Anagogic

The word anagogic is unfamiliar to most people, even academics, only the spiritual, the believer in the supernatural, the one who has a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of God, can know the mystical, scriptural interpretation connecting the believer with God. Our redemption is personal, only the forgiven can understand forgiveness, until you have been forgiven, until you have a relationship with God through Christ, you cannot preach, teach, or even write about this soul-cleansing experience. Only then, can you understand anagogic.

I have found in a long life of knowing “baby Christians”, those who have been Bible students for many years, and even theologians, that when it comes to religion, most people are just playing games with God. They do not know what they believe, nor can they explain what they believe. We do what we do because we believe what we believe, whether pretending in comfort on a Sunday morning or becoming a martyr, knowing the reality of faith. 85% of all people questioned said they believe they will go to heaven when they die, most of these people who think they will go to heaven when they die, know nothing about heaven. It is just a romantic thought, against the otherwise awful alternative. No one thinks he is going to hell, and no one thinks anyone he knows is going to hell. In the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5,6,7), Christ himself said, “broad is the way that leads to destruction, and narrow is the way that leads to live eternal.” Remember, of the billions on earth at the time of the Great Flood, only 8 survived, we do not know how many were in Sodom when the fire fell, when destruction came to the city. But only Lot and his wife survived, she looked back, there is a reason that God put in the scripture, almost isolated from anything else, “remember Lot's wife” (Luke 17:32).

The only book in the world dictated by god, a book that has every answer, that most who think that they are going to heaven, totally ignore, Paul's letter to the Hebrews reminds us to study God's word (Hebrews 4:12). We have for our instruction, revelation not speculation. The real Christian knows God, and God knows that Christian.

I thought of the above as I studied the 8 Christians killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan on August 5th. As most of you know, I am a trained, licensed eye doctor, army medical officer, and I was in school with an eye doctor by the name of Little. His father was also an eye doctor, practicing in Canada, and the one who was killed in Afghanistan, along with other doctors in his group were from New York. Dr. Tom Little, like Dr. Jim Elliot (killed in Ecuador), knew the real meaning of taking the healing arts to those who needed them most. Their healing hands came from healing hearts, evidently Dr. Little had been in Afghanistan for more than 40 years, providing eye care, along with other doctors providing other care. His wife, in America, making arrangements for the birth of their grandchild, said, “We had 40 wonderful years together — of serving together, all those years, doing what we thought we should do. And that’s enough for a life “

“He worked in an area that had terrible problems with glaucoma and was a help to thousands of people” said Rev. Lawrence Roff, of the First Presbyterian Church of Schenectady. Little moved to Afghanistan in the late 1970s and operated vision clinics and eye hospitals through one crisis after another. The Little family survived the Soviet invasion, the shelling of Kabul, endured a long civil war, and suffered through the rise of the Taliban regime. A Taliban spokesman told The Associated Press in Pakistan that his group killed the eight foreigners and two Afghan interpreters because they were spying for the US and preaching Christianity.

Tom’s wife made it clear that this was their ministry. It was their way of serving God by serving those in need, this was not a short-term, two-week trip that some make on occasion. This was a lifetime of serving others. It even included having their children with them and at times avoiding rocket attacks and worse. As Libby put it, “100 rockets was a good day.”

The God haters of the world, the pretenders and counterfeits, who play around with the church and God, “just in care there is something to it,” will never understand the anagogics involved in that 13 inch distance between the brain and the heart of man. Why should bright, beautiful people give their lives on the alter of sacrifice to others when they could have a comfortable existence otherwise? When the holy spirit of God transforms you, and you become a new creation, you will not care what others think, your joy comes from serving God...”wherever he leads, I'll go.” (Hymn, B.B. McKinney)

Rest In Peace, Dr. Tom Little and your fellow Christians.