An Address Book or a Mansion?

To some the Bible is an address book of chapters and verses, houses in a subdivision, sometimes visited and sometimes not. To others the Bible is a mansion in which they not only live; they can’t image living anywhere else.

Snow – It’s All Covered

The other great thing I think about when I think about snow is Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, and let us reason together, says Yahweh, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Just as snow covers all things, creating a new landscape, a new perspective, so the forgiveness of God covers all of our sins and brings us into a new way of looking at life; refreshing our minds, our hearts, our souls. Few words have been written that compare to the comfort found in Psalm 32:1-2, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, blessed is the man to whom Yahweh does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”

How sad it is that people don’t understand that a knowledge of sin and its origin and destructive power is vital to our well-being – it is vital that we know sin so that we may know forgiveness in Jesus; it is vital that we know our transgressions so that we may know what it is to have them covered. The irony is that while we deny the existence of sin on one hand, we spend our lives attempting to medicate it on the other hand – we try to cover what only God can cover, we attempt to cover and deny at the same time.  

As I write this I should point out that the idea of us needing to forgive ourselves is an idea that has no foundation in Scripture; we are taught to forgive others, not to forgive ourselves as if we’ve done something against ourselves. Our sin is against God and it is what God thinks that matters – our solace and forgiveness is found in God in Christ alone – when we repent and ask His forgiveness then we have peace with God and in having peace with God we come to find His peace living within us. As John writes (1 John 1:9), “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Freshly fallen snow covering the land, what a picture of the forgiveness we have in Jesus Christ. No matter the breath or depth of my transgressions, whether pubic or private, open or hidden, in Christ God’s forgiveness blankets my life with forgiveness and I may approach each day anew as if my footprints have yet to trod the path of life. Jesus offers me a perpetual new beginning, hope in a new day, and relief from a stricken conscience and guilt.

Sin and guilt cannot be medicated away in perpetual denial; that is torture. We cannot forgive ourselves but we can torture ourselves. We wonder at the self-destructiveness exhibited by teenagers inflicting cuttings on themselves; but adults do the same thing in living narcissistic and hedonistic lives…most of us just learn to do it in somewhat respectable fashion.

Experiencing the snow of God’s forgiveness not only sets us free to live in intimate relationship with God, it also gives us liberty to forgive others, indeed, it mandates that we forgive others…after all…others may have sinned against us but we have sinned against God – who has committed the greater sin?

No wonder walking in snowy woodlands is akin to walking in a cathedral, the snow and the altar both speak of the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ who was sinless; He became sin so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

It may snow but seldom in our region of Virginia, but the image and reality of snow is something that I can carry in my heart and mind in all seasons of life.

Snow – Walks With A Dog

Snow evokes a number of images and memories, from childhood to seasons of adulthood. From days off from school when kids in the neighborhood reveled in exhaustion and excitement sledding down streets and hills; to the time Vickie and I took a seldom – used back road home in a snow storm and weren’t sure we’d make it up a particularly challenging hill; to the time the snow in Becket, MA came in November and didn’t leave till April…or was it early May?

My most pleasant snow memory is walking in the woods with Darby, our Sheppard – Lab mix, in the deep snows of Western Massachusetts in the Berkshires. I’d buckle my snow shoes on and Darby and I would walk beyond the cleared portion of our lot into the surrounding woods, deeper we’d go, the snow often above her shoulders, deeper into the quiet, into the hush of creation. The stillness of the woods after a deep snow enfolds and comforts the senses, it is a blanket of peace wrapping itself around you, drawing you into it, stilling the mind, quieting the heart – it is a place to listen, to listen to both creation and the Creator, a place for a child to commune with the Father.

Darby stayed close to me during these walks, not by my heels, but just off to the right or left or just a bit ahead of me; when I’d call her she’d quickly come, bounding over fallen branches and limbs; I always knew where she was and she always knew where I was and we always knew which way was home.

 A ways into the woods behind our home was a stone wall, the kind of stone wall you see all over New England. The wall had been lonely for many years for it was now surrounded by woods, at one time perhaps it delineated a pasture or crop land, people built it as they cleared the land, but the land was no longer clear and the wall was lonely. For the most part the wall was still intact, while here and there a section had fallen, failed sections were few and far between. Darby and I always walked out to the wall and then we’d walk along it for awhile, in no hurry, just Dad and Darby, taking our time, enjoying each other, in the cathedral of God’s snowy creation, a canopy of trees above us reaching up to the heavens.

Those walks wouldn’t have been the same without Darby; she was a gentle soul, devoted to Vickie and knowing that I was part of the package she got with Vickie she was devoted to me, even though I was the second team. She was most certainly Vickie’s dog, if ever a dog loved a human then Darby loved Vickie, wherever Vickie was Darby was there.

When the snow came down in Becket I’d anticipate my walks with Darby, a respite from the world, from the phone, from the internet, from television…from noise.

While the sense of quiet sacredness was palpable during those walks, at the same time there was joyful excitement and exhilaration in reveling in the white-crystal beauty of the snowy carpet and in leaping over fallen trees and then running with Darby as we headed back home.  

I sure miss the old girl; I sure miss those walks. Darby and the snow…what sweet times.

Darby and Lina are below.