A Glimpse into the Unseen World

PSALM 91

(An expanded literal translation from the Hebrew

by Martin Van Horn)

1. The one who settles in the shelter offered by the Most High to whomever runs in, will find lodging so close he’ll be under the shadow of The Almighty.

2. Personally, I have decided to tell Jehovah “You are my protection and my mountain fortress; I am trusting You as my God.” [my Lawgiver, Teacher, Protector, Defender, Provider and Object of worship and my Source of identity].

3. [By revelation and by my experience I give you assurance:] Jehovah will extract you from the sneaky mesh of the Trapper and from the pervading pandemic.

4. The motherly strength of His feathered wings will cover you and you can find shelter there. His faithfulness will stand between you and your Enemy like a broad shield and breastplate.

5. You will not fear panic attacks at night, nor the attacks you can see during the day.

6. [Jehovah will preserve you as you go through] the plague at twilight or the destruction that strikes at noon. 7. All around you, you may see a thousand fall [into trouble, confusion, destruction and death] even a great number right beside you [but don’t flinch] 8. Because you [will live to] see the wicked get what is coming to them.

9. [A lot of these things happen in spiritual realms where we can’t see them, but] if Jehovah is really who you go to for shelter and the Most High God is the One you hang out with, 10.then evil [that starts in the spirit world] will not trouble you and these potential disasters will not get to your earthly location.

11. For Jehovah has armies of heavenly angels He can order to guard you in all your activities. 12. Their hands will be there to lift you over [fears, temptations, addictions and traps] that might trip you up. 13. Instead you will exercise god-given authority [in Jesus’ Name] to tread on the lion and cobra, to trample the great lion and serpent.

14. [Jehovah knows you too, since you rely on Him and have seen what His authority can bring about, so He wants to reassure you.] “Because this one is so attached to Me, I will help him slip through the opponents’ fingers. I can lift him high because he has submitted himself to the authority of my Name and he knows Me. 15.I will listen when he calls to me; I am with him in his trouble and I get him out of trouble and honor him. [After all he has been through,] his long life will make him satisfied and I will show him all that I have saved him for.”

HOME, A Poem

A hand reached down and struck a match
To light a short candle set in a window.
Estranged night could not smother and
It’s burning still.

For the moth sensing the flame in the darkness,
Fluttering to reach
What cannot help but burn,
And never go away again.

I burn, I fly the long corridors of desire.
The hand has lit my soul
And I am the moth to his light.
I burn unless I am burned up.

Are you too afraid? “..Is it warm? Is it pain?”
Ask your heart what love is worth.
Is love so small and you keep it?
Or is it bigger than you and I?

We hug; we kiss; we dream.
Warm loins; warm breasts; warm forever we hope.
If human touch can fill our souls, how much
More will fill us from above!

Come, join me.
We must not walk alone any more.
Fresh like thousands before, our climbing path is pebbly;
But we’ve learned that love is our pot of gold, ever brighter shining.

Let us leave the lonesome crowd,
The unsatisfied treasury.
Share your gathered jewels: our souls will be our purses.
We must go up, mortals leaning on an arm.

Home! I see the lighted lamp by the door
From far away;
A tourist on earth, I’ve dropped worn-out baggage.
Now I am dancing to seek Father’s flaming heart.

Come, join me. I do not walk alone any more.
We have been blessed, a taste of feasting future.
Love has set the table and will open the Door.
Father is calling us Home.

Home! Strong Carpenter’s hands
Greet us tender.
“Everything is ready for you.
I’m glad you’ve finally arrived.”

The Man Who Gave up Everything for Love

He said it himself, “If a man were to give up all the comforts and luxuries of home for love, he would be greatly despised.” That’s how it went down.

Would a king give up his throne for love? We know it did happen in England. In 1936 King Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, a rather scandalous society woman, the first woman featured as Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.” Indeed Edward became Duke of Windsor, despised by many for immorality before marriage and for compromising his royal heritage. At the end of her life, Wallis lamented, "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."

Even the King of England could not elevate his beloved to the status of royalty, but there is a king who gave up every comfort for his Beloved, endured her rejection, then in spite of all odds was able to elevate her to royalty and to maintain a love relationship that would not wear out, but would get better for all time.

Such a love story must start in the ultimate furnace where unbearable ardor is forged. Gripping, yet giving, love without beginning builds an exchange that cannot be contained. Sustained by divine fire, surrounded by glorious joy and unbroken faithfulness, the Prince of Heaven looked at his Promised Bride, prepared by his Perfect Father. Unfettered communion, eye-to-eye transparency of Father and Son would not conceal the cost of winning back a Creature so lovely, so talented, so powerful, who had snipped off the gossamer rope of trust. In the midst of God’s Garden, the Serpent had stolen the keeper’s heart and with it, had received the wonderful blue planet of life. How could the Prince win the heart of his companion’s lost sharing and confidence?

How could humankind reject the generous provider for the selfish rebel, who could give them nothing he had not stolen? Yet we men and women did that and have sided with the Enemy, mistaking our divine Lover for a religious control freak and relabeling the Prince of Darkness our liberator, the revealer of secrets.

Unknown to us, unexpected by any human speculation, the Prince paid the cost. He left the joy, the comfort, the safety, the love of home to be a vulnerable child, open to assassination by the Enemy. Never before had such a prince shed immortality for love, to gain a fickle lover already sold out to his rival. No one knew him as prince. They despised him as a poor idealist, gathering the rabble by stunts of healing, defying those in the know. The whole thing could not have a happy ending. For a while it didn’t. The victims of the Enemy’s power became his willing accomplices and killed the King of Glory. Some love story! But this Lover is like no other. His Father had a plan.

Rejection satisfied the price of a human soul, even bought back all our human souls, in God’s eyes. The Prince was worth more than us all, all of us together. It wasn’t our rejection, it was his Father’s acceptance that opened closed persons to the love they no longer felt, but still wanted. Many waters cannot wash away this love. The fires of love burn bright in the oceans of heaven. It turns out the grip of jealous love is not only equal to the unyielding power of the grave, but could actually overpower death itself.

Love had won, death had lost. Now the wooing would infiltrate the darkened souls of lovers unloved, longing for that Someone, that Someone they had been created for. The unyielding passion of the Prince for his Bride has been revealed. The love story is true. Your Prince has come. Let yourself be loved, rebuild that broken bridge of faith. He will light your fire. Go with him wherever he is, on earth, back home: open hearts, eternal fire, eternal rest.

THE INVASION OF THE ABSURDLY HAPPY

The Invasion of the Absurdly Happy

By Martin T. Van Horn

A Meditation on the Beatitudes

They live among us, unobtrusive, ordinary except when they can let it all out. Normal people are stuck in earthly things: people, stuff, feelings, hopes, circumstances, money, you know the drill. But these aliens, these weirdoes relate to us like they come from another realm. Maybe that’s because they do. Except they weren’t born that way.

Happy are the poor people who receive the Kingdom of God and live there. Happy are the people that are sad about their true state of affairs. Happy are the people who accept God’s will for their lives. That’s what Jesus said, sitting on a mountainside and mystifying his hearers.

I guess that’s because Jesus came from another realm, not another planet but from the Place where God is King, somewhere called “The Kingdom of Heaven.” He describes to us the dwellers in that kingdom, how happy they are. Some happiness we can connect with: peacemakers happy because they get to be called Children of God. Other happiness sounds really absurd: kingdom dwellers happy to be persecuted and rejected for bearing the name of Jesus. Strange!

I think the reason we have a problem being happy like Kingdom Citizens is because God has a problem of communication. We are stuck and He is not. We keep looking around for good things and He himself is the good we seek. We persist in asking for things we want so we can be happy and He keeps wanting to give us Himself because He is comfort and joy. Joy? Yes, joy.

Does that mean God is not cranky, picky, sanctimonious, legalistic? Could He want to invade our planet with an outlandish joy and freedom we would not otherwise experience? Yes and yes, because He did invade and some people have transferred their citizenship from earth to His Kingdom. As St. Paul wrote, “The Kingdom of God is not the eating and drinking, but rightness from God and peace and joy in God’s Holy Spirit.” He should know, because we see him in shackles in prison after being whipped for disturbing the peace in Macedonia by showing the power of Jesus. Instead of bemoaning his fate, he and Silas sang at night for joy to God. Strange but true, then God showed up with an earthquake that broke the shackles off and turned the suicidal jail keeper into a fellow citizen of the Kingdom.

“Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow,” was said by Helen Keller, blind and deaf though she was. Some of the happiest people don’t have happy circumstances: they may be poor, they may have faced up to their true state of affairs, they learned to accept God’s will for their lives, they may even be facing persecution and rejection. The absurd thing is that God wants to come into your life and circumstances right now and give you joy, His joy, not as the world gives. His is not transient, dependent on mood or just the right circumstances or some chemical or large amount of money. C. S. Lewis observed that these pleasures are just a substitute for true joy.

Would you like true joy right now? It might be absurd. Nothing in you or around you looks like you would like it to be. That’s all right. Let God come in, invite Him, trust Him, let your spirit rejoice even though your soul’s thoughts and feelings are contrary. Jesus said, “these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves; I have given to them God’s word, and the world did hate them, because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world.” His joy is outlandish, absurd and real.

A PARADE IN HONOR OF YOU

A Parade in Honor of You

By Martin T. Van Horn (martin_vh@yahoo.com)

When you enter a crowded room, do you scan it for familiar faces? Looking for friends, for someone to talk with, someone glad to see you too: that excites us all. How awkward to visit someplace new and not know anyone, feeling unwanted and unsure, maybe even scared. This brings forward the Inner Questioner: “Am I someone, or no one? Am I good or bad? Should I impose myself, or hang back? Am I welcome here?”

Well, like the story of Cinderella, the Prince in his Castle has issued you an invitation to a grand ball to be held in honor of his Bride. “Who me? He is Somebody and I am nobody! What do I wear? Will anyone be there that I know? What kind of music and what dances do they play? Help!”

The Prince wants you to have a good time and feel at ease. So he has asked people whom you have influenced to greet you when you arrive along the Parade Route at the entrance of his walled city. His Castle occupies the high ground at the top of God’s Mountain. He has cut steps into the rock to help you ascend to the top, knowing everyone along the parade route is cheering you on. They are rooting for you and know you’ll make the grade. All along the streets people will come up to you to say, "Thank you. Thanks for praying. Thanks for encouraging. Thank you for being there!" Do you like to hug? How about dozens, hundreds? Even people who once had problems will have them no more. You'll be glad to see them. You are welcome here!

Your heart has had glimmerings of the Prince’s glory, even through the crappiness of life. You have heard that he came down once from his castle to bring people back to his home, but that he was unrecognized and rejected and crucified instead. The Prince overcame death and came to life again. He then offered everybody a Second Chance to know him and follow him back home. In fact he said, “I have given you in your spirit everything you will need to live in light and escape the shadows and darkness that drag you down. In fact a seed of My Glory is now in you too, if you accept it. If you really want what’s really real, go for it! The crappiness of life will cling to you, but you can come out shining.”

By trusting in the Prince’s Promises (you need to keep reading them to remind yourself), the next step is to practice being of good character (you know: honest, trustworthy, clean, helpful, patient). It won’t be easy, so the second step is to practice self-control (“garbage in; garbage out”). You’ll find perseverance is the ingredient to add to self-control to keep you taking that step carved into the mountain. (You always knew mountain climbing was hard!) You don’t have it in you to be perfect by yourself, you need the power of God. He put His spark into you and He will keep talking to you and reassuring you of His ability. As you near the summit, you will keep helping other climbers with your caring and with love that comes from God Himself.

“If you practice these steps more and more, you will be productive and effective in knowing Prince Jesus. Those who lose sight of the goal become nearsighted or blind, forgetting the price the Prince paid to get them to the Castle. But if you keep going, He won’t let you fall. Instead you will receive a Grand Entrance into the City. All the people you have loved and helped and prayed for will be there to greet you and thank you and celebrate your arrival! And the joy of meeting and talking and singing and dancing will never end.” (Second Letter of Peter, chapter 1)

I am looking forward to seeing familiar and new loving faces when I get there. I want to see you there too!

DREAM HOUSE WITH A VIEW

Dream House with a View

By Martin Van Horn (martin_vh@yahoo.com)

This year when we walked into our new Louisville townhouse for the first time, I was delighted to find cathedral ceilings with skylight, as I have admired for years, plus a deck to relax on. Sharon was excited to see a fireplace and a garage; Bekka to have a basement apartment all to herself. Making it even more special was the fact that friends had picked it for us, knowing we would love this place.

Of course there were things we loved about our old rent: the spacious green expanse of the backyard, the “Great Room” painted in Old Colonial colors, with fireplace and large mirrors, plenty of space and extra rooms. However, just before we moved we were reminded why it was not so enjoyable: overflowing toilets, mouse in the kitchen, cold rooms and moisture. We grieve the lovely and leave the negatives gladly.

So it is with life. Someone is building your Dream House for you. “What? Without consulting me?” you ask. Not exactly. The Designer and Builder knows you intimately, and you are sending Him the building materials right out of your own experience.

Jesus said, “Don’t worry. I am away for a while, but I am preparing a home just for you. In My Father’s House are many mansions. If I’m gone, it’s just to get one ready for you.”

Paul said, “At the end of life, everything we have done will have to pass a test. Is it eternal or not? Some of our thoughts and accomplishments will go ‘Poof’ in a puff of smoke, like dry grass or kindling. Other dreams and deeds will be exposed as shiny, enduring gold, silver and precious gems. These are the ones the Designer asked us to create by agreeing with Him about the things that needed doing.”

Today are you challenged to be patient? It will pay off. Your are building granite and marble into your living room. Are you moved in your gut to help out someone in need? Do it and add some golden flowers to your balcony. Is your spirit longing to talk with God? He is moving you, because He cares and wants to communicate. Let Him know how you feel and what kind of person you want to become. Light up your bedroom: today a prayer closet, tomorrow your mansion.

Think of it like the birthday present you always wished for and Someone knew it and went to great lengths, moved heaven and earth to get it for you. You are the present that God wants to shape so you and He can be proud. His Son, Jesus, is the master Craftsman. He took the ugly parts of you with him when he died on the Cross and created a New You that will be revealed bit by bit here on Earth, but will bust out in glory when you get Home to Jesus. The master Craftsman is building your perfect house with the materials you supply. Your eyes will light up when you see it, bursting out, “That’s me!” 

Today put your confidence in the master Craftsman. If you need his New You, ask him. Lay down the Old You and accept his gift and his handiwork. If you have unfulfilled dreams, that’s because this Earth is not good enough for you. Father and Son are building you and building you a home that fits and will give you pleasure forever. You will never be bored with the New You and your Dream Home with a view.