Mount Baker, or Kweq’ Smánit in the local Nooksak language, dominates the skyline to the southeast in nearby Washington State.
One source describes it as a “10,781 ft (3,286 m) active glacier-covered andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc.” It is one of the snowiest places on the planet; in 1999, the ski slopes recorded a world record of 95 feet of snow in one season.
I love to look up and see the mountain before me. However, I’ve heard people say it’s always the same view, and they forget it’s there.
Yes, it’s always there, but the view is never the same twice if you have the eyes to see. The view may be similar day to day, but it’s never the same.
The mountain’s weather pattern constantly changes, highlighting or hiding parts of the peak. The face of the mountain changes with snowfall and melt or with differing times of day.
Like many things in life, we can grow to become so familiar with something that we fail to pay attention anymore. This happens with Christians. Sunday mornings can become mundane. Bible reading can become tiresome. Prayer can seem as simply a ritual.
Even the gospel message and our salvation can become humdrum. I’ve heard Christians say things like, “Another message on salvation by grace, or becoming more like Jesus? Why can’t the pastor come up with something new and interesting ?”
When we become inoculated against the truth of salvation through Christ alone, by faith alone, our hearts harden. We forget what we were saved from and the cost of that salvation.
Our hearts have deceived us into thinking that we are okay or that we don’t really need savings. Sometimes, we can get so proud that we believe that we are somehow unique enough to deserve salvation.
Our hearts are dangerous things. How reliable is your heart? It changes like the mountain does.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9-10
The world tells us to “Just follow your heart.” It sounds like wise advice, but it’s a lie straight from the pit of hell, and it smells like smoke.
My heart can tell me many things, some of which might be true. Yet, in the wee hours of early morn, if I’m honest and truly examine my heart and its desires, it isn’t pretty.
I’m a relatively nice guy, not a vile criminal. I care about others and am reasonably honest. At least, that’s what my heart tells me most of the time. The truth is I’m self-centered and predisposed to all sorts of sin.
How reliable is your heart? My heart would quickly lead me to destruction. It is a path I cannot risk following.
Would I want to stand before God based on the merits of what my heart says? Absolutely not.
Honestly examine your heart and then consider what Jesus did for you despite that. Marvel at what it cost Him to pay the penalty for your sin.
May the recognition of His great love and mercy cause you to rejoice. May that joy never become stale or old news.
Be blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
Never let the enemy tell you that you are worthless or insignificant. Your value in God’s eyes is so great that it was worth dying for. You are a blessing to the world. You are so precious to God that his plan for heaven will not be complete without you.
This morning, just for a change, I thought I’d share a short story. It is one I wrote a few years back and needs some work. If you have ever lived or worked in a small town, you might recognize some characters.
I have written a number of the Buckman’s Books stories, one of which got made into a radio play and broadcast in the Caribbean. A lot of work is needed, but there might be a collection of those stories some days.
Enough preamble, here we go.
I stood, shivering outside by the gravesite. While we waited for the pastor, my thoughts drifted back to the last time I had seen my friend alive … I was sitting in my shop enjoying a cup of coffee between customers. I own a used book store in Pine Brook, one of the finest in these parts, Buckman’s Books.
A brand new, bright red pearl coat, Ford F350 Supercrew pickup pulled up outside. The logo, painstakingly detailed on the side of the door panel, read, in large letters,
SOS
Underneath that in smaller letters was,
Slim’s Oilfield Service
Pine Brook
Got a disaster? No one’s faster!
Slim’s was the local oilfield disaster outfit. If you had a blowout, a spill or a fire, Slim was your man. He had a reputation for doing exemplary work at a fair price.
Slim also had an unquenchable hunger for knowledge and devoured incredible quantities of books. In short, he was one of my favourite customers.
Slim looks like his nickname; he isn’t a big man, maybe 5’6 and weighs 145 pounds. He’s in his mid-fifties and is clean shaven with a greying
crew cut.
Slim always wears the same thing, a white tee-shirt, blue jeans, steel-toed work boots and his red jacket, with the boldly embroidered SOS logo. Unless he was suited up for a job, I don’t think I have ever seen him wear anything else.
The young fellow with him, Slim’s physical opposite, Tobias Tyler, called Tee or Big Tee, by most folks around here.
He stood 6’6, weighed about 290, all of it muscle. He was always dressed like Slim but wore a bushy moustache and hair as long as the safety guys would let him get away with.
Big Tee was about thirty and had worked for Slim since graduating from high school. Tee was a minor celebrity in these parts.
He was an all-around good athlete, the rare kind, without an inflated ego. In high school, he played baseball, basketball and football well enough to get offered several full athletic scholarships to college.
Big Tee chose not to go because fighting fires seemed more interesting than more time at school.
Tee was one of those guys you could always count on being there. If something needed moving, you called Big Tee. If you wanted a hunting or fishing partner, Tee was always up for it.
I’d heard stories from reliable sources; Tee helped
a few locals with loans when they were between jobs or in a bind. He never seemed to hold it over anyone’s head, just kept it quiet. Just your basic decent sort of fellow.
At times, Tee played up his jock image. I guess he held on to the idea that it wasn’t cool to be smart, but he was one of the brightest, well-read men in these parts. Big Tee was almost as big a spender in my shop as Slim.
They walked in and poured themselves a coffee my pot. Slim drawled, “How’s it goin’, Buckman?”
“Good, as always. Pull up a chair guys, and tell me what’s up with you these days. Nice new wheels Slim!”
“Should be for what a truck costs these days!” he said as he sat down in one of the two wing-backs at the front of my store.
Big Tee grabbed a wooden chair from beside the counter and eased himself onto it. Big Tee never did anything quickly unless it was on a playing field. He was deceptively fast when he wanted to be.
“Awful coffee, Buckman,” remarked Tee. All my customers complained about the coffee, but I liked it, and they never refused a cup.
“We’ve had a couple of slow days, so I’ve been trying to catch up on my reading,” Slim remarked.
“Wondered what you had got in that was new and
interesting. Got anything exciting since we were here last?”
“I saved a couple of books on steam engineering for you, and a first edition Agatha Christie. I also just got a whole stack of stuff on fishing the other day. Never saw so many fishing books in one place before. A collector over in Devon passed on and his wife would have thrown them out, if her friend hadn’t persuaded her to call me. Go back 200 years almost.” I laughed, “The books that is, not the widow and her friend.”
Slim and Tee both loved to fish, so the mention of the bass books piqued their interest. Wheeling a dolly with three big boxes on it over to them, I encouraged them to check the contents out.
Making short noises of approval and tearing through the boxes, like kids on a Christmas present, or as Slim would put it, like a wildcat on a rabbit. After the first run-through, they began to sort in earnest. Books were piling up on the tables and on the floor.
As he lifted the Bible I always keep on the centre table, Tee asked, “Buckman, would you put this old Bible someplace, so we’ve got some room?”
“No problem.”
“Don’t know why you need a Bible anyway. You know that if there is a God, he surely doesn’t care about us.
“Why do you say that Tee?”
“I figure he built this world and moved on. Too many problems for him to have stuck around.”
“You do think it was God who created this planet then?”
“Sure. How can a man be out on a lake fishing at sunrise or out in a tree stand during hunting season, without knowing someone had to have created all that beauty? Right Slim?”
Slim grunted his agreement and went back to reading the leather-bound classic that had caught his eye.
We talked for a couple of hours about God and about Jesus. I shared with Big Tee that accepting Jesus was the only way to heaven, and we debated the whole issue frontwards and backwards.
“Well, I’m a young guy Buckman. I’ve got lots of time before I have to make those kind of decisions. What you said makes a lot of sense. I will give it some serious thought.”
Slim admonished him, “You’d better! Buckman is right on about Jesus.”
Getting up to serve another customer, I left Slim and Big Tee, continuing their diligent perusal of the fishing books. They bought all three boxes at a price that would pay all my expenses for the next few months. I could have got much more for them at a collectors auction, but I like to give my regulars first crack at the best stuff.
“We’re going up to Chipman Lake, on Tuesday.” Big Tee said as they headed out. “Gonna get some walleye. I hear they are biting like mad. You want come with us?”
“Love to, but I’m open on Tuesdays. Another time perhaps.”
When a week Tuesday rolled around, I regretted my decision not to go with them. I hadn’t seen a single customer by noon. The first couple of hours were great because I caught up on my mail orders and paperwork, but the time dragged.
I was even glad to see Mrs. Tompkins come in. I don’t know how old she was, but she was already known as
“old lady” Tompkins back when I was in high school.
She could talk your ear off and seldom bought much, but she could be counted on to know the latest scoop on everyone in a hundred-mile radius. If it happened, or someone thought it happened, you could count on Mrs. Tompkins to know about it.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Tompkins.”
“Good afternoon to you Mr. Buckman.”
We talked about a few of my regulars, and she looked at some of my latest acquisitions. She asked, “Are you going to the funeral tomorrow morning, or will you be open?”
“Funeral? Who died?” Sometimes, I felt like I spent too much time in the store.
“Big Tee. I was sure you’d know about it. An awful tragedy.”
“When?” I stammered, “What happened? I just saw him a week or so back.
“Four or five days ago. I guess he got caught in a back draft out at one of the well sites. Nobody told you?”
“Not a word.”
“He was over in the ICU at County for three days. Burns over 90% of his body. I guess he regained consciousness a couple of times, but not for long. They say he was in a lot of pain, so it was probably a good thing when he passed on. Slim never left the hospital the whole time.”
Still stunned, I said, “I’ll be at the service. Where and when?”
“It is at he First Evangelical Free Church of Christ cemetery; tomorrow at 9:00 AM. I’ll see you there.” she said as she headed out the door.
A tear formed in my eye as I heard the shovel of dirt hit the coffin. I wondered if Tee made the decision for Jesus during those three days.
I hoped so because the alternative wasn’t very pleasant. I guess sometimes we won’t know until we get to heaven ourselves. I prayed that Tee had made the right choice.
Wiping a tear, Slim nudged me, “Let’s go fishing. Big Tee would like that.”
“I think he would at that.” I agreed. “He’d like that a lot. I’ll get my gear.”
—
None of us knows the hour and day of our passing; that information belongs to God alone. Are you right with God?
If we are not born again in Christ, we face an eternity of suffering for our sin. Don’t delay; open your heart to Jesus today. Want to know more? Drop me a line.
