Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

Ken

Unfulfilled Longings

Filed Under: Current Thoughts, Discernment

In my opinion C. S. Lewis’s series of radio addresses called Mere Christianity reach their zenith in the chapter on Hope. Here we find the famous line; “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

He has been talking about human longings that are stirred up in beautiful things around us but never ultimately fulfilled by anyone or anything in this world.

People have different ways of dealing with those unfulfilled longings. He names three:

1. The Fools Way. This is trying on an endless variety of sinful things or legitimate things never finding full satisfaction in them.

2. The Way of Disillusionment and Despair. (He called it the Way fo the Disillusioned “Sensible Man”) This is giving up on the possibility of ever having one’s longings fulfilled.

3. The Christian Way. In this way, instead of turning our longings into idolatry or varieties of sin, or instead of giving up on the very possibility of satisfaction, we turn to Christ and, Lewis says, to contemplation of heaven when and where our deepest longings will be fulfilled forever.

Thus: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that Iw was made for another world.”

A simple way to say this might be: We have two choices when we discover deep unfulfilled desires: We can sin or we can worship.

When we discover deep
unfulfilled desires in our hearts
we can sin
or we can worship

When we gather in Christian worship it is to stimulate our appetite for these desires, it is to indulge them… to indulge them in hope and in the worship of Christ.

 

Bittersweet Farm

March 5, 2020

A Note From Lyn and Bill

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

This one is in the I LOVE MY CHURCH category. Lyn Lehman and her husband Bill are long-time Bethel members. They are salt-of-the earth and delightful to know. Last year they invited us for a meal in their home and it was a delightful evening of food, conversation and prayer, crowned with singing around the piano. I’m so blessed to have such folk in the congregation I serve.

I wrote recently about taking a scooter trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway with Lois and this what Lyn wrote back:

“I just read your Friday ‘See Ya Sunday’ note about wanting to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway via Moped! My advice: GO FOR IT! Bill and I rode the entire Parkway from Front Royal, Virginia all the way to the Cumberland Mtns. somewhere in North Carolina on our 1982 Suzuki 1100 motorcycle. All that you described, we felt as we rolled along this beautiful special road. One thing you missed, though……did you know you can HEAR the waterfalls along the side of the mountain, even on a motorcycle?

Bill drove, of course, and I sat behind him with the video camera taking pictures over his shoulder, etc. We drove through the clouds during the day and slept in our tent at night. At one campground I noticed a tall pole with bags hanging from it, up near the top. I was a little sorry I had asked what that was all about when it was explained that that was the place you put your food so the bears wouldn’t get at it during the night. I DID hear heavy footsteps close to the tent that night – but no incidents. It was a great ride.”

Let Me Pay For Your Gas

Filed Under: Gospel Conversations

Jason who is a pastor on staff at a church in Minnesota received an e-mail from a young man he called “Eric.” In the spring of 2017. He lost job of 15 years. He turned to pain killers, Jim Beam, and Jack Daniels. On way to a job interview he stopped for gas even though he knew he had not money on his debit card. He decided to just run the card and play dumb when it didn’t to though. The attendant ran the card and it declined.

“Your card declined,” the attendant said.

The man behind him said. “Let me pay for you gas. I insist.”

He let him pay. The man who paid for his gas followed him out to his truck and invited him to visit his church Eagle Brook Church in Woodbury.

The guy was relieved to be able to tell him he lived in Blain and Woodbury would be too far for him to drive. The man said, “We have a new campus in Blaine.” Eric is not at all religious and politely turns him down.

Twelve months go by. He plunges deeper into drugs and alcohol. Things get bad at home. His teenage daughters are growing to hate him. He wife told him to get out.

One night he grabbed shotgun and last bottle of booze. He was going to drive out in the woods and end his life but the route he took went past Eagle Brook Church in Blain. He pulled into the parking lot and remembered the man who bought his gas.

He said, “I visited the church and it was as if God was speaking directly to me. I gave my life to Jesus and asked forgiveness. I walked out with hope.”

He asked his wife to go with him to church. She agreed but still insisted he move out. That Sunday after church they went for a picnic and he sought forgiveness from his wife and daughters. He told his daughters he was going to check himself into treatment. They wept and held each other.

That Sunday night he came to church support group and the next morning checked himself in to Teen Challenge.

The pastor inquired a number of months later for permission to tell his story. Eric wrote back and said; “I’m still in Teen Challenge. I’m still sober and I will be here until July.”

Always be alert for the Spirit to prompt you to love people around you who may be far from God and desperate for help.

Jason Strand, Teaching Pastor at Eagle Brook Church told this story in a message given December 23, 2017.

Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 75) Chained in the Barn

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm, Current Thoughts

Calendar Spring Yesterday was the first day of “Spring” out on Bittersweet Farm. The sun shone. The temperatures rose. The birds sang. The Sandhill Cranes flew over calling out with their crackling call as if to say; “Spring is coming. Spring is coming.” Hazard and I took a walk and met a few neighbor people and neighbor dogs we have not seen since last year. Here in our part of the world March is winter-like most of the month with a spring-like streak here-and-there. April still can feel wintery some, but we’ve had a taste of spring and spring and we are looking forward to it.

I spent a good part of yesterday reading a book by David Platt called Something Needs to Change. It is a fascinating book, a travel-narrative that reads like the book of Acts.

An Acts-Like Venture David Platt spent a week visiting villages high up in the Himalayan Mountains near Tibet. He was guided by a man named Aaron who had travelled to the area twenty years earlier to hike with friends. The things he saw broke his heart and he hiked out and determined to quit his job and come back and help the people who were dying of preventable diseases, losing their daughters to human trafficking, and living in deep spiritual darkness.

Nabin Their interpreter was a believer who had been abused and mistreated in his youth because his mother had died and his step-mother didn’t want him living in the house. People in the region, if they had a child with special needs would assume it was a curse and make them lived chained in a barn. His name as Nabin. Nabin was sent to live in the barn. One day Aaron was traveling through the area and asked for a place to sleep. A family said he could stay overnight in the barn. As he prepared to sleep in the darkness he heard and noise. He thought it was an animal, but it was Nabin. Aaron told Nabin of Christ and Nabin began to walk with Christ and helped Aaron in his mission. He lived chained in the barn for ten years until Aaron came and freed him.

Sex-Trafficking In one village Aaron said, “I want you to notice the complete absence of any young girls from age 7 to 15 years old.” The village had been emptied of young girls who had been sold off into sex slavery. The descriptions of this in the book are so sad I cannot bring myself to repeat them.

Hunger In one village a little girl came out to greet him and clung to his hand smiling. She would not let go of his hand. As he left the village she tapped on his pack—knowing there would be food in it. They had been strictly told not to give food individually. This would bring trouble. The little girl began to beg and plead. He had to pull her hand away and almost run away from her.

Spiritual Darkness. In a village named Lhuntse he met a young woman named Alisha. Aaron said; “Today you should ask her about her family.” Walking along the mountain path and that day the story spilled out.

Alisha’s grandfather was a “Devil-Talker.” People believed he could communicate with the devil. When she was born he said she was born on a bad day and that she would grow up to worship the devil. Her parents were afraid and offered sacrifices to the Devil every day on an altar they had built. The would send her out in the night to leave an offering for the Devil.

One day a blind man made his way along the dangerous mountain path to the village and told a story about a man no one had ever heard of before. The blind man said he was more powerful than the Devil. He said the man came from heaven and died and rose again and paid for the sin of the whole world.

Her father believed. The blind man gave him a Bible. Everything began to change. Soon her mother believed in Jesus, too. Her grandfather was angry and afraid. In the village the people feared that the devil would be angry so they shunned her parents and did not allow them to get water from the village well.

One day her mother and father walked steep mountain trail to another village to get water and never came back. Someone told her that they were killed in an avalanche. Years later the truth came out that her mother and father and been stoned by the elders of the village.

For years the village leaders always said, “Don’t believe in this Jesus. If you do you will anger the gods and bad things will happen to you like they did to her parents.”

Alisha left the village and went to the city. She found a church, counted the cost and was baptized. After she completed her education she returned to the mountain where she teaches school and tells others of Jesus.

Bittersweet Farm
March 2, 2020

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