Disoriented Apart from Home

By Brenda Black


Slept like a rock near the Rockies last night until city sirens broke the peaceful Colorado silence. The unfamiliar blare from the streets of downtown Denver pierced through a hotel window 18 stories up in the Mile High City. Instantly, I scanned my brain, searching for locality and realized I was no longer at home in the country.

It is an odd sort of experience to suddenly be so disoriented. Thankfully the mix of fear and confusion is just as quickly answered with reality and reason. But the desire to be in familiar surroundings lingers, even as sleep slowly returns. Home.

Wide awake and full of faith, the faithful hall-of-famers listed in Hebrews 11, must have felt that same sense of disorientation and longing. By faith and in holy fear, Noah built a boat for a rain unknown and waters unseen. By faith, Abraham journeyed to a land far away and believed in the promise of heirs though in his old age and married to a barren woman. Both desired a place of refuge and the comforts of home. Enoch, who pleased God, took the short route, bypassing even death to make his final and eternal trip. He goes down as one most blessed! They all had in common a distant destination to a place of perfect rest, undisturbed by the sirens of this world. Home.

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." (Hebrews 11:13-16)

Like the saints of old, the longer I live on this earth, the more disoriented I feel and the more desirous I become for that heavenly home.

The world is filled with flood waters of grief and pain. We're instructed to rise above the murky waters and rescue the perishing. "Get on the boat! Take others with you!" are the cries of our Heavenly Father, who holds out a lifeline that pulls us Home.

The Lord calls for us to be obedient even when we don't know the way and can't see the city. He reaches down with an unseen hand that guides us gently and intentionally toward Home.

And some day, through immediate lift or by death, we shall make the journey of Enoch and instantly be in the presence of holiness. If we walked in faith on this earth, we'll be Home.

In the meantime, no matter where I lay my head, I can set my mind at ease if I cling to the goodness of God's plan for transformation and transportation from this world to the next. It's about scanning the brain and landing on the reason I live and breath then trusting in the reality of life everlasting.

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
(Romans 12:1-3)


God's perfect will is that none would perish, but all would come Home.

When the Rope Won't Hold

When the Rope Won't Hold
By Brenda Black

There is a story about a monastery in Europe perched high on a cliff several hundred feet in the air. The only way to reach the monastery is to be suspended in a basket which is pulled to the top by several monks who heave and tug with all their strength.

Obviously the ride up the steep cliff in that basket is terrifying. A daring tourist braved the trip one time and got exceedingly nervous about half-way up when he noticed that the rope by which he was suspended was quite old and frayed.

With a trembling voice he asked the monk who was riding with him in the basket how often they changed the rope. The monk answered, "Whenever it breaks."

Are you at the end of your rope! Does it look like it won't hold much longer. Can you see the sharp, jagged rocks slicing away each thread of your trusty, once-solid cord. While you fret and grow increasingly hopeless, others seem serenely indifferent, like the monk in the basket. You're each experiencing risk, so what's the difference?

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible...

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:1-3, 6-10)

A monastery on a cliff is not the destination. Beyond the highest apex, on the other side of lofty clouds, heaven waits for the faithful. It's a city not built by human hands and the in-road is not a bouncing, precarious basket ride dangling by a frayed rope. The way to heaven is certainly not easy and there are mountains and valleys and dangers. But the journey's route is well marked by the blood of a Savior who goes ahead and levels the path.

Our trials here drive us onward if we believe such a place exists. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” The rope looks strong even if tattered because “what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

When times are filled with strife and sorrow, remember, we are beckoned to a reward -- the promised land -- a “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Our permanent dwelling is not in this world, but in the one to come.

When Noah saw rain, he built an ark and saved his family rather than sit on the bank sulking. Abraham had a home, but left it to live in a tent. He could have dug in his heels and ignored God's leading, but he would have sacrificed a great inheritance. In their trials, they tested righteous for their obedience and endurance. And most importantly, they were counted as heirs to the throne of heaven for their faith.

Don't lose faith. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything...Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

Hang on! Heaven's coming!

A Hot Place to Find Humility

By Brenda Black

Puberty punctuates immaturity as much as it ushers in adulthood. And impertinence is all the more exaggerated when there is an audience. Tough teen Ishmael counted it entertainment to tease and mock his baby step-brother Isaac during his big “coming-out” party. Not his wisest decision.

“The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, 'Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.'” (Genesis 21:8-10)

One too many caddy remarks can land you smack dab in the middle of a social desert. And a smart alec kid will drag his parents right along the barren, sandy slide if they don't put a stop to it. Nobody likes rudeness, especially in the form of disrespect. Sometimes, it takes a swift kick in the pants to temper a sarcastic tongue or at least a few minutes in a time out, away from all the attention, for humility to have a fighting chance.

And that's where we find Ishmael and his mother Hagar – out in the desert, humbled and scared.

“Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.

“When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, 'I cannot watch the boy die.' And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob.

“God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, 'What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.

“Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

“God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer...” (14-20)

Ishmael was a teenager, 14 years old, and we find him reduced to the ways of the baby he mocked days before. Hagar herself despised her mistress and now weeps alone in the desert, longing for her companionship. On that hot desert, they found humility in the midst of harsh reality.

No matter how far we move away from God, he is able to find us. Under a tree, dying. A bowshot away, weeping. He meets us in our gravest situation, not with judgement, but compassion. He lifts us from our sinfulness and sorrow and shame. He opens our eyes and restores our dignity. Some will accept such grace and walk onward full of faith. Others will never comprehend the love they could have within and the joy they could bring if they would humble themselves and stop living in slavery to sin. Ishmael's legacy leaves no doubt that he disdained the Lord's rescue. He did not receive the inheritance and “his descendants...lived in hostility toward all their brothers.” (Gen. 25:18)

I don't know what became of Hagar, but Galations 4:25 says “Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.”

Did she go the way of her wild, rebellious son or was it her own example that taught him the kind of sarcasm that would cast them away from everyone. All of her history and the uncertainty of her destiny teaches us one sure truth. If we don't accept God's salvation when he offers a living drink, we are in just as much danger as this woman and child lost in the desert. Worse yet, we're lost forever. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible clarifies the difference between sin slavery and salvation. “There is a well of water near them in the covenant of grace, but they are not aware of it, till the same God that opened their eyes to see their wound, opens them to see their remedy. Paran was a wild place, fit for a wild man; such as Ishmael. Those who are born after the flesh, take up with the wilderness of this world, while the children of the promise aim at the heavenly Canaan.”

Don't wait until you are humbled in the heat of a desert. Choose today to live as a child of promise rather than a slave to sin.