An Audio Experiment

I've posted my first sermon online at box.net. Our recording has been hit and miss, but when our church finally gets a website up and running, I'd like to upload regularly.

It's a humbling thing to post a sermon even if only one or two people download it.

Paradise

Juanita took this picture of a Bird of Paradise at the Dole Plantation garden on Oahu. It's a beautiful picture.

However, if you look closely, you'll see that there is an ugly bug on one of the blue petals and some smaller bugs on the back of the far right petal. Maybe you like bugs, but I don't. The bug on the Bird of Paradise is kind of a life metaphor. In this fallen world, even the most beautiful things have bugs on them.

There's one more thing about the Bird of Paradise flower that our guide told us: It grows an new part of the flower every day for four days and then it dies. Talk about life metaphors.

The word "Paradise" is thrown around in Hawaii quite freely. It is indeed a beautiful place, but they still have traffic, pollution and evidence of sin and death all over the place. We even came across what looked like a drug deal one evening (one of the guys yelled at us, "Aloha! Which means get out of here ..."). While I enjoyed Hawaii, it made me long for the real Paradise even more.

This reflection has raised a tension in my mind. It's like the tension that the Apostle Paul shares with us in Philippians 1:23, I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.

The tension heightens when we consider that this is the same Apostle that told us, For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4). As we are told in other places in Scripture (like Ecclesiastes), it is good to enjoy life as a gift from God.

For most of my Christian life, I've envied "Heavenly minded" Christians. I don't like the line "so heavenly minded that he's no earthly good," because I'm convinced that the problem with most Christians is the exact opposite. We do live as if this life were everything.

Since Emily's death, I've had (almost in an instant), a greater longing for Heaven. I'm learning that my sinful heart can put bugs on the most beautiful flower, however, and I'm struggling with the sin of not appreciating God's good gifts and beauty right now. It is a very good thing to take time to reflect on the blessings that God gives. I don't want to mope around and just exist until the Lord returns or I die. I don't think I've been doing that yet, but the temptation is very real.

As a family, we did really enjoy taking time to enjoy the beauties of God's creation in Hawaii - fish, birds, ocean, flowers, trees and sky. There was a person missing in that trip, but Emily's absence didn't ruin our time - not at all. We made some great memories, and we have a bunch of pictures and stories to enjoy for a long time.

I'm learning about what's eternal, more and more. By God's grace, I hope I will also cultivate a greater love for people and a deeper appreciation for God's everyday blessings while I wait for the Real Paradise.

Hawaii

Yes, we've just been there. It was very nice - we made some great memories and had a real break.

I didn't say anything about our trip here before we left because I didn't think it was wise to advertise our absence from our home on this open forum on the internet.

A vacation to Hawaii is not something that we would have done on our own, but some very gracious people made it happen for us (it was a pastoral care network - I don't know if they want the publicity for this, so I'll leave the identification at that). We are very thankful. When we first heard about the trip, it didn't seem real or possible, but we've been there and back, so I guess we can stop pinching ourselves.

We certainly did feel Emily's absence on this trip, but we were able to enjoy ourselves nevertheless. I must admit that it was nice that no one recognized us there and we didn't have to answer the phone at all.

We went to Oahu and stayed right near the beach in Waikiki. We rented a car for the week and we did a lot of travelling to see the sights. It is a beautiful place. The natural beauty of birds, fish, plants, mountains and ocean was delightful.

Twin highlights for the family were a catamaran snorkeling adventure (it included a sail out past Diamond Head) and a trip to Hanauma Bay for more snokeling. We had the bonus of sailing along with a pod of dolphins during our catamaran trip.

There is a lot to see on Oahu, let alone all the Hawaiian Islands, so our "to do list" wasn't finished, but, given the time available, we had a nice balance of busyness and relaxation.

Dolphins off Waikiki

Waikiki from the top of Diamond Head (an old volcanic crater)



Hanauma Bay

(Sorry about the sloppy formatting - I gave up fighting with Blogger to get this post to look right)