend I saw a "48 Hours" episode that recounted the story of a seventeen-year-old boy who was wrongly accused of violently murdering both of his parents. He was found guilty and sentenced to fifty years to life. Marty served almost twenty years of that sentence before he was exonerated and gained his freedom.

Immediately after his release from prison, Marty moved in with his aunt and uncle and enrolled in college. He has now earned his degree and is working as a paralegal while he attends law school.

When the young man’s uncle was interviewed, he said that before Marty came to live with them, he was afraid that Marty would be changed. The uncle thought that because of the years he had spent incarcerated, Marty would be hardened and rough—a mere shadow of his former self. The uncle was, therefore, surprised to discover that Marty had not changed. He was still gentle and considerate. He had retained his “good manners” and was attentive to the needs of both his aunt and uncle.

The interviewer asked Marty how he had managed to remain well mannered and thoughtful while living under such harsh conditions, and his answer was very interesting:  “I never lived in prison. My body resided there, but my spirit and soul were never there.”

What a powerful statement! Marty went on to say that the worst part of every day was waking up to the sounds and smells of prison. Nevertheless, after the first few minutes he would steel himself to get through that day without becoming a part of the prison life.

Although Marty is not a Christian, his remarks reminded me of the accounts of the famous men and women of faith recorded in chapter 11 of Hebrews. The Bible says that they all died without receiving everything that God had for them, but they were happy, “for they agreed that this earth was not their real home but that they were just strangers visiting down here.”  (Heb 11:13 Living Bible)

I think that Marty’s approach to prison is exactly the approach that the Bible teaches we should take concerning our lives here on earth. Our bodies must reside here for a while, but we must not allow our souls and spirits to become entrapped by “those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up.” We must be in this world but not of this world.

As Christians, of course, we must constantly reach out to other people, but even while doing so we must keep our distance from those things that would drag us down and destroy our witness.  We must treat the unsaved world with love and patience, but we can never allow ourselves to join them in anything that dishonors Christ.

Living in a sinful world and associating with those who mock our faith can be difficult. Yet, Chapter 12 of Hebrews tells us that we have “a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands,” cheering us on.  Since we are privileged to be in such good company, can’t we do at least as much as Marty, who resided in prison but never allowed himself to live there because he looked forward to a day when he would return to his real home?

For more articles by Joyce Swann, visit www.frontier2000.net.

  

IT’S SIMPLE—NOT EASY

History records that Christopher Columbus was sitting at dinner with a group of Sea Captains who all agreed that his discovery of the New World amounted to “nothing” and that any of them could have done the same. Discovering the New World was “easy.”

After a while Columbus held up a hard boiled egg in its shell and asked who among them could make it stand on end. Each of the captains tried without success until one finally shouted, “No one can make an egg stand on end! It is impossible!”

Columbus then took the egg and set it down on its end just hard enough to slightly flatten the bottom. When he removed his hand, the egg stood on end perfectly. “Look!” he exclaimed. “It is easy, now that I have shown you how.”

Clearly, standing an egg on end is not easy. In fact, it is not even possible unless you know how. Columbus had taken an impossible task and made it simple, not easy.

During my twenty-five years as a homeschooling Mom, I constantly looked for ways to make homeschooling simple, both for me and my students. For instance, before I ever sat down with my oldest child and began our daily lessons, I developed a phonics program to teach her to read. I took 3 x 5 cards and wrote one letter of the alphabet on each. I then wrote common combinations such as "sh", "ch", "tr", etc. on other cards. I taught Alexandra the name of each consonant and the sound it makes. I then taught her the name of each vowel and the long and short sound for each. After that I taught her the various common combinations.  When she had mastered all of the cards, I introduced Dr. Seuss’ "Hop on Pop" as her first reader. Within six weeks after I first began teaching her, Alexandra was reading.

After I had taught several of my children to read using this method, people began asking me if I were going to sell my “reading course.”I explained that it was not something that anyone would buy; it was just a simple method of teaching children to read.

Finally, I agreed to share my method with a friend who insisted that she was desperate for a way to teach her son to read. I made her a set of cards and invited her to come to my house to pick them up. When she arrived, I explained exactly how I used the cards to achieve the desired results. My friend listened quietly and then took the cards and left.

Later, I walked out into the front yard and found the entire stack of cards scattered over the lawn. She had thrown them away and had not even done me the courtesy of waiting until she left my property to do so!

This woman had a lot of money and spent it freely. If I had produced a more complicated program that included colorful artwork, glossy cards and complex instructions, she would have gladly paid three or four hundred dollars to get it. Whether it would have actually worked would not have been an issue.  

The problem with simple is that few people respect what is truly simple. For example, when Naaman, the commander-in-chief of the King of Syria’s army, went to Elisha to be healed of Leprosy, Elisha did not even come to the door to talk to him. He sent a servant to tell Naaman that if he would wash himself seven times in the Jordan River, he would be healed. That is about as simple as it gets, but Naaman did not want simple.

Naaman went into a tirade, but his officers reasoned with him, “If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply to go and wash and be cured!” (2 Kings 5:13 Living Bible)

Naaman finally obeyed the prophet’s instructions, and he was immediately healed. He then stood humbly before Elisha and declared, “There is no God in all the world except in Israel.” Naaman vowed that he would never again offer burnt offerings or sacrifices to any god other than the Lord.

Can you imagine the “problems” Naaman’s healing caused for him? He was whole—his skin was as healthy as a little child’s—but he was now the only godly man in Syria. He served a king who worshiped idols, and he was in a position where he could not “fly under the radar.” It was one of his duties to accompany the king to Rimmon’s temple. Naaman’s life would never again be easy.

Last night John, a Mennonite Missionary, spoke at our church. He and his wife were raised in a Mennonite community in Mexico, and he now works full-time as a missionary to the Mennonites.  John said that the Mennonites are very religious but very legalistic. Because they are taught not to read the Bible, they do not have a concept of Grace.

John went on to say that he is naturally a very shy person and that it is extremely difficult for him to approach people to talk to them about the Gospel. However, he is able to persevere because of the knowledge that if he shares the Gospel with someone, and that person believes the message, God has the power to save that person and change his life.

This simple idea has brought about salvation for many of the Mennonites living in Northern Mexico, but John has paid a price. He has exchanged what could have been an easy life for one that is simple—and filled with hardship.

Simple and easy often collide. God has given us a plan of salvation that is simple enough for all who are willing to come to Him to comprehend. The problem is that we humans tend not to value that which is truly simple. Those of us who have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior must help others to understand that God’s plan of salvation is simple, but it is also the most valuable gift the world has ever known. 

For related posts visit http://www.frontier2000.net/.

                                                

God’s Button Box

When my youngest son, Judah, was five or six years old, he went shopping for my Christmas gift in my button box. This was done without my knowledge, but he had seen a particular button there that he thought would make a perfect Christmas gift for Mom.

The highly prized button was made of clear plastic and was about a quarter of an inch across. Shaped like a diamond, right down to its facets and pointed end, it was one of a kind in a box full of ordinary shirt buttons.

When Judah had secured his “diamond,” he found a piece of wrapping paper which he crushed around it so that the finished gift looked like a crumpled wad of Christmas wrapping. He then put his gift under the tree with all the others and waited for Christmas Eve.

When I opened Judah’s gift that year, he was beaming. As soon as the button appeared, he shouted, “I gave you a diamond!”

I told him how gorgeous his gift was and how glad I was to receive it. I knew that whatever I did, I could not redeposit it into the button box. After a little thought I went to my closet and took out my favorite sweat shirt—the one I wore every time it was clean—and sewed the button to it a couple of inches below the left shoulder seam. I then showed the shirt to Judah and told him how wonderful it would be to have that beautiful diamond on my shirt every day.

In the months ahead that small plastic button was the source of much joy for both of us. When I was working with Judah in our homeschool, he would often reach out and gently lay his hand over it, knowing that it was special to me. For my part, every time I saw that button, my heart filled with happiness knowing that it represented a special love connection between the two of us.

Judah is now twenty-seven years old, but even now as I retell this incident my heart overflows with joy. Maybe it’s just a Mom thing, but I don’t think so. I learned a valuable lesson from that gift given to me so many years ago with so much love.

I often think of that gift in terms of how we give to God. There is nothing that we can give Him that is not already his. The Bible says in one place that He owns all of the animals, and in another that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He talks about the treasures buried in the earth that man does not even know exist. He says in the book of Isaiah, “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool….My hand has made both earth and skies, and they are mine.”      

Most of the time when we give to God we do so by going to His button box and taking what already belongs to Him. God honors those gifts, and they are important because through that kind of giving we are able to help others in need. We tend to forget, however, that what God wants most is our obedience and our faithfulness. He wants us to show kindness to others and to share our faith. He wants us to love Him and spend time in His presence. When we give these gifts, we draw close to Him and share a special love connection with Him that only comes from having a personal relationship.

So, what can you give to the God who owns everything? You can give yourself; it is the only thing that you have the power to give. Fortunately, it is the gift that He wants most.

For related posts visit http://www.frontier2000.net/.

Their Past, their Glory, our Thanks

On March 27 the Twenty-second Annual Bataan Memorial Death March 2011 was held at the foot of the Organ Mountains in the high desert terrain of White Sands Missile Range at White Sands, New Mexico. My thirty-nine year old son was among the thousands of participants from all fifty sates and five foreign countries who gathered to either march or run the 26.2 mile marathon to commemorate the occasion.

My son, who is a civilian, was a runner, but all members of the military who chose to participate were required to complete the march wearing full uniforms and carrying a pack weighing a minimum of 35 pounds—which they did in approximately six hours!

This past Sunday I had lunch with my son and his wife, and they were full of stories about the experience. We live only about fifty miles from White Sands, so they were accustomed to the special challenges that desert climates present. The temperature that day ranged from 40 degrees in the early morning when the march began to 80 degrees that afternoon. In addition, the participants had to deal with a 35 mile-an-hour head wind with the accompanying blowing sand that filled their eyes and nostrils.  It was not, however, the challenges of the march itself that my son and daughter-in-law talked about; it was the participants who captured their imaginations.

They were greeted at the starting line by Sgt. Oscar L. Leonard from the 28^th Heavy Bomb Squadron who was a prisoner forced to make the notorious Bataan Death March which began on April 9, 1942. The sixty-mile journey lasted five days for some and up to twelve days for others. It was brutal, but Sgt. Leonard and his fellow survivor, ninety-five-year-old Tony Reyna, who arrived at this year’s event in a wheelchair, did not talk about their sacrifices. They smiled quietly and shook hands with the marchers, who thanked them for their service.

Although Leonard and Reyna did not share the details of their experiences—Leonard was subsequently tortured repeatedly during the four years of his captivity---history gives us some vivid eye-witness accounts of what that first march entailed. The march began with 76,000 prisoners—12,000 Americans and 64,000 Filipinos. It was a sixty-mile journey during which 5,200 Americans died from disease, lack of food and water, exposure to the scorching sun, and severe abuse by the Japanese. The prisoners were not allowed to help their comrades, and any who were unable to continue were shot. One young Captain who was discovered to have some Japanese Yen in his pocket was beheaded as his fellow prisoners watched.

All of the heroes at the march were not “ninety somethings,” however. Eighteen Wounded Warriors also participated. These Wounded Warriors were made up of both single and double amputees, but they were there to brave the fluctuating temperatures and blowing sand to march in honor of those who had gone before them to defend our country.

The event’s motto is: Their past, their glory, our thanks. I believe that just about sums it up. We have so much for which to be thankful. God has allowed us to live in the greatest country in the world. Our history is filled with accounts of the courage and sacrifice of those who went before us, and our young men and women are still sacrificing their lives and limbs to keep our country safe and free. Let us never forget to be thankful for the courage and sacrifice of those who gave so much and for those who continue to serve so that we may continue to be free. 

For related posts visit http://www.frontier2000.net/.