While enjoying a two-day get-away with my wife last week, I was fascinated to read this article about Elliot Huck. Elliot is a fourteen year old boy from Bloomington, IN, who in the past two years has won the regional Scripps Spelling Bee. Last year he finished 45th out of 250 plus contestants in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Yet despite training for about two hours a day over the summer to prepare for this year's bee, Elliot will not be there. Why? Because this year they moved the bee from Saturday to Sunday, and Elliot's convictions regarding the Sabbath Day means he does not believe he should compete on this day.
It was refreshing to read Elliot's views and attitude. He stated that he had sought to glorify God in previous years by spelling, and this year he will glorify God by not spelling. This story further piqued my interest (Or should that be "peaked my interest"? Help, Elliot, or any readers!) because Elliot attends Lighthouse Christian Academy in Bloomington, where Rachel Roberts, wife of Reformed Presbyterian pastor Bill Roberts, is the principal. How encouraging to see the Biblical training Elliot is receiving in his home, church and school giving him the strength to stand for his Biblical convictions.
And his convictions are Biblical. Isaiah 58:13-14, looking ahead to the days of the ministry of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ, promises this:
"If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot
From doing your own pleasure on My holy day,
And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable,
And honor it, desisting from your own ways,
From seeking your own pleasure
And speaking your own word,
Then you will take delight in the LORD,
And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
This Sabbath and Lord's Day promised was the day of Christ's resurrection, the first day of the week (see Questions 57-62 here). Those who know Christ and the joy of keeping this day holy through worshiping God and resting from ordinary work and pleasures understand why Elliot would give up a goal he has worked extremely hard for all his life. He has done much like Eric Liddell did as dramatized in the movie Chariots of Fire.
With all the attention being given to sports heroes these days, many of whom claim to know Christ yet regularly showing no true regard for the fourth commandment, might we not point instead to Elliot as the true role model? Sure, he is bespectacled and lacks the chiseled physique of the athelete. Yet who does God Himself delight in - those possessing strength and speed or those who fear Him? Look at Psalm 147:10-11 if you need help with the answer!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Timber!
Perhaps a blog with this name should not have a post with this title, but nevertheless...
Several weeks ago, when the temperatures were more like those of springtime than the ones we are experiencing now, I had the joy of helping fell a tree. In the woods atop the shore of Lake Michigan, Miriam's dad had a dead beech tree standing sixty feet tall that was leaning to the west. As the wind made it sway the beech creaked and moaned with the plea to be brought down to its final resting. Delighted to comply with this request, we watched as Dad notched its front side, brought in the bite of the chainsaw from the back, then stepped back as the trunk separated from the stump and came crashing down with a final groaning protest to the forest bed.
I will never forget the face of my son Spencer who was running down the driveway at the time. He was oblivious that the tree was about to fall. When he heard the sound of the the limbs of the falling tree thrashing madly at those of its neighbors, he looked up wide-mouthed at it. In in his nine year-old boy's mind it must have looked like a giant beast falling to its death. Then, a few seconds after the silence, his face broke into a smile of delight at the realization of the victory he had just witnessed.
The next few hours were filled with the joyful task of splitting firewood, throwing the logs into a large-wheeled cart, then rolling it to the wood stack and unloading it. Each piece was carefully placed on the growing pile, where it would await its turn to serve us by providing warmth to the wood stove within the house. As my wife and children along with their grandparents worked around me, stomping about in the crisp leaves that were ankle-deep, their flushed cheeks, grunts of effort, and vapored breath all served as testimony to the goodness of what we were doing. What a pleasure it is to accomplish a family project with diligent work and unity of labor! Like a Google search, this time brought to the main screen of my mind other memories, such as:
Psalm 96:12 says, "All the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord." Indeed, even now each tree proclaims the gospel, does it not? And so does each man's life. Whether we are looking at woods or crowds, do we not see that either you stand and grow eternally in Christ, or you face the awful prospect of serving as just so much timber in a fire that will never stop burning?
If that sounds like too harsh an ending to this blog, then remember with me one more woodcutting reflection. It was also a tree to which Christ was nailed (Galatians 3:13).
Several weeks ago, when the temperatures were more like those of springtime than the ones we are experiencing now, I had the joy of helping fell a tree. In the woods atop the shore of Lake Michigan, Miriam's dad had a dead beech tree standing sixty feet tall that was leaning to the west. As the wind made it sway the beech creaked and moaned with the plea to be brought down to its final resting. Delighted to comply with this request, we watched as Dad notched its front side, brought in the bite of the chainsaw from the back, then stepped back as the trunk separated from the stump and came crashing down with a final groaning protest to the forest bed.
I will never forget the face of my son Spencer who was running down the driveway at the time. He was oblivious that the tree was about to fall. When he heard the sound of the the limbs of the falling tree thrashing madly at those of its neighbors, he looked up wide-mouthed at it. In in his nine year-old boy's mind it must have looked like a giant beast falling to its death. Then, a few seconds after the silence, his face broke into a smile of delight at the realization of the victory he had just witnessed.
The next few hours were filled with the joyful task of splitting firewood, throwing the logs into a large-wheeled cart, then rolling it to the wood stack and unloading it. Each piece was carefully placed on the growing pile, where it would await its turn to serve us by providing warmth to the wood stove within the house. As my wife and children along with their grandparents worked around me, stomping about in the crisp leaves that were ankle-deep, their flushed cheeks, grunts of effort, and vapored breath all served as testimony to the goodness of what we were doing. What a pleasure it is to accomplish a family project with diligent work and unity of labor! Like a Google search, this time brought to the main screen of my mind other memories, such as:
- Cutting wood alongside Dad and "Granddaddy" as a boy in the woods surrounding my grandfather's North Carolina home. Thirty-five years later I could still smell the damp wood and exhaust from the time spent behind Granddaddy as I rode atop the pile in the trailer being pulled by his old lawn tractor, the chains on its wheels providing extra traction and bounce.
- Gathering wood and then placing it upon the campfire on the only Boy Scout camp-out I went on as a kid in North Carolina. It helped me to earn my Tenderfoot pin, which was as far as I advanced in the scouts.
- Laying on the floor with my "tender feet" on the mantle warming before the fireplace in our den in my home in Coldwater on many a snowy Michigan night.
Psalm 96:12 says, "All the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord." Indeed, even now each tree proclaims the gospel, does it not? And so does each man's life. Whether we are looking at woods or crowds, do we not see that either you stand and grow eternally in Christ, or you face the awful prospect of serving as just so much timber in a fire that will never stop burning?
If that sounds like too harsh an ending to this blog, then remember with me one more woodcutting reflection. It was also a tree to which Christ was nailed (Galatians 3:13).
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