Ensign: Some Of What I Have Learned Since 1936

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 21 March 2014

Ah, 1936.

The year my mom was born. The original copyright date of two books I'm reading from – and hopefully applying – now, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and Paul E. Kretzmann's day-by-day Lenten devotional Up to Jerusalem. Of all the books I read, there are certain ones that I come back to again and again because not only are they informative (or in the case of the Holy Bible for me, transformative) but they inform me in a way that speaks directly to me, where I am, at a fixed moment in time.
perception (of time)
I'm thirty-five years old, which isn't young, but it won't qualify me for special rates at the Boca Raton Denny's either. Still, it's old enough that I've started to notice something disturbing, a phenomenon my grandparents talk about a lot: time has sped up. The years are vanishing more and more quickly, the calendar days flipping by faster than a falcon in full dive (150 mph).

I have to wonder how many calendar days (figuratively, not literally) Jesus' disciples would have stood there after He ascended into heaven forty days from His rising from the dead. Of course, He DID say to not proceed doing the work of what would become His church until they received power from on high – in this case, through the baptism of the Holy Spirit recorded in Acts 2 – because even though Peter, Andrew, James, John, etc. were with Jesus for His three years of public ministry there were still things about being “fishers of men” that eluded them.

All of today's italicized paragraphs -- or every second one, for those not rendering them -- comes from another favorite book of mine over the last few years, A.J. Jacobs' "The Know-It-All", a 2004 account of this then-Esquire editor's reading the entire, leather-bound, A to Z, Encyclopaedia Britannica in a year. And it's funny too -- check it out yourselves! (p. 253, ISBN 9780743250627)

Bluntly, things about that which still elude you and me! But you know what? Our Lord admits that. You would think that twenty centuries after the fact, with access to means and ways that leave the original disciples for sheer range eating our dust the world would have been evangelized – reached for Jesus Christ – dozens of times already. But we forget … we forget that it's you and I who have to make the effort, you and I who have to follow the Lord's calling on our lives. It's hard to believe mine is to linger online so much of the time.

The Britannica has an explanation for this: elderly people find time shorter because they notice long-accustomed changes less frequently.

I am forty two years, three months, and ten days old as I post this today. And as this message sat waiting for me to finish it, I found – find – myself wondering whether Jesus' disciples when He walked the earth were mostly older or younger or the same age as He. It's a safe bet that a carpenter working in tandem with fishermen and a Zealot and a publican among others (the occupations/affiliations of Jesus and Peter and Andrew and James and John the sons of Zebedee, Simon, and Matthew respectively, from Matthew 10:3-4 and a bit of what I know), a disparate gathering of individuals, would attract both the right and wrong kinds of attention. Hence Jesus sending them out two by two. Hence when two or three are gathered in His Name, for prayer or any other God-glorifying purpose, He is there.

I'm not 100 percent sure what this means. Which long-accustomed changes in particular? They notice the daily setting of the sun less frequently? The changing of the seasons? The rhythms of the body? The Buckingham Palace guards? Regardless, I get the gist. Old people adapt to stimuli. To put it bluntly, old people are less perceptive.

Abraham didn't get his call from God to go to the Promised Land until he was seventy five years old. (Genesis 12 - Genesis 25) Does this mean God didn't talk to him at all before he was an age most of us would consider us set in our ways? I expect not; it's at least probable Abram – remember, the big name change doesn't occur for another fourteen years (Genesis 17), interestingly enough as I read this, AFTER Ishmael had been born and before Isaac was; but again, maybe I digress – had heard of God delivering Noah and his family from worldwide destruction in the ark and all back to the beginning of the world. It just didn't breaking into his life of flocks and herds and extended family in Haran until then. And maybe the covenant blessing just sounded good at the time.

I wonder if I can fight this change. Can I stop the acceleration of time by remaining observant? By keeping my mind open to changes and filled with wonder at the world, instead of tuning it out? That would truly be an accomplishment. I vow to try, though I know it's about as likely as stopping the sunset.

Whatever, the reason Abram did not remain one in a long list of history's nameless desert sheiks because he heard God speaking, listened to what He said, and followed Him. The reason Peter and Andrew and the other disciples did not remain nameless practicioners of their own trades and political affiliations (what, you really thought there was no politics involved twenty centuries ago? Tsk) is that they heard God speaking through His Son, listened, and followed Him. That's all you and I are asked to do right now. It may or may not make our words immortal, but the fact that we do record what affects us the most, in 1936 and 2014 and even tomorrow, can make us so. But for whose – more accurately, Whose – sake are we living and wanting to live this life?

Step away from the time machine,

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!

Thank You, Lord, that we can still come to you in prayer, that You provide for all our needs -- even when we don't know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence in that region and around the world.

Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life! I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.