greetings! one day away from the official start of summer and it is sweltering as if to say, this summer will be a scorcher. i'm just so glad i'm not in hell. i can take any weather here.
this a.m. went to church straight from a talk with my renter bill, who is in the throes of a nearing divorce and all the swirling, devastating emotions and bitter thots that go along with that. bill keeps saying he is waiting for the end of the suffering and we talked about the fact that suffering will be lifelong. we can either take 'drugs' of every sort to dull the worst edge or we can embrace the suffering that is ubiquitous in and around us. almost universally people, no matter what their profession of faith take the former option.
we talked about God's description of suffering as He reveals it thru the words of paul when he writes in the second letter to the corinthian church, 'we are troubled on every side..perplexed..persecuted..cast down..always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus..for we which lie are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. so then death worketh in us, but life in you...for all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might..redound to the glory of God. for which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. for our LIGHT AFFLICTION, which IS BUT FOR A MOMENT worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal (TEMPORARY), but the things which are not seen are eternal'. (4.8f) we talked about how we constantly, in the flesh disagree with what God says. in this case He clearly says to each one of us thru the words of paul, 'don't be upset with pain in your life. no matter how intense it gets, remember, it is light and only for a moment!' (as long as you live physically here on earth you have the ability to call on Me and be rescued from pain that will not only be unendurable but without end) but, yet we keep disagreeing with Truth, for every word that comes from God's mouth is true and everything that contradicts what He says is a lie. so, bill...steve...when you allow the idea, 'this pain i am experiencing is without end, is too heavy to bear' we are in essence calling God a liar.
we considered together the words of paul, just before he was beheaded by nero, to his young 'son', timothy, in the faith...'STIR UP the gift of God, which is in thee (use every ability I have given you to the nth degree for Me every moment you are here..no matter how much pain it entails!)..for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but BE THOU PARTAKER OF THE AFFICTIONS OF THE GOSPEL...' then after a brief prayer together for help, bill and i stumbled off into another day of pain trying to hold our Father's hand and trust...
i missed 'church' last sunday due to a pressing ministry need in the a.m. and from a wayward, weary heart in the p.m. when i walked in this a.m. so many said 'i missed you' that my cynical heart that attributes such statements to banal religiosity was almost ready to believe it genuine. then they had a special meal for the fathers after meeting and juan, as usual, told me in english what was planned and said, 'are you going to be there?' what could i say...well, the meal yielded a good deal of halting, gaping 'conversation' , a few shared jokes, some good cooking and i went away with a somewhat warmed heart. they even gave each of us a 'gift pack'. mine had smelly shaving cream (real fancykind with a name i couldn't pronounce) and a pair of dress socks (which since i have so many socks i haven't near worn out yet will hopefully find their way to one who truly needs them via the church 'pantry' which distributes item to such) stuffed inside yet another coffee cup (i think i'll keep that and get rid of another as a momento of the special time we had together today. every time gets better and they are most patient with my huge gaps.
i was given a special communication entitled 'bepop' which, though endearing in itself signals the need for a short etymology concerning the name given me just before Silas the First (Grandchild)'s first birthday last year. i had been asked repeatedly by others what i wanted to be called. i didn't know. i briefly surveyed names the flesh felt were humbly fitting such an one as i, such as ohgreatexaltedGRANDfather, etc. but none really hit home as truly fitting one such as i. as i was making a set of three building blocks for silas i had what mom always called a 'brain storm' where it came to me in a flash..pebapadoodle! that was my given name. that was who i am.
let me break the name down into its root and parts.
just as my first name is stephen, the greek word, stephanos, meaning crown is - i am convinced by faith - my real, true nature...
(excursis.. i, in my wicked, sin-filled nature am on the very other end of the spectrum from royalty but BY GOD'S UNIMAGINABLE GRACE He, the king of kings, has made me His son and as such, heir -with Jesus - of all He owns (everything!) i still haven't got my my around who i really am yet but, by faith, He says He will wipe away all my tears, that He has pardoned all my wicked iniquities and deliberate transgressions agains His will...so i trust and wait for the moment when crudcake is remade into stephanos, heir of all things..)
...so the root of pebapadoodle, BABA, comes from the heart of fatherness. what is a father but one who gives life (along with mother), sustains and provides for life and then when the child is independent continues a never ending model of how to live. the divine bapa does all three absolutely perfectly, human fathers who receive any wisdom from Him, imperfectly and stumblingly. this name, bapa, like stephanos marks the ideal of divine fatherhood which should be the continual aspiration and model for every human. earthly progenitors, in the area of modeling can go in at least three paths. some may always have been and remain the perfect model. if this happens it can only happen appearingly for if all were revealed every person falls short of being the way God intended...perfectly like Him. but appearingly, it does happen and even that is a wonderful thing. the second way is to totally fail...meaning to not only fail but to stop trying not to fail. this is a tragedy but it happens... the third is to keep trying, no matter how many times one fails, to do better. the closer to trying to do this, to the very best of one's ability, the better, but in the last analysis there is something to be said for one who never stops, who never gives up. so i, a total failure in every area, am determined not to give up. may God enable me to in this sense BE bapa to those who follow.
the first part, the prefix 'pe' is short for 'pee' as it might occur in the word 'pee wee'. this points out the inescapable fact that i am, seen apart from God's grace disgusting. i think that if the greatest known believer called himself a wretched man many years after meeting Jesus then it is fitting that all the rest of us come somewhere below that description and should keep reminding ourselves (others do not need to be reminded of this. simply watching each other's lives is reminder enough!) of this...especially the prouder ones like myself. so i am first and foremost peewee paine. the word connotes excrement of the liquid nature and is used in england for a cent piece...'of small or little value in itself' might come closest to the core significance.
the final part, the prefix 'doodle' is a reminder of old yankee doodle. before the revolutionary war a british army surgeon penned the first verse of this ditty song (170 verses in all have been found from who knows how many 'authors') when the conscripted americans showed up for armed duty with the british during the french and indian war (1750s) in their mocassins and coonskin hats. what started out as a mockery from the british was taken on by the americans as one of their own theme songs (about themselves) during the time of their armed revolutionary conflict against the british. (here we are, dum dums in your eyes, and we will show you something you did not reckon as possible from us! this ending, 'doodle', is a like personal message to all who hate, despise and discount me...'you haven't seen the end yet'...
hope you have a good week. love, dad
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