Straits State Park, St. Ignace, Michigan
Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, until I declare Your power to the next generation, Your mighty acts to all who are to come. Psalm 71:18
Blaine found us a church this morning – Lighthouse Assembly. We were so excited to be worshiping properly with fellow believers! What we didn’t know, until we arrived, was that it was an Assembly of God church. The last time we visited one of those, it was a really interesting experience with people speaking gibberish (what they called tongues), people dropping to the floor when someone touched their forehead, as they were ‘healed’ of some disorder or another, and a woman speaking English but claiming to be ‘channeling God’. She was whining. I’m really sorry if I’ve offended people here. Here’s what I believe: 1. I don’t deny that people may speak ‘in the Spirit’. What I take issue with is that the Bible clearly states that if you are speaking something people don’t understand, you are to have an interpreter so that all may gain edification. (I Corinthians 12:30 and 14:5) 2. I don’t believe (right or wrong) that someone can place their hand on your forehead and immediately you drop to the floor in a stupor and are instantly healed of whatever ailment you have. I do however, believe in miraculous healings by God Himself. 3. My God does not, and never will whine. Never.
So. All that said, we weren’t so sure about what we’d encounter this morning, but we believed God led us here to worship. So there we were.
Our experience today was nothing like the last time. It seems they believe in speaking in tongues, because the Pastor mentioned it during our brief conversation when he greeted us at the door, but there was none of that this morning. It was just a really nice, worship-filled, Bible-taught service, with very welcoming and warm brothers and sisters in Christ.
The topic of today’s lesson – Perspective.
This topic immediately caused me to think of I Samuel 16:7. The second half of the verse says, “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Perspective. If we are to become more Christ-like; if we’re to bring glory to God; we need to work on our perspective. Not only of people, but of our circumstances as well.
In the book of Numbers (13 and 14), there’s a story about how God told Moses to send 12 spies into the Promised Land to check things out. It’s important to note that God’s already promised this area to the Jews, hence the term ‘Promised Land’. In essence, it’s a done deal. God never reneges on His promises. But the 12 spies are 12 men, and as such, all but two lost their perspective. God say it’s yours, but 10 of them came back and said, “No way!” and proceeded to list all the reasons why they should turn tail and run. The other two had a different perspective. They said, “Let’s go!” They believed God’s promise. They relied on it. They weren’t afraid of what lay ahead.
But not only did the 10 have their own fears and doubts, they spread them throughout the rest of the nation, until the people were so worked up that they turned into whiners and rebelled against their leadership, Moses and Aaron, and Joshua and Caleb (the two). It got so bad, the people talked about stoning them all – even Moses. Can you imagine?!?
The thing is, they weren’t just rebelling against men. They were rebelling against God. They got so caught up in themselves and their ideas and their fears, they totally turned their backs on God! And these are the people who’ve already seen what He’s capable of! They’ve seen the ten plagues. They’ve seen the Red Sea part. They’ve seen water come from a rock just by touching it. They’ve seen manna. They’ve seen God’s pillar of cloud leading them by day, and pillar of fire protecting them at night. They’ve seen Moses bring down the 10 Commandments written by God’s own hand.
They made God small. Instead of looking and saying, “Wow! My God is so Mighty, He will go with us to defeat these giants! We have nothing to fear!”, they said, “Oh no! There’s no way! We can’t possibly!” And they were right about that. Just looking at the odds from a human perspective, it was probably impossible. But they were to look from God’s perspective, and there’s nothing God cannot do.
They were right on the brink of accepting everything God had planned for them. And now, because of their skewed perspective, their lack of faith, their rebellion, their sin – God’s punishment is that the 10 men were immediately struck down, and He turned His back on the nation. He didn’t turn His back on His promise. He will still give them the Promised Land, but now they will have to wait. They will wander around in the dessert until all the unfaithful of this generation have died off – 40 years. All because their perspective was wrong. All because of their lack of faith and trust.
Jesus also taught us about perspective. When He looked at people, He didn’t see the outside, the ‘unclean’ worldly perspective, He looked inside. He looked at them as the children God created. He looked at the prostitute and called her a daughter of God. He looked at the outcast and called them loved by God. He saw them differently because He looked at them from a different perspective.
We say, ‘murder is wrong’, but Jesus says, ‘so is hate’. We say, ‘adultery is wrong’, but Jesus says, ‘so is lust’.
We say, “We’re praising God!”, but then we put down and deride those who are made in His image.
When we have the Holy Spirit within us, He can help us see things from a different perspective. It’s His job, if you will. We can look at “that awful person” in our lives with the love of God. We can look at our circumstances that seem insurmountable and believe God is there alongside us, making it right somehow.
It’s how Jesus saw Judas. He saw him from a different perspective than just the betrayal he was responsible for. He saw him as a child of God, and he saw his act of betrayal as a necessary means to an end. From Jesus’ perspective, Judas’ selfish act helped save the world. Wow! What a perspective!
Jesus loved everyone – even those who betrayed Him – even those who will be condemned to hell for lack of faith – because Jesus is God and God is Love.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35
If you recall, back when we were in Munising near the start of this trip, we tried a pastie (PASS-tee) – a potato, carrot, onion, meat filled thick pastry that’s well-known and well-loved in the UP. Our choice to partake of this UP delicacy was a restaurant called Muldoon’s that was supposedly named “Best Pastie in the UP”. We figured at some point, we should try another, so we’d have something to compare it to. Today, we planned lunch at Bessie’s – according to Tripadvisor, the best in town. Trust me, there are a lot of places that sell pasties in this town! For the most part, Bessie’s tasted the same, but I’d give her the title because hers had much more meat than Muldoon’s.
Driving through town to the Gros Cap in the Hiawatha National Forest, we passed a line of vehicles waiting to turn left. It was a pretty long line, and we realized they were headed to the Mackinac Bridge headed to the “Mainland” (as opposed to the UP) of Michigan. And then we saw the line on the opposite side from our direction.
Minimum three miles long! All stop and go! Unbelievable! We pulled in to an overlook because we were so astounded, we thought maybe we could find out why. Volume, that’s why. Shear volume. The bridge was clear, the road was clear. Volume. Incredible! As we stood there, mouths agape, a couple on a motorcycle stopped beside us and confirmed. It’s Sunday afternoon. Volume. I’m not sure anyone else is left up here except the four of us . .
Don’t know what’s going on here, but that’s a car in a third lane and a policeman behind them. Maybe they were trying to cut the line . . .
Once we got over our shock, we went to check out our trail. It wasn’t much. Just an opportunity to walk off a few calories.
Look how the petals come out of the ‘dots’ in the center!
This thistle is just about done.
We counted. : )
We shuffled quickly and quietly passed this one. . .
Well, there’s something we’ve never seen on a trail before.
How do we know if it’s dry?
I thought this view on the way home was really pretty.
The remainder of the day was spent just lounging, then choosing movies we’d recorded and discarding them after a few minutes because we didn’t care to watch them for one reason or another. We finally settled on the newest (we think) Star Trek. It was pretty good.
Up and at ‘em early in the morning. We’ve got a day trip planned!