In Good Company
Don't Spare Me
Don’t spare me failure
If it is what is best for me.
Don’t spare me sickness
If it will make me call on Thee.
Don’t spare me loneliness
For I remember Gethsemane.
Don’t spare me anything that you endured for me.
Don’t spare me heartache
You bore a broken heart for me.
Don’t spare me suffering
For I recall your agony
Don’t spare me anything that you endured for me
But give me strength to follow Thee.
When I was young, 80 years ago, an entirely different world. A world of "big I, little You," even more so than today, the elitist-democrat-blue blood North Carolinian's presented their young debutant daughters to society at the large Torriscopian Ball in Raleigh, state capital, each year. It was a grand, high society, flurry-fantasia of ball gowns. Acceptable young men of the states "rich and famous." The democrat bible, the "Raleigh News and Observer", big spread of photographs, the states prestigious family names, prestigious colleges.
As poor as we were, my father always found the money for a 'News and Observer' subscription. Mr. Bill Spivey, driving fast, had the ability to throw that paper onto our front porch. I was not always blind, young, I devoured every article in the paper. I was not envious of the rich, only amazed that my God of love and glory could witness such a disparity among people, especially the disparity between believers and non believers, healthy and sick, disabled and Olympians, gowned and tuxedoed Torscopians, obedient to Satan, God's chosen-poor-tenant farmers-cotton mill workers, just trying to survive. Please God, before I die, tell me why the uneven playing-living field.
This totally blind veteran has a particular empathy toward, blind Bartimaeus, standing-begging outside the walls of Jericho, he has a very special place in my heart. You must put flesh and blood on all personalities found in God's book. This blind world traveler has seen the disabled-disenfranchised, begging all over the world. It is a trifling- awful- sorry human being, in this 21st century nation, content to be wellfare dependant. The disabled have a God given desire to take care of self. Many unable to work- produce, at least will beg, which is the hardest work in the world. The 21st century Christian knows it is hard work because Christians have made the church a beggar group (the church a group of believers). Even most civic clubs, "do-gooder organizations" have been forced into begging for their support. God is in good company with the beggars of the world. For 2,000 years, this side of the cross, instead of Christians cheerfully giving, the church has learned to live on "tips"- missionaries and ministries going out to do good, must from within, beg for support.
Eighty years ago, poor home, poor church, poor community, I first realized that God had to depend on "what was left." It was the depths of the great depression, my father and the pastor, going through the community begging church members to support "their" church in needed repairs. A concert class from the orphanage would come to the church-song program, etc, hoping for a few dollars of support in a free will offering. The first pastor I remember told me that he drove to the church on weekends just hoping that members would "pound" him with food so he and his family could eat during the week. He told me about one man in the church, I remember him and his family. The man never taught a class, prayed in public, but was faithful in attendance, and on most weekends there would always be a big watermelon, a bag of beans, even a "frying chicken" in the back seat of the pastor's car. Mr. Raymond's Christianity was very restricted in the church house but he showed the real thing in the church yard.
Egypt was always portrayed as the sinful world. Abraham went down in Egypt and came up out of Egypt. The children of Israel went down into Egypt and God miraculously led them, several million, from bondage in Egypt...and as Paul instructs and in sample to us. We should learn quickly that the old hymn is wrong, the Jordan river is not death, Cana-promise land-Heaven is not infested with Cananites and Philistines. There should have been no doubt in the children of Israel's minds that they had anything to do with their deliverance. (God parted the sea-drowned 600 chariots, provided water from a rock, bread from Heaven, etc).How soon, in promise land of milk and honey, THEY FORGOT THE SLAVE MASTERS WHIP, hankering for cucumbers and melons. How soon they forgot to keep the law in the promise land of milk and honey. Like today's Christian, straight out of the Baptistery, perhaps even the Lord's table, polluting the born again- new creation mind, thinking about the days at the night club, the activities of the unsaved neighbors and friends down the street.
In Christ, you are not your own, forever changed, "bought with a price" (1 Cor 6:20). In the very beginning, Garden of Eden, God established His rights, the whole world a beautiful garden, abundant-fruitful trees- just one tree that was his. YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO EVERYTHING. If the tree of knowledge of good and evil had just been about evil, they probably would not have bothered. Children by the time they are six years old should know about boundaries, lines. We learn early about possessions, what's mine is mine. Early, we should learn that God owns everything.
God ultimately owns everything. IF there is any reason at all for a funeral after death, it is not to stare at a the deceased laying in a casket. It is not to hear our eulogy by a family member trying to cry and talk at the same time. Perhaps there is no better time in the world than at such a service to remind those who still see and hear that all will ultimately reach this place. The funeral is the best place in the world for evangelism. The Sunday school, vacation Bible school, are the only places you will ever reach most children. Most young people, once they leave home and the home church, will never again be reached. Like blind Bartimaeus, like the palsy, lepers, sick and infirmed of every type during Jesus' time and the first century church, those who are lost are in the same condition. Caesar and most Roman emperors wanted to be called, "Lord", looked upon as gods. Think of the barriers during the 33 years Jesus lived on earth, the Paraoxon of Jewish law, cruelty of Roman occupation. Today's disabled are quieted-secreted away from the public, institutionalized, "out of sight, out of mind." Ancient times, the disabled (largest minority in the world, numbering about 30%) were in public view, such as the man begging 40 years outside the gate beautiful of the temple (Acts 3:2).
Think of the poor, ought, blind, crippled, of Jesus and his disciples' time, right on to the 20th century..a time before tranquilizers, prosthesis adaptation. Medical doctors are just proficient with drugs and surgery. The body needs minerals which God has supplied in the "good earth." Hospitals are a corral-Petri dish for germ mutation. Not just supplements, not just exercise and foods supplying nutrition, get God involved in your sicknesses and infirmities.
