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We just returned from spending a long relaxing weekend on the beach in Florida with some friends, and like most experiences being in the midst of nature – in this case the ocean and seashore – I found myself both fascinated and inspired. What struck me this time was the enormous abundance and endurance of nature – in spite of mankind’s invasion of it and the pollution we seem to impose on it, and even with man’s ongoing attempts to capture and control many of nature’s resources, yet it endures, continuing to abundantly provide. As with all of nature the sea and its shore were here long before any of us and will remain long after we are gone. It was, after all, created first, before mankind was created.

Jesus once said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) What could He have meant by that? According to one devotional writer I read recently, “Jesus is reminding his hearers again that God did not make a world of scarcity. We were not given a life to then spend it in white-knuckled survival.” White-knuckled! What a vivid image of how many of us live, me especially, but why? One answer might be that we have been fooled into believing that true security depends on our capturing and controlling all the resources we can get our hands on, instead of having faith in the creator of nature and the endless resources He provides. God did not make a world of scarcity, rather a world of abundance.

So after sitting on the beach for a long while staring at the endless expanse of sea and sky my eyes were slowly drawn back to the shore where the seagulls and sandpipers were busily scavenging for food along the edge of the surf. They did not appear to be white-knuckled about their survival, nor were they starving or deprived in any way. Neither did I notice them hoarding away their gatherings in some hiding place so that they might be insured of having more tomorrow and thus feel more secure. Rather they seemed perfectly content to rely on nature’s provisions day in and day out.

God did not make a world of scarcity. A long relaxing weekend on the beach helped me be reminded of that. Instead, God made a world of endless and enduring abundance.

Think for a moment of someone who has believed in you. What has that meant to you? How has that made a difference in your life? What would you not have accomplished had it not been for someone believing in you?

Our son, Cecil, works for a large non-profit organization where he serves as director of a program that offers low-income housing for people getting back on their feet. Almost all have been homeless and are recovering from something – many from drug or alcohol addiction, others have been victims of abuse in some way, and some are military veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. All, however, are far enough along in their recovery to be self-supporting and qualify for permanent housing.

Having worked with this segment of the population for several years Cecil began to notice a common deficiency. All of them at some level suffer from low self-esteem. So, having recognized this he began to consider what kind of program his organization might provide that could address this issue and also attract universal participation. What he came up with was CPR training. CPR is easy to learn – anyone can do it – training does not require an extensive time commitment, and it is relatively inexpensive. Most importantly it can give this group of people a huge boost in their self-image, not to mention that they may one day use it to save another person’s life. Brilliant!

When Cecil presented this idea to his superiors they embraced it immediately, which then put him on a grant-writing mission to get funding for the program. And so I understand there is already a foundation that has expressed serious interest.

Whether or not this program will be successful is yet to be determined, but it certainly seems like a good idea. But regardless of the outcome the greatest thing my son did was to give these people what every human being needs, someone to believe in them.

Who has believed in you, and how has that made a difference in your life? When have you believed in someone else? We all need someone to believe in us. It is one of the greatest gifts one human being can give to another.

In life every day presents us with a smorgasbord of surprises. In fact, the most certain thing there is about life is the uncertainty of it. Our nature is, however, to view that as mostly a bad thing, something to be feared. Thus we prefer to be in control. For sure uncertainty is sometimes linked with tragedy such as the recent devastating tornadoes in the southern United States, but more often than not surprise is the source of our joy and delight occurring in small ways as the taste of food, the refreshment of the morning air, the laughter of children, or casual conversation with a friend. The late Oswald Chambers explained it this way: “. . . we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation.”

Perhaps our fear of surprise is because our best laid plans are so often disrupted by it. The great Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) mused about this in his poem “To a Mouse”. Written as an apology to a mouse who had built her nest beneath some stalks in the middle of a cornfield, only to have it demolished by the blade of the farmer’s plow while plowing the field, the farmer/narrator attempts to tell the little mouse that he meant her no harm. He goes to great lengths in describing the imagined plight of the poor mouse, how she had toiled to build a safe dwelling for her family that would protect them against the approaching bitter cold of winter, only to have her plans go awry. Then, after a lengthy apology the narrator shifts gears a bit and becomes philosophical, and that is where we pick up the familiar line:

“The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go often askew, / And leave us nothing but grief and pain, / For promised joy! Still you are blest, compared with me! / The present only touches you: / But oh! I backward cast my eye, / On prospects dreary! / And forward, though I cannot see, / I guess and fear!”

Poor little mouse! Yet, victim that she was, she is to be envied; for she lives with no preconceived notions of what each day might bring, but in good faith diligently does, in Oswald Chambers’ words, “the duty that is nearest”. We do not know what a day may bring forth. If we could only learn to accept that with “breathless expectation”!

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

This past week, courtesy of our daughter-in-law Sharra’s gracious invitation to accompany her to a doctor’s appointment, we got a first glimpse of our newest grandchild via sonogram. Only sixteen weeks in the womb, yet through the miracle of modern medical technology we were able to see two little arms and two little legs, count ten fingers and ten toes, view both hemispheres of its brain, and four ventricles of its tiny heart through which blood was pumping, all the while wiggling around like its three-year-old older sister. What a sight! We fell in love, as if we hadn’t already.

What does it mean to lay down one’s life for someone else? For the longest time I thought it literally meant martyrdom, such as a soldier falling on a grenade to save his or her comrades, or jumping in front of a bus to prevent someone else from getting run over. Few of us, though – thankfully!! – are placed in such circumstances. But does that mean that the only people able to express such “greater” radical love are those who physically die in place of another? The answer is that it is not so much about dying as it is how we choose to live. Do we choose to live for all we can get out of life, or do we choose to live for all we can give?

According to Jesus, “. . . unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seed.” (John 12:24) Again, this raises the issue that it is not so much about death as we think of it; rather it is about how we choose to live. Do we want our lives to remain a single seed, or do we live for the purpose of producing many seeds?

My heart skipped a beat last week when I witnessed our new grandbaby squirming around in its mommy’s tummy, just as it does every time I hear “grandpa” from the older two. And I realized my only hope for producing many seeds depends on my choosing to be a positive influence on my grandchildren, as well as others – to die to self in order to live for others. “Greater love has no one than this.” . . . . . And by the way, it’s a girl.

Remember leaving home for the first time? If you were anything like me I couldn’t wait to spread my wings and fly. Yet admittedly I entered that rite of passage with a fair amount of mixed feelings – the melancholy thoughts of leaving behind the comforts of home, fear about what unknowns might be lurking around the corner waiting to pounce on my naiveté, yet for me there was the exhilaration of setting out to conquer the world.

Change, it always carries with it the same three elements I just described, albeit at vastly varying degrees of intensity depending on the circumstances. Better said perhaps in his book, Transitions, William Bridges defines change as “that difficult process of letting go of an old situation, suffering the confusing nowhere of in-betweenness, and launching forth again in a new situation . . .” Change is sometimes exhilarating such as that youthful time when we plunge into life full of energy and ideas. Other times it’s like a nuclear attack shattering our hopes and dreams. Else it just slowly evolves over time as we grow older, life happens, and the world as we have known it simply changes. Or as Bridges says in his book, “Things go slowly for a time and nothing seems to change – until suddenly the eggshell cracks, the branch blossoms, the tadpole’s tail shrinks away, the leaf falls, the bird molts, the hibernation begins.”

In all my years as a corporate manager the most difficult tasks I ever faced were initiating changes, whether as minor as installing a new coffee pot or as major as a reorganization. Changes are always difficult, even positive ones. Regardless, they all upset our comfort levels, and for a time lead us down unfamiliar paths. “It is frightening to discover,” Bridges ponders, “that some part of us is still holding on to what we used to be, for it makes us wonder if the change was in fact a bad idea. Can it be that the old thing was somehow right for us and the new thing wrong?”

I still miss home as I once knew it, but I’m glad I left, and more than once I must admit my naiveté has been pounced on by those unknowns lurking about. As to conquering the world? Not likely to happen, but at least I keep working to make a difference in it. Change is seldom perfect and always difficult, yet as William Bridges reminds us, ‘They are key times in the natural process of self-renewal.”