Habakkuk 2:13,14
Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts
that the labor of the people
only feeds the fire,
and
Nations weary themselves in vain?
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge
of the Glory
of the LORD
as the waters
cover the sea.
Numbers 14:21
Yet as surely as I Live
and
as surely as the whole earth
is filled with
The Glory of the LORD
Psalm 72:19
And blessed be
His Glorious Name
forever
May all the earth
be filled with His Glory.
Amen and amen.
Isaiah 6:3
And they were calling out to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts;
all the earth
is full of His Glory
Isaiah 40:5
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and
All
humanity together
will see it.”
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Three times in my life I've seen a faithful heart turn from the Lord because Life is not fair. This did not happen to me, my father, I always called Daddy, had a motto and it was, "Life is not fair." Although I argued with him. Daddy never relented. The Lord, our Father in Heaven, said to pray for the Kingdom of Heaven to have His will be done on earth. The Lord Himself tells us the earth is the Lord's and the fulfillment thereof. Psalm 24
And if we expect God to be Pere Noel, never to suffer as God's child, we have missed the crucial portion of there will be trouble in this life. I recently heard a good sermon on learning to suffer well. Efficiently. We do not suffer less to forsake our soul. And wander into more harm. Jesus overcomes. Scriptures have crucial decisions and trouble in every chapter. Hopelessness? Not forever. Not always in this life, as Hebrews 11 teaches.
Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please Him,
for whoever would draw near to God
must believe
that
He exists
and that
He rewards those who seek Him.
We will, of course, find Scripture for hopelessness leading to the forfeiture of faith.
Habakkuk 1, Habakkuk's first complaint
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.
5 “Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
7 They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
9 They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
10 At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
12 Are you not from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?
14 You make mankind like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.
15 He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his dragnet;
so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his dragnet;
for by them he lives in luxury,
and his food is rich.
17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and mercilessly killing nations forever?
This First Chapter of Habakkuk is about the rise of the Chaldean Empire.
The Chaldean's rose from the ebb and end of the Assyrians. The Assyrians destroyed many of the Tribes of Israel and Israel. Easily. Hezekiah held out in faith, the Assyrians worked with Hezekiah and the Tribes of Israel in the nation of Judah. Making the reign of Hezekiah one of the richest and most rewarding, rivaling the reign of David and Solomon.
The Assyrians had a heart for God. The Assyrians were hated horribly, especially by the Jews. Hated very terribly by Jonah. Jonah drew them to God and still hated them, this was why Jonah was never heard from in Scriptures again. And in this giant seed God gave the Assyrians, Hezekiah and the Tribe of Israel remnant flourished and excelled. Nineveh became the Assyrian Empire.
And from the Assyrians, Chaldeans rose to fame, becoming Babylonian Chaldeans and Nebuchadnezzar II would meet Jeremiah and have his general free Jeremiah from David's Palace prison. Generals of Nebuchadnezzar are both biblical and Babylonian cuneiforms. 597 BC can be read today. The bulla of Jeremiah's servant and the servant's family were found in the prison of David's. Biblical history made into archeological history finds. Cuneiforms parallel the Bible of Jeremiah. And many other Biblical Books. Including the descendants of David in Nebuchadnezzar, believed Isaiah 10 was the prophecy of his life. Daniel began to write about pride.
God promised the fertile garden of Nebuchadnezzar II's Empire would suffer, becoming the desert for the ruin of Israel. An impossibility for sure. Except God spoke His Word. Nebuchadnezzar would recover for his mercy to Judah and the Priests of God. Religious Freedom given to the slaves.
The point Habakkuk is making, when we discover holding fast to our blessings, we find God. And begin to have an inkling of the purpose of God. With Joy. Our blessings will escape us, not to know them as blessings.
Habakkuk 2:3
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come;
it will not delay.
My grandmother Anita was at home as a wife in the Great Depression. Ray, my grandfather, went to work each day as an Architect. Anita had been raised in Richardson, Louisiana, where her family were tree farmers and merchants. Anita's mother gardened extensively and raised vegetables for the family of 12 long-lived children. So being a wife without children was surely time on Anita's hands.
Anita began to make lunch of chicken and vegetables to the 40 people, mostly men, knocking for work on their back door. Anita fed them on pie tins. And mason jars. As the Depression ended, Anita went back to being childless. One day the front doorbell rang. A Dallas policeman had a 2-year-old boy child beaten badly with a bicycle chain and burned with cigarettes. The child could not be potty trained. And his very wealthy adoptive parents had been found severely without compassion. The Police wanted Anita to adopt him. And the policeman knew Anita from her lunches. Jimmy would grow up and probably had Fragile X. Jimmy was beautiful and looked like Frank Sinatra. He would work for Braniff Airlines, but be permanently out of work before he was 30 years old and return to live with my widowed Grandmother until Anita turned 90 years old. Jimmy was about to be 70 years old. That's quite a lot of adoption.
Jimmy had issues with anger and women. Particularly Christian women. Jimmy saw a lot of life with outrageous anger. Jimmy once created a hell of vicious fistfight. And my family fled from the house and waited for Grandmother to return from Kessler Park Methodist. Grandmother taught Bible studies for 42 years. Anita was taken to our home for the day where we asked if Anita would now be living with us. Anita was so tiny. And Anita stood up and said, "No one would take her son away from her." She said it as if she were Moses. Anita was in her late 80s. I told Grandmother Anita those prayers were ending at the ceiling. And she was angry and said, "She would Never Give Up Praying For Her Son. Ever."
Grandmother Anita passed on at age 94. Always finding her blessings. And we sang to her as she passed on in the most incredible and silent thunderstorm. This storm would be the headline of the Dallas Morning News the next day. My mother and I decided God was giving Grandmother Anita fireworks as a parade into Heaven.
Anita had been in the Kingdom of God from 1992 until 1999. Jimmy had a spiffy new apartment in downtown Dallas and began to watch Joel Olsteen. And read Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life." The phone at my mother's house began ringing from Jimmy. Jimmy was astonished to find Jimmy was beginning to like God. And Jimmy began to witness to my mother, who let him, as if she had never prayed a day in her life. As the year went by, my mother would gently say, she believed she had heard their mother Anita say this. And in the next couple of months, Jimmy would call and say, Do you remember Mother would say this and this and this.
Finally, Mother called to say Jimmy had prayed with her to receive the Holy Spirit. And we wept. Grandmother Anita was not missing out, 72-year-old Jimmy would be dancing in Heaven with Anita when he passed on. Jimmy had spent more than a decade caring for Anita in old age, but not any Anita dimmed in conversation.
Psalm 27:14
Wait for the Lord; be strong,
and
let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
My 2nd cousin Maxine was about to be 50 when I was born. A product of 12 brothers and sisters making generations uneven in age. Anita was one of her aunts and lived closest and dearest. Best friends Anita and Eloise for 9 decades. And Maxine loved huge comic strip books, and I like books. Maxine had never had children, and we always got along tremendously. Maxine would keep Coco-Cola glass bottles, and we always would go and sit and visit. This was the era lasted and lasted, I was even in college and married having small children. In Maxine's late life, she had 23 strokes, and I became her State of Texas Guardian, and 12 years beyond that, Administrator of her Estate.
Maxine had her opinions and her joys. But one thing she wouldn't abide was, in this extensively Christian family, she did not believe God cared enough to really have a Kingdom of Heaven. Probably there was a God. And if we all tried to speak to her, Maxine would press her lips together like a zipper. It was the only time she would pull a face anything like this. And not speak another word.
One day, my sons were young, my mother and I decided we would talk to Maxine about Heaven. Maxine was 80 years old, after all. My mother nominated me. Because Maxine and I had always had a good and kind, loving relationship. They let me pry, when I was a child, all the marbles out of their sidewalks in the gardens because the marbles had been there since 1919. And I started up the conversation to save Maxine.
"Maxine, let's have a talk, the best you can stand it, about the subject you like us all to avoid." Why? "You are 80." Oh, for God's sake! "I'll start." Must you. "Yes. It won't kill you and might make eternal life better." Zipper lips on Maxine.
"Maxine, do you believe that great-grandmother Melissa and Lena and the aunts and uncles believed Jesus is God and Heaven is His Kingdom."
"Yes. Of course. But I Do Not."
"But you believe there is a God, you have said so." And received only a glare from eagle eyes.
"And do you think Melissa, Lena and the aunts and uncles, my mother, and I are foolish people who are unintelligent? Believing in fairies and wisps and nonsense?"
Maxine replied, "No, of course not. I know all of you and know you earnestly believe, and I do not."
"Then, why can't you entertain the belief as valid and search diligently to see what we see."
"I will think on this strongly." Maxine replied. And Mother and I thanked her. We went on to have a good visit. Much later, I would think about this as Hebrews 12, the cloud of many witnesses. And this fits in nicely with our discussion today about Hebrews 11!
A few weeks later, Mother and I went back. We were sitting on the front walk outside the front door. It was about Easter time. No sooner had we all started on our glass bottle Coca-Colas than Maxine said, "I want to continue our talk about the subject I don't like to talk about."
This time I did not feel as certain and gung-ho about this conversation. And Maxine said, "This is for you and your mother. And is sincere. When I have gone, you can know what I know. For your comfort. When I see a Butterfly and the glory of the Butterfly coming from the sleep of the cocoon, I can grasp and understand the plan and beauty of Heaven. And when I see that, I have understanding and feel the Love of God's Plan and Presence. I am not without faith. It's just difficult for me to hold on to faith. But there is faith there. And a vast Peace is there in these times."
I wish I could write today that I prayed for my cousin Maxine diligently and often during those 12 years. But time and tide sometimes wash things away, even in Prayer. Maxine was in the Memory Loss facility she chose for those years. Living to be 94 years old. We wept when she died in 2010.
In 2016, my mother gave me all her angels from her Christmas Tree. It's a sad and horrible tradition, old ladies in our family have no Christmas Tree. I always thought this was the height of admitting to being boring and old. However, I was thrilled to have my mother's angels. We collected them all from the 1980s and dressed them in Maxine's mother, my Aunt Eloise's, handmade lace she gave us during one of our visits. We paint hair, make sashes, wraps, and the angels look just beautiful. Heavenly. Aunt Eloise gave us all her box of lace because we were all admiring photos of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Christmas Tree Nativity and all the Heavenly Host. Eloise said she was contributing to the Family Christmas Tree and Aunt Eloise loved art. My green guest bedroom has her small bird paintings.
And I decided, I needed to buy and make more of our Vintage Angels. I started looking in the various websites where Vintage Angels are sold. And I realized, one looked like Edward. Bought that one. One looked just like Maxine and I bought that one too. Maxine's Angel needed a skirt better than the one that arrived. And as I got ready to gilt paint her wings... Maxine's Angel is the Only ANGEL with, with, With BUTTERLY WINGS.
Romans 8:16
The Spirit Himself bears witness
with our spirit
that
we are
children of God
My step-grandfather, Reverend Wm. Tate Young, was born in a happy family of father, mother and Tate. By the time Tate was five years old, he was an orphan and his 2-year-old brother had also passed away. His father died in a car accident while his mother was pregnant with his beloved brother. But Tate was comforted by his mother and looked forward to the birth of the sibling. His mother was a very lovely woman and Tate felt they would miss his father, but would be alright. Tragically, his mother had such advanced Tuberculosis she unknowingly had Tuberculosis of the bone while pregnant with the longed for sibling. Just as his brother turned two, he died and was shortly followed by his mother, who was absolutely stricken at the thought of Tate as orphaned. Tate was sent to his widowed, maternal grandmother, who had every comfort of money and the enjoyment of her things, but was austere. Tate once remarked that his grandmother Bertha who raised him, told him the loss of his mother and the child - who was too young to know - was a speed bump. His life by age 6 felt lost and lost to the comfort of love.
And she told Tate, without much concern, he should pray and God would hear him because God had taken his mother, father and 'much beloved' brother to Heaven with the angels. And Tate decided he would. By the age of 8, Tate knew his Heavenly Father with a love that would carry him for 8 decades. Tate was an Episcopal Priest, hale and hearty, broad-shouldered, with a hearty and optimistic heart, 6' 4" who loved Jesus Christ. He had gone to Sewanee, was a roommate of my great-uncle Bob, married into the extended family, and was a tremendous presence of humor and love. By the time I was enrolled in Dallas Episcopal Schools, Tate was the Rector of the Episcopal Churches in Sherman and then Dennison. Both. And Tate loved his Churches, went to hospitals frequently, always was out and about. Tate was interested in every subject. And would pound on the dining room table to get his point across. Tate was all one would ever hope he would be. Later, we would find out my father would diminish after Tate passed on. Tate shone with the light of Jesus Christ.
We don't all arrive at knowing how much Jesus Christ loves us in old age!
Luke 24:32
They began telling each other how their hearts had felt strangely warm
as He talked with them
and
explained the Scriptures
during the walk
down the road
My grandmother loved my grandfather, but having spent 12 years at Sewanee Military Academy surrounded by men and boys and then at the University, my grandfather had no idea of what marriage and family life was. He had 40 male friends and left on Fridays to return Sunday late evening or after work on Monday. A large personality with a talent for Volunteer Firefighting, fishing, drinking, hunting, airplane piloting, he was a volunteer during World War II for civil air patrol. He was not interested in his only child. Due to being on fire for the next hunting weekend. Pos was his nickname, from some event regarding Opossums that women were not to know, during his college years. Which we were told was hilarious, Pos was greatly loved. But living with Pos 4 to 5 days a week wasn't always a comfort. He loved cars and the places they'd take him on the weekends. Changing states from Mississippi to Texas had not made this change. Pos knew people from school, everywhere.
My grandmother Bit, Augusta Elliott Wilson Anderson Young, was named Bit at her birth by her Daddy. He carried her home, into their living room, and said she is just a Bit of Love. And he was profoundly and enduringly, exactly correct. Bit found life a challenge after marriage. Bit was leaving a childhood bustling with 2 adoring parents, 1 adoring maternal grandmother and a paternal harpy grandmother. 2 live-in maids. And 4 siblings with a well-beloved brother, Bob. And her favorite hometown in the world, at the Crossroads, Rosedale, Mississippi. Life was filled with people to love. Her best friend during my father's school years was her next-door neighbor Helen. Helen found she had cancer while my father was beginning high school and Grandmother cared for Helen. Helen passed away quickly and had her husband arrange the sale of her home to my grandmother. Because Bit had always loved time with Helen in her home.
As Bit passed on, she and Helen had a conversation spanning the gap of 40 years separation of earth and Heaven, filled with current events. Which had my Daddy almost in spasms of something like seeing a ghost. We learned about what Helen's much older children were doing and their grandchildren's activities. Grandmother went on to greet an enormous number of her friends who had passed on and continually looked up to ask, "Father, will I come Home today?"
Yet, life was lonely because one spouse was unavailable. And Tate was part of our family and was a comfort and wrote Grandmother letters. Tate had written a glowing book on Transubstantiation of the Eucharist. And in Tate's faith, Grandmother found her faith in Jesus Christ as my father was a baby. Mostly without a loving father figure. Tate would become a widower twice. And before his second marriage, Tate made a 30 year renewal of his offer to marry Bit, as he had done in college. Bit had felt that she was not ready to be over the marriage to my grandfather, who had been gone quite a while. And really was in a huge snit when Tate remarried a year later. They married when his second wife suddenly died from Pneumonia.
Bit would say as she read the Scriptures, she could hear her Heavenly Father talk to her. I am absolutely positive her father was right to name her as he did.
When my parents divorced with great trauma and drama in their 25th year of marriage, my Grandmother Bit was an enormous comfort to me. As Bit had been comforted, she knew very well how to be Comfort. Something God provides us and tells us in Scriptures, does live brightly in our lives forever and ever. Amen.
Hebrews 11
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for
Amos 5:14-15
Seek good, and not evil,
that
you may live;
and so
The Lord, The God of Hosts,
will be with you,
as you have said.
Hate evil, and Love Good,
and
establish justice in the gate;
it may be that
The Lord,
The God of Hosts,
will be gracious
to the remnant
of Joseph.
And in Jesus - This Hope.
Faith and Love - we will rise up Believing Jesus.
Thank You, Father.
Amen!
♔ Lord Jesus Saves †
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