Category: Uncategorized

A Childhood Memory of My Father

 

for my father — a childhood memory….


Late morning silhouette:
unwelcome shadows,
purple grey subtlety
suffocate the sun
I am befuddled by the silence,
absence of laughter,
ordinary talk,
the smile on my mother’s face —

Sunday respite away from home,
a town where my father was born, we would
spend hours at Aunt Andrea’s house
until the sunset bid farewell
and the gas lamps gave light along with fireflies
and the crickets chirped on.

I was a little child less than school age
in pigtails and petticoats
wondering where my father went that day
for I longed for his strong presence
amidst this baffling purple silhouette —

I crossed the pebbled country road,
climbed up a stunted hill
to Grandma’s house and I found
my father weeping,
hunched under a native fruit tree,
mournful violin strings uncontrollable,
relentless rivulets of tears cascade
for a brother to be buried,
at height of youth,
poisoned
at a town feast the week before
a chef’s senseless blunder —

Wide brown eyes watched in wonder,
my little child’s heart cried at his distress and he
looked back and beheld his daughter,
his countenance contorted in grief softening,
and slowly the mournful music lulled
as he staggered to where I stood
and my father held my hand
and he and I chased the purple shadows out of the morning
as we walked down the hill
along with life and the sunlight.

© 2012 by D. G. Vachal, revised 2021

* photography by Аркадий Деев

Limiting God

“Yes, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.” Psalm 78:41

Asaph described the actions of the Israelites in Psalm 78 as “limiting the Holy One of Israel”.  What does it mean to “limit God”?   Are there limits to what God can do?

God is limited to His character.  He cannot sin.  He cannot lie.  And God has imposed certain limits on Himself, requiring certain actions from His creation before He will allow Himself to act.1 In this sense, we limit God through our actions, according to the limits He sets for Himself.

How then do we limit God? As we read the epistles, we find certain patterns and norms highlighting what God has made possible for a Christian in this life and in this world. To the extent that we are not living up to these standards, we are limiting God as to what He can do in our lives. And tragically, we limit the world’s perception of the God we profess by our shortcomings in these areas.

The first standard is the assurance of salvation, the confidence that our sins are forgiven.  Do we know God and feel His presence in an intimate and real sense? Are we absolutely certain of His love for us, and that we are joint heirs with Christ?  If there is uncertainty about the marks of this assurance of our salvation, then we are limiting God.

Second, we are meant to be a rejoicing people. Do we rejoice in tribulation, even in the very midst of trials?  Can we proclaim these words, as did the prophet Habakkuk:

”Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”  ?  (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

If we are miserable Christians and are still turning back to the world for our happiness, then we are limiting God and all the glorious possibilities He holds out before us.

Third, we are to delight in God and His commandments.  His commandments are not grievous (I John 5:4), because they are light and life to us, where the alternative is only darkness.  Filled with grumbling and complaining, the Israelites in the wilderness envied other nations and murmured against God and His commands. But God meant for us to enjoy His Word and His laws.  The psalmist declared his love for God’s law, and yet we as Christians are in a superior position than the psalmist because we share in the fullness of Christ. Do we find God’s commandments grievous?  If we consider our Christianity as merely a matter of duty, then we are limiting God.

Fourth, we are to enjoy the peace of God.  The Israelites were unhappy, restless and confused, not allowing God to give them His comfort and peace.  If we are in a true, loving relationship with God, we can know this peace that cannot be disturbed.  Not knowing this peace as a reality is to put a limit to what God has made available to us.

Finally, we are to rest in Him and in His all-sufficiency.  The apostle Paul learned in whatsoever state he was, to be content.  Is this our experience? Do we know Christ to be our all-sufficiency, that we can do all things through Him?  Do we know something about days of heaven upon earth, how it feels to have God in our midst?  If not, then we are limiting His power and His grace to have full reign in our lives.

All of these things are available and made possible for us through Christ. If we have come short of any of these ideals, we need to repent and run back to God the soonest we can:  to open our hearts, believe His promises,  to ask and expect great things from Him, for the enrichment of our souls, and for His glory.

References:
*** 1 Martin G. Collins, Sermon: Limiting the Holy One of Israel Part 1: Examining Ourselves by God’s Standards

*** Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Sermon: Limiting God

*** Photograph: Stairs to the Sea by Queralt  jqmj @Flickr cc

Music of Childhood



… for my mother

Music of  Childhood

Play for me the melodies
of childhood
as the apricot glow turns
to voiles of lavender
and crickets chirp
in the coolness
of twilight —

come sit with me
on this piano bench.

Play not for the crowd
but for me alone,
Polonaise
in A-flat major —

let me watch your fingers
caress
the ivory keys,
let my heart explode
with pounding octaves,
climb crescendos,
dance with staccatos —

Tell me how long time ago
before bedtime stories
and childhood dreams,
you dipped my spirit
in the romance of Liebestraum,
the sweetness of nocturnes,
of etudes and preludes —

Now, as your fingers tend
the autumn flowers,
come sit with me,
play the melodies,
the music
of my soul
once again.

© 2012  by D. G. Vachal

*** Photograph: Heart and Music by Dragan Todorovic 

To Overcome the World

“ For whosoever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”  I John 5:4-5

The apostle John warns against loving the “world”, succinctly described in his epistle as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

The “world” can be defined as an outlook, a system of thought that is opposed to God:  it strives to separate us from God, persecutes us for loving Him,  and obstructs us from glorifying Him in our lives. It is an overwhelming force that engulfs us as we seek to live a life pleasing to the Father.

How do we overcome the world?

The monastic position advocates withdrawing from the world and emphasizes the use of discipline and willpower as well as observance of rules and regulations.  But a mechanical and physical departure alone ultimately does not offer an escape from the “world” that operates within a person: the pride of self and natural lusts.  And consider that Christ, the One who overcame the world, lived a public life; He did not withdraw from the world, but interacted with people from all walks of life, including sinners and winebibbers.

How then do we arrive at a position of overcoming the world?  Let us consider the biblical view.

First, we overcome the world by being born of God. Whoever is born of God overcomes the world. The Christian has a new disposition, a new outlook, a perception of the world as the Lord Jesus Christ saw it.  We become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), hence we look at things from God’s vantage point, not from the carnal and sinful point of view of natural man.  There is a hope that anchors us within our inner selves, in spite of us being in the world, placing us in a position to overcome it.

Second, the new birth gives us this faculty which enables us to live a life of faith.  This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. The world is a formidable foe and we are powerless to fight it by our own strength. We need emancipation, to be lifted to another realm, to be given a strength and power beyond ourselves, and greater than the world.  Being born again through Christ introduces us to a higher dimension, with a power available to us to enable us to have victory over the world.

Third, we overcome the world by our relationship to Jesus Christ, to Christ’s work, and what has already been accomplished at the cross.  Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?  Therefore, withdrawal from the world and following ascetic rules is entirely unnecessary and ineffectual because everything we need to be victorious is already found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Through the new birth, we are able to exercise our faith in Christ, to rest in Him, to receive and draw upon His fullness. And as Christ glorified the Father, so can we, as we live our lives victorious over the world.

** Reference: Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ,Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois, 1982, pp. 585-603.

** Photograph:  Body Surfer by Chuck Babbitt