He loved them to the end

I don't know about you, but I regularly disappoint myself and feel the need for some fresh assurance that God actually still likes me. There are many familiar verses in the Bible that one can turn to at such times, but there's a verse in John that, for me, best brings God's love right down to the everyday reality of my routine stumbles and fumbles.

At the end of Jesus' ministry, as He sat in the upper room with His disciples, it is said of Jesus in regards to His 12 disciples that "He loved them to the end" (John 13:1). Of all that Jesus did and said, for me, that simple statement that He loved His disciples to the end may be the thing that best demonstrates His divine love. Yes, there's the excitement of all the signs and wonders among the multitudes for whom we're told Jesus felt such compassion. But it's the intimacy of those quiet words in John 13:1 -- He loved them to the end -- that gets me. Here's the 12 guys Jesus spent the most time with, daily witnessing their weaknesses -- 12 bungling, openly competitive, slow to understand, men "of little faith" that Jesus had to work with in all their clumsy humanity for three years. Matthew (ch. 20) tells us that they were still vying for positions over each other just prior to the Passion Week, right before the meal in the upper room of John 13, at the very end of their 3-year training program with the Son of God. I wouldn't have loved them to the end. I'd have turfed them!

But because I know I'm at least as unreliable as them -- and of even less faith than them -- I'm left in wonder at this Man, Christ Jesus, who loves each of us as His disciples "to the end." What an encouragement for one who can never seem to get things quite right or who sometimes struggles to just relax in God's love. It ought to lift my soul to know that the Son of God will love me to the end -- to the end of each day, to the end of this year, to the end of my life. Such encouraging words ought to change the way I approach each day, as well as the coming year with all its challenges and all its potential!

© 2008 by Ken Peters

A God-centered alternative

I had one of those "Ah-hah!" moments a couple weeks ago, and I kind of wonder if it was about something that everyone around me had figured out ages ago and had never told me! It's something that now seems so obvious that I'm sure I'm the last person to have figured it out.

I think my slowness to understand this matter up until now is directly related to a Me-centered orientation in my faith. It's all about Me being saved, My needs being met, My prayers being answered. But the Bible isn't man-centered -- it's God-centered. And to be more specific, it's centered around the glory of God -- God being magnified in both heaven and earth. As John Piper writes in God is the Gospel, "The ultimate aim of the gospel is the display of God's glory and the removal of every obstacle to our seeing it and savoring it as our highest treasure. 'Behold your God!' is the most gracious command and best gift of the gospel" (p.56).

And yet for many, many years, as I read a very familiar gospel-passage in the Bible, I read it with me in mind rather than God's glory, and as a result, I was often left frustrated by it. The passage is Romans 5:1-5. Because so much of that passage has to do with how we live on this earth, I've failed to see how much it has to do with heavenly things, and specifically, God's glory. Paul refers to having "peace with God" -- something we dearly need here in this troubled world (v.1); Paul refers to the "grace in which we stand" right here in our everyday lives (v.2); Paul refers to the tribulations we face on the earth (v.3); and he refers to persevering and to our character and to hope, all essential qualities for the here and now (v.4).

But it's because of how relevant all those verses are for dealing with the everyday stuff of life that I've been tripped up by what Paul wrote next: "...and hope does not disappoint..." (v.5). What does he mean by that? If that's also applicable to the here and now, why do I keep experiencing disappointment after disappointment as prayers go unanswered, Fiona's kidneys get worse, and friends around me have significant troubles of their own?

I don't know about you, but I think my frustration with that phrase has been due to "Me-centered Christianity." That means I've seen this Romans 5 "hope" as something needed on this earth because we need it for things on earth (like for Fiona's healing). But I no longer think Paul was speaking here of a hope we need for things on earth, but was speaking of a hope for God that we need because of the things of this earth!

In other words, Paul's got bigger and better things in mind to hope for than the now-things of this earth. The hope he's writing about in verse 5 is the same hope he was writing about in verse 2: the "hope of the glory of God"! That's the hope Paul says we're to rejoice in (v.2). And it's that kind of rejoicing that requires perseverance, character and hope to achieve in this world of suffering (v.3-4). The hope Paul had was not for now-things. It wasn't focused on relief from some momentary affliction. His mind was on something far higher and far more satisfying -- something that caused his heart to rejoice in the midst of sufferings -- the glory of God.

God's glory is something exciting, to be sure. It's meant to give us hope in an uncertain world that is actually only a temporary residence for us. And by having such a heavenly mindset that longs and hopes to see the glory of God, we can remain encouraged no matter what this world throws at us. That should not only make me a happier person, but it should hopefully make my life far more appealing to people around me who have no such hope.

Does this mean I no longer hope for unpleasant things to change in the here and now? Of course not. But it means that as I focus on a hope that never disappoints -- the hope of the glory of God -- I will have greater stability as I seek God regarding the uncertain things I face in this world. And that heavenly focus enables me to live more happily in the tension of the things God has done "already" and the things that remain "not yet."

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Waiting well... (church bulletin cover)

I don't do well at waiting. And Christmastime can produce a LOT of waiting. Waiting in traffic, waiting for a parking spot, waiting in line ups. There are times I want to yell, "How long is this going to TAKE?!"

For kids, waiting for that special day is what this season is all about, and that kind waiting is filled with anticipation rather than stress. They know the day will come -- it's just a matter of waiting, and with each passing day, the excitement builds! They count the sleeps, and however long it feels, they know it's coming!

But so much of the waiting we do in life doesn't have a fixed date to be sure of. We just don't know how long it's going to take, or even how things may turn out. And in every circumstance like that, we face the choice of either getting stressed or trusting God. Worry or worship -- react or relax.

Sometimes we have to wait for something for months or years, or even decades. And with each passage of the sun or the seasons, the wait becomes increasingly painful. With this in mind, it's a challenge to appreciate what it would be like waiting for something that was taking many generations, each generation waiting for the same precious promise spoken hundreds of years earlier. At the time of Jesus' birth, the people of Israel had been waiting for centuries for a Messiah -- a Saviour -- whom God had long ago promised would come. But to make the wait even more sorrowful, God was silent for the 400 years before Jesus came, calling no prophets to speak in His name during that long time of waiting.

How would that have felt? I'm sure it would've been difficult after one generation of silence, let alone 400 years. It must have felt like a crushing disappointment as foreign empires occupied the Promised Land and no Saviour came. I find it an effort to hope after 20 years. How did it feel after 400 years?

That's why Simeon is such an encouragement to me. Luke 2:25-26 says, "Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ."

After 400 years, this man was hopeful. When the Holy Spirit spoke to him, he didn't look back on generations of disappointment and respond with unbelief or cynicism or with fear of more disappointment. He hoped. And he was willing to wait in hope from the time God spoke to him, knowing that surely God's Word would somehow be fulfilled! And when he finally saw Jesus, he rejoiced and blessed God.

Simeon was more child-like in his waiting than me. Despite the challenge of waiting, Simeon seemed to know the thrill of anticipation. Like Simeon, may we all find grace this Christmas season to wait for God with hope, whatever our circumstances!


© 2008 by Ken Peters

Learning to be Missional

What do children want to be when they grow up? A doctor? A teacher? A fireman? How about a missionary? My daughter Becky once said she wanted to be a missionary when she grew up. I remember responding reflexively: “But you’re already a missionary!”

Because Becky knew Jesus, she’d already been sent out into her world to share His Good News. To this day, she can do that in a neighbourhood in Canada as much as others do so in foreign lands. And when it comes time for her to choose a profession, she can share Christ’s love as a doctor or a teacher, or as a full-time Christian worker if that’s how God leads her. In other words, if she knows Jesus, she’ll be a missionary in any place or profession she chooses.

In recent years, the word missional has been coined to redefine how we as Christians are meant to approach our lives. Though I'm convinced of the priority of taking the Gospel across cultures to unreached parts of the world, “mission fields” are no longer viewed as simply somewhere you go, but as any place a Christian may be found. No longer is “missions” viewed as something you do for a summer or a season, but as something that followers of Jesus do throughout their lives. To missional Christians, life is missions and the ground beneath their feet is the mission field.

This means that a Christian child talking about becoming a missionary when he or she grows up is like someone talking about becoming a person when they grow up. If a Christian is truly meant to be missional, every Christian is a missionary as much as every child is a person. The two are inseparable by definition.

The reason our understanding of the term “missionary” is so important is because as long as we see it as a career one chooses rather than a command one champions, we will continue to see our participation in the Great Commission as an option rather than a lifestyle; as a category of people rather than a characteristic of a Christian. And unless we see missions as an activity of the whole Church, the task of the harvest will fall on too few shoulders.

Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). As Christians, each one of us has already been sent, and the people we’re sent to are all around us wherever we happen to be! When God chose us to be His child, we became a vital worker in His harvest field, which begins outside our doorstep. We do not need to wait for a “call” on our lives in order to feel a part of God’s plan for reaching this world. We’re already a part of God’s missions strategy.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matt. 9:37). Let’s change that as we move through the harvest fields of our world each day. Jesus told us they are ripe for spiritual harvest (John 4:35). With Bethlehem LIVE! just one week away at our church, we have a wonderful opportunity to be missional as we each do our part to make Jesus known this Christmas season!

© 2008 by Ken Peters

An Engineer's Report on Santa Claus

I found the following report on the sad demise of that jolly ol' Santa fellow. I share it with you now so that you have plenty of time to do your own shopping in lieu Santa's fate, as described below. It outlines the implications of the incredible job Santa has to accomplish on the night before Christmas...

In regards to Santa's means of transport, there is no known species of reindeer can fly. BUT, there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.

In regards to the sheer scale of Santa's task, we could say that (in round numbers) there are approximately 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't seem to handle most of the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children who don't celebrate Christmas, that potentially reduces the workload to as little as 32.5% of the total - or 650 million. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 185.7 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 1,664 visits per second. This is to say that for each household with good children, Santa has less than 1/1600th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 185.7 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 144.846 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 1,315 miles per second, 6,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 649,950 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 433,300 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 714,945 tons. Again, for comparison - this is eight times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

714,945 tons traveling at 1,315 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 28.9 QUINTILLION joules of energy per second each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vapourized within 8.62 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 35,400.45 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 8,728,709 pounds of force.

In conclusion - if Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's been vapourized by now.

Finding God in our more honest moments (church bulletin cover)

It always amazes me that the writers of the Bible -- a book entirely inspired by God -- could be so honest about their struggles. Psalm 94 gives us a glimpse into the heart of one of those writers. The psalmist reveals two parts of his heart: the anxious part and the part that's delighted in God. Here's a man (likely a priest) who writes, "my anxious thoughts multiply within me" as part of the inspired word of God (Psalm 94:19)! So even though God is close enough to that writer for him to participate in writing God's thoughts in this text, he can write that he struggles with anxiety. Though I myself haven't been chosen to write God's inspired Word, I can relate to a guy like this!

But if anxiety is the only part of this man that I can readily relate to, I'm in trouble. There's more to him than that. Psalm 94:19 goes on to say, "When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul." This writer also knows how to escape anxiety. He's not stuck. He knows how to receive God's assurances when he's anxious.

I, on the other hand, can get so focused on what's making me anxious that I don't even recognize God's consolations. I get fixated -- my eyes and thoughts riveted on the negative, unable to believe there's a solution, my anxiety growing. The lesson of this psalmist is that you're in good company if you're anxious about something, but not if you can't see God's consolations amidst it. God wants to "delight my soul" despite my anxieties, and He does that through the "consolations" or assurances found in His Word and through His Spirit within us. In fact, Psalm 94 is full of such words of comfort: "If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence. If I should say, 'My foot has slipped,' Your lovingkindness, O Lord, will hold me up" (Psalm 94:17-18).

My part is to take my anxieties to God and to receive the consolations He offers. But to receive such comfort through His Spirit, I need to believe the many promises He offers in His Word to help me and "hold me up." And that's the way in which I really want to relate to the writer of Psalm 94!

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Poems from the desert

When I was 23 years old, I lived in the desert of northern Sudan for nearly a year, doing work for Emmanuel International. It was an adventure to be sure. I was young and single, and probably thought I could be another Lawrence of Arabia. But in the midst of the excitement of camel rides, sand storms and practicing my Arabic were the unwieldy challenges of culture shock, team life, unfamiliar illnesses and 120 degree heat. Needless to say, I had my ups and downs over there.

It's probably fair to say that I'm still vulnerable to experiencing ups and downs right here in Winnipeg amidst the adventures of a dove on our window sill and meaningful times of prayer for Fiona, as well as the weighty challenges of disappointing doctor's reports and Fiona's ongoing illness.

But I'm happy to say that I don't fall quite so far as I used to when big challenges follow closely on the heals of encouraging times. I was reminded of that when after receiving some disappointing news from the doctor, as I was encouraging myself in the Lord about it, I recalled two poems that I wrote in Sudan amidst somewhat similar, though different circumstances. I realize that I was quite a different person when I wrote them, but I'll share them here in the order I wrote them.

Bitter Sands
The sand blew by
With ferocious intensity
It filled the sky
It cut the skin
I didn't care
I simply leaned against
A whithered tree
And squinted
At what I didn't know
For I knew not what
Lay beyond that blanket
Of bitter sand
I didn't care
I had wandered
Into a desert
To find peace
And contentment
The peace of the desert
Is the peace of death
And contentment
The contentment of a madman

Sudan
April 7, 1987


Whispers in the Silence
How clean the desert is! 
How pure in her golden radiance.
Where is man's mark within her?
Materialism?
Hedonism?
Commercialism?
She has filled her borders
With the power of her impeding presence
That man might find no room
To dwell in his customary comfort
Within her.
Yet she is welcoming to the humble,
Placing before him no obstacles
Save the challenge of her company 
And the company of her challenges.
Enter her company then,
Accept her challenges, 
And leave behind the confusion
And the noise
And the endless distractions
Of the world of man. 
Sit down in her silence,
And hear the whisper of God 
Speaking of peace
And quiet contentment.

Sudan
April 24, 1987


© 2008 by Ken Peters

God is so awesome!

Ever since I first heard Louie Giglio speak about the heavens revealing the otherness of God, I've been fascinated by images of the universe around us. That's why I've placed an "Astronomy Photo of the Day" in the left column of my blog. God is so huge and I am so small, and the more I realize that, the more I'll respond with proper humility before God in the midst of life's challenges. When facing such times, why would I ever argue with a God who is so wondrously great that by the word of His mouth, He filled a universe with billions of galaxies (the Hubble telescope images suggest 125 billion), each one filled with billions of stars, while also loving me enough to choose me before the foundations of this planet were even in place (Ephesians 1:4)? He is God, and there is simply no one like Him (Isaiah 45:5-7)!

I've resorted to using photos of galaxies as wallpaper on my computers just to keep this perspective fresh on my mind. I used to have the Barred Spiral Galaxy on my home computer screen. Take a look...
It's a galaxy about 69 million light years away from earth, and is over 100,000 light years wide, meaning it would take a person 69 million years traveling at 186,000 miles per second (the speed of light) to get to it, and then another mere 100,000 years to travel across it! The sheer scale of such an object is mind-boggling!

At the office, I presently have the Sombrero Galaxy on my computer screen. It's only 28 million light years away, and a mere 60,000 light years wide...
But even though it may only be half the size of the Barred Spiral Galaxy, it's estimated to contain nearly 2,000 globular clusters (spherically shaped collections of up to a million old stars held together by gravity), which is 10 times more than our humble Milky Way contains!

And as I think of how our sun is considered a small to medium sized star, and that there are billions of stars in each of the billions of galaxies, and that God knows exactly how many there are and knows them all by name (Psalm 147:4), I'm humbled at how extremely small I am!

How small? A wonderful image taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 while it was on its way out of our solar system, more than 4 billion miles away from earth, gives a very real sense of our smallness. As Voyager 1 grew increasingly distant, Ground Control on Earth commanded it to turn around and take some pictures of our solar system. From that vast distance, in one of the pictures, Earth can be seen as an infinitesimal point of light visible in a ray of sunlight (enlarged in the image to the right, or click on the image to the left to enlarge it).

As the famous astronomist Carl Sagan later said, "That's here. That's home. That's us." That little dot is where "everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives... every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."

What's even more amazing about all this is that the same psalm that says that God knows all those billions of billions of stars by name (147:4) also says just one verse earlier that "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147:3). What a contrast! A God who is great and awesome enough to create the entire universe condescends to bind up our wounds. Psalm 147 goes on with this contrast: "Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; His understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground" (Psalm 147:5-6). A God of infinite power gently lifting up those who humble themselves before Him. That gives me great reason to want to respond like Job and say, "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer You? I lay my hand on my mouth" (Job 40:4).

© 2008 by Ken Peters

A Journey I Don't Expect (church bulletin cover)

It’s become popular to say that the journey is as important as the destination. Maybe somebody should’ve told that to the Israelites in the wilderness. Yet whatever the Israelites might have thought about God’s route for them to the Promised Land, there’s a phrase repeated throughout their story that is worth remembering: “just as the Lord commanded Moses.” Then as the people of Israel neared the end of their long journey, it is summed up as “their journeys by the command of the Lord” (Numbers 33:2).

I’d sure like that to be the way my life can be described – a journey by the command of the Lord. I want to be led by God, to walk according to His Word, to follow His initiative. Yet I can see that the Israelites’ “journey by the command of the Lord” didn’t always look like what I might expect a journey directed by a wise and loving God to look like. The command of the Lord led His people to places that appeared to have no water and where it looked like He’d abandoned them (Num. 33:14), to places that appeared threatening through a person’s natural eyes (Num. 32:7-8), and to places where warfare was necessary to pass through. In fact, the journey by the command of the Lord began with the feeling that they were trapped between a murderous army and the Red Sea!

The point is that God’s commands do not just lead us into sunshine and meadows. He leads us in ways that teach us dependence, that test us in areas of obedience, that discipline us for unbelief, that strengthen our arms for fighting the good fight, and most importantly, that show us His glory! Will I stay the course and continue to do “just as the Lord commands” me when God’s leading takes me into hard places? I must, because any other route on my journey in this life would be for my own self-interest rather than for God’s glory being displayed as I put my hope and trust in Him.

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Three Simple Steps

Why have I been going on and on about numbers and consumerism and more numbers? C’mon! Lighten up, right? What’s so important about how many cups we use as a society anyway? From all those pictures in my previous posting, one might think that all I’m concerned about is how much ends up in our landfills. Though that might be a valid concern, it’s not something I think about much.

I don’t get stirred up about consumerism for ecological reasons. In fact, my primary concern about consumerism isn’t even about excess. That’s because the Bible isn’t against wealth. In fact, it says that wealth is from God. My primary concern about consumerism is about needs – desperate needs. We as Westerners have so much to share, and can easily do so with little impact on our comfortable Western lifestyles. And if we actually do want to impact our lifestyles, there are people in this world who truly need the help we can offer.

All it takes is a little investigating, a little thought, and then a decision or two.

Investigating is easy. For example, just try doing a Google search on the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN has recently declared it to be the worst place in the world to be a child. If you really want to know, keep reading and you’ll discover that earlier this year, a UNICEF report declared that the DRC was one of 11 countries where 20% of children die before the age of five. According to other news clips you’ll find, at the beginning of 2008, 45,000 people were dying each month, nearly half of them children, and the fighting has recently intensified!

If you want to know details, the Guardian in the UK reported that “The International Rescue Committee said preventable diseases and starvation aggravated by conflict have claimed 5.4 million lives since the beginning of the second Congo war in 1998, equivalent to the population of Denmark. Although the war officially ended in 2002, malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition continue to claim thousands of lives. The study of 14,000 households across Congo between January 2006 and April 2007 found that nearly half of all the deaths were of children under the age of five, who make up only 19% of the population.” This is why many people don’t take this first step – the truth is too awful to know, the images too hard to see.

But if you get that far, the next thing you’ll want to investigate is who’s offering meaningful help? I tend to check Samaritan’s Purse first, and I generally find that they’re involved in the area I’m concerned about. But another Google search will reveal many agencies helping in any significant crisis.

If you’ve taken the time to investigate a situation like that, you’re already way ahead of your average Western consumer. Way to go! Now step 2 is to simply think a little. Think about whether you want to give once in awhile to needs like these, or on a routine basis. If you only want to do it once in awhile, just think about how much you can spare right now – how much money do you have to give? That’s what most people do. They give occasionally as situations arise. Giving routinely is simply unaffordable to many because their budget is maxed out with too many other monthly bills and payments.

This is where my concerns with consumerism arise, and this is where it’s worth thinking about what we can do without in order to give more generously to desperately needy people. It’s this kind of regular giving that makes a huge difference to those trying to feed the hungry, but it’s also the kind that requires sacrifice from a people who are used to having what they want when they want it.

And that brings us to step 3: a decision or two. What regular expense will I give up so that I can afford to give regularly to those who need my help? Will it be a few of those 410,000 coffee cups that are used every 15 minutes? Or will it be a few of those 2 million plastic beverage bottles that are used every 5 minutes? Once you get used to thinking this way, you may consider giving up things of even more value in your life, like instead of buying as many CDs or DVDs, I’ll give to others instead. Or maybe, spend less on sports or leisure activities. For us, this is a primary reason we gave up cable TV at our house.

The challenge for us all is to match our Western lifestyles with the compassion and convictions of our hearts. What can you do? Investigate. Think a little about your consumer lifestyle. Then, make a decision or two. If we all do that, those three simple steps will make a huge difference in a world of need!

© 2009 by Ken Peters