Lessons from Vacation

A few things I learned while on vacation:

• I am NOT in Heaven yet! When you travel nearly 5,000 miles and sleep in 10-12 different places you tend to feel like a displaced alien. I am. Though I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED our VACATION, I really looked forward to getting home, where my office is and my garage is and my sock drawer is and my church family is. This longing for permanence, I realized, was a faint whisper of my soul's longing to be with Jesus in Heaven forever. God has destined us for a PLACE and a PURPOSE and a PERSON that is PERMANENT. Bring it on!
• I am a WRETCH with DIVINE RESOURCES. I left for vacation with the prayer that God would use me to serve and bless those I was with: family, friends, and sovereign encounters. I am not sure I was out of the driveway at home before I was struggling with the selfish flesh. I got perturbed with my wife, my girls, the truck drivers on I-80 (and I-90, I-94, I-39, I-70...), the too-steep hills of western PA, the too-long dipper for ice-cream at Penn Alps restaraunt, and the fact that my family didn't share my love for a loud fan at night. And that's only the "I'm not as bad a you think" list! But a glorious reality burst into my consciouness over and over during those days: "I am NOT who I used to be. I am in Christ Jesus. He is my Lord and Savior and Strength and Provider who lives in me by His Spirit. I can say "No!" to my selfish, irritated, critical spirit and "Yes!" to Christ and the Spirit and love." Wow! It IS true: "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation" 2 Corinthians 5:17.
• My FATHER in Heaven is LAVISH. I know from the Scriptures that He has lavished grace on us through Christ, Ephesians 1:7-8, and that is AWESOME. But as we travelled from MN to PA to NJ to MD to DC to VA to NC and from mountains to ocean and from stormy to cloudless days, I saw my Father's lavishness over and over and over. Waterfalls. Raging rivers. Berry bushes heavy with fruit. Deer frolicking at dusk. A full moon rising over the mountains. Corn with tassels over my head. Valleys lush and green with crops and trees and grasses. Peacocks guarding the barn door of a remote farm. God could have made this world gray and fruitless and blossomless. But He has made it FULL of color and smells and shapes and sounds and panoramas that fill the mind and heart with wonder...at HIM. What a lavishness...for YOU and ME to enjoy...and to turn to WORSHIP.
• My times are in HIS HANDS. My oldest daughter and I were having a great time bobbing the waves at Va Beach. We had been in the water for about an hour. Suddenly, a wave passed by and we were TWICE as FAR from the beach as we had been a moment earlier! We were caught in a rip tide...my first. I was soon in water too deep to touch the bottom and keep my nose above the surface. We could both swim, but we are both "dead weight" type swimmers and we tire quickly. There was a quick realization that we were in trouble and we struggled to swim towards shore. We only seemed to be moving backwards. We talked to each other. I tried to keep Briana from panicking. What do you do in times like this? "Lord, help!" That was about it. He DID help. After a few moments a couple of waves came in that pushed us JUST far enough for me to touch bottom and have the footing to push my daughter forward until we both were safe. Exhausted we trudged onto the beach, THANKED GOD, and enjoyed the sand for awhile.

These are FOUR lessons I learned or re-learned or futher-learned during this vacation. All of life is God's glorious classroom. And, man, does He teach!