Deadlines
Deadlines:  everyone has them--the project for school or work, the dinner you are going to give, the date the bills are due to be paid, the wedding, the baby, the moving date.   Most fill one kind of calendar or another regularly.  Some we look forward to, others just have to be met.  Often we groan as we contemplate how busy we are and all the deadlines we have to meet.
However, there is one deadline only God know for each of us.  This is, of course, the date He has set for your death and for mine.
This has been on my mind because earlier this month, Garry had both an aunt and an uncle (today would have been their 66th wedding anniversary) die within 10 days of each other; then three others not related humanly have passed away more recently--a retired teacher, a woman active with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and a soldier many in our community knew--who, because they had put their faith in the finished work of Christ, entered His presence when they died.
A passage from James became significant to us years ago:  "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that'" (4:13-15).
As Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, "So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil" (5:9-10).
I have to add this:  Don't be like the rich fool Jesus tells about in Luke 12:13-21 for this is what God told him:  "'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God'" (20-21)

I wrote this a long time ago and pass it on as a witness, for God has been good in these 16+ years we've been in California, in our affiliations with Grace to You, Grace Community Church, et al.

POSITIVE NEGATIVES

On page 115 of his book, Anxiety Attacked, John MacArthur writes, "Contentment is a by-product of distress.  It comes about when you experience the sustaining power of Christ when you have simply run out of steam: 'To him who lacks might He increases power' (Isaiaih 40:29).  We do well to experience enough difficulty in our lives to see Christ's power on display in us."

Journal entries:

23 May 1993
Short list of positive negatives:
no house (no mortgage)
no kids (to uproot)
Little debt

22 July 1993
Garry is on the phone to someone out west about work....  He's much more relaxed than he was a week ago.

26 July 1993
It's still a challenge to think (realize) that five weeks from tomorrow is G's last day as a full time employee of MPress, or that it's 18 weeks since he learned that it would be at or by the end of 1993.  It'll be "by" rather than "at."  I'm thankful for all that is known.  And not.  I'd rather move to C. Springs than to the L.A. area if we move west.

Expanding

Some times God may deny us what we most want--or expect--in order to give us what we most need.

Garry and I had discussed options we might explore once he had put in his twenty years, and plans we would need to make for the intervening years.  At that time, I was working part time, and he had been with his employer more than fifteen years--almost sixteen.

Those anticipated years proved to be months.  The day before our fourth wedding anniversary, Garry told me changes were under way which included phasing out his department by year's end.  Department meant his position.  No, no place else for him in the organization.  Sorry, but.

Less than a month after Garry cleaned out his desk, my father died unexpectedly.  For a long time he had encouraged us to strike out on our own, to start a business of our own.  Now that we were going to, before we could tell him, he was gone.

Running our own business did not work out as we had hoped it would, but we did not know what else to do, or what posssible dividends might come later as a consequence of the contacts made or strengthened. 

We ended up living with friends from our church for several months.  (That is a story in itself.  While we were wondering if we should ask them, they were wondering what help they might offer.  It worked out as only God could cause it to.  We joined their family the weekend of our fifth wedding anniversary.)

Just when we reached the end of options we could think of, knowing that we could not stay with our friends much longer, Garry was offered a position which could not have been more suitable.  It did not come "out of the blue"; he had been making phone calls to everyone he knew who might either know of some work or have some to offer.  We did not just say, "okay, God, here we are, take care of us"

However, the job was in California.  Southern California.  Near Los Angeles.  We lived in the midwest.  Our roots went deep there: our families, our church, and our lives.  Never had the possibility of moving to California entered in to my/our calculations/plans.  Yet here we are, and gratefully.

What do positive negatives have to do with this?

Not buying a home, as we had been encouraged to do when we first married, meant not having to deal with that when things changed.

Not having let credit purchases get out of hand meant having credit to draw on.  Garry plans and saves rather than acting impulsively.  Being fiscally conservative has proved to be a blessing.  That has not meant we've had no lean times, just no importunate creditors adding to the mix.

Not having children has also meant being more flexible.  They were not in God's design for us. 

Being childless was difficult for a long time.  I dreaded going to a mall during the day and seeing all the moms with their children.  It was hard to go to baby showers for a while.  Even listening to an update of who was expecting and when and how many challenged me.  Obediently, I strove to rejoice with those who rejoiced.

It was through the "Every Woman's Grace" ministry at our church several seasons ago that I came to a place of peace about my childlessness.  I let my hair down with the women at my table one Wednesday.  Even now I am not sure why as it was nothing I had planned to do.  Maybe it was hearing of yet another who was due to give birth any day.  Maybe it was being the only childless woman in the group that day.  Whyever it was, I talked and talked.  Providentially, no one put me in my place or talked in cliches, but all expressed understanding.  In the time which elapsed between that Wednesday and the next, I realized that no having children makes it possible for us to, again, be flexible and available for ministry.  That realization was incredibly freeing for me.

I have not "arrived" but I am aware that being denied what I had most expected or wanted does not mean being denied what I most need.

Garry
Today is his birthday so I am going to try to post some photos celebrating his life.

Consider Your Values

"Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?  Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?  For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done'"--Matthew 16:24-27; "what he has done" does not refer to good works, as these do not save, but to saving faith that results in good works.

"And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?  For what can a man give in return for his soul?  For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels'"--Mark 8:34-38

"And he said to all, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.  For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?  For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels'"--Luke 9:23-26

"Jesus said to them, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.  For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day'"--John 6:37-40

God's Treasured Possession

"'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'  These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel" (Exodus 19:5-6; note the "if").

"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.  The LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession; out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7:6; the LORD has chosen).

"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 14:2; again, "The LORD has chosen").

"And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you..." (Deuteronomy 26:18a).

"Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another.  The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name.  'They shall be mine,' says the LORD of hosts, 'in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.  Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God, and one who does not serve him'" (Malachi 3:16-18).

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy" (1 Peter 2:9-10).

Whether in the Old Testament or the New, God's treasured possession is so by His choice, i.e., election.