October 02, 2014
Still a Blessing
Virginia, who is 102 years-old,
has been attending a local church for two years. Last Sunday she walked unaided
to the front of the church auditorium and placed (transferred) her membership. Speaking to
the congregation she said, “I want you to know you have been a blessing to me,
and I hope I will be a blessing to you. I’ve felt like a visitor for the last
two years and now I feel like I belong.” I had to laugh because Virginia, who
has been a Christian for over 80 years, immediately became the oldest member of
the congregation. “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a
righteous life” (Proverbs 18:31 NIV).
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Gail;
-----Virginia has lived through a lot of history. And not just because she’s 102. Born in 1912, the public concerns and conversations around her childhood would reflect many of the horrors of World War I and the flu epidemic killing as prolifically. The jollies of the twenties were her teen years, the depression of the thirties her twenties. Her thirties were greeted by World War II‘s devastation; the lesson of maniacal narcissists’ attraction to power and the brutal inhumanity they pour forth from their pinnacles.
-----Paralleling those horrific decades went forth a wave of utopian dreaming, the certainty that man could build a sheltering tower out of his blooming sciences and inventions, the assurance that man was the greatest life had to offer, actually though, the cause of those three, tragic decades. If Virginia lived the Bible’s wisdom from the core of her heart, she may have recognized a beast rising. But most didn’t. By the latter forties, communists and capitalists alike, atheists and Christians and pretty much everybody pegged Hitler as the beast, then closed that chapter of human possibilities.
-----A decade and a half of prosperity and struggle lit a man on the moon and painted a new happy face on the same spirit that drove Hitler. By mid-life, Virginia lived from the putt-a-putt-putt cars taking the reins of transportation from horses to space travel taking the reins of science from nuclear fears to medical marvels and the minds of man from the Word of God to his own. Being a Christian, maybe she noticed the real marvel of the twentieth century right next to its midpoint: Israel, God’s obstacle for the world. And maybe she noticed the real trend raising again the same wave of deceit behind its new happy face.
-----Virginia entered her years of aging wisdom at the same time America’s youth led the world from socially tolerating the truth into social rebellion against it. Maybe she noted that. Many Christians did. But sadly, more were moisture to the root of that rebellion. The 1968 Democrat National Convention and Kent State taught journalists the power to lead by just leaning. Then Woodward and Bernstein showed them how to take down presidents (and by reverse application, how to prop up others.) Soon, TV and movie entertainment joined journalists and Rock stars to lead America’s social mindset in building again the tower to utopia. It would be hard for anyone who knows the Lord to not notice the consequences: Nixon cheated, Ford fumbled, Carter bumbled, Reagan resisted, Bush Sr. dodged, Clinton perverted, W was pummeled, and Obama lies. How much that resembles an animal in its death throw!
-----It is difficult to miss the new beast coming to life, airliners flying into buildings, explosions in restaurants, poking and shoving against Israel, raining missiles upon her, calling her the little Satan and America the big one, which we more resemble now than our abandoned way of truth and justice. This juvenile beast begins to move about the world, cutting heads off good folks not worshipping who it says to worship.
-----Virginia’s lifetime has spanned a lot to behold, from riding beasts to being ridden by one. Now comes signs and wonders in the sky - total lunar eclipses on Jewish holidays at significant dates of Israel’s new nationality. I’m not 102 years packed with wisdom. But I have eyes to see, and I am convinced it is time to tell: Jesus is coming. And I don’t mean “someday”. Be packing your spiritual bags, brothers and sisters; be trimming you lamps; and be talking about it to everyone who will listen.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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