Do You Know Me Now?

11/10/2005

One week from today I will be going to my High School Class Reunion…thirty years, in case you were wondering! I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to miss it either, so I filled out the form and sent in the check, and now it’s almost here. I did attend my ten-year reunion and my twenty-year, so I guess it’s only right that I go to the thirty year.

I woke up this morning, right out of a dream, where I was at my class reunion trying to find someone I knew in the crowd of people. I found one old friend and she started telling me things, strange things, like she was one of those psychics people go to, and I started telling her about God…like I told you, this was a dream and weird things happen in dreams. Then the thought came to me in my dream, “Do you know me now?”  I instantly woke up with that thought on my mind, like God didn’t want me to forget it. It seemed to be the subject for my next message, so here I am, and we’ll see where it takes us today!

My first order of the day is usually to get some coffee, some pecans, which are my breakfast, and grab my Bible and “My Utmost For His Highest.” Sometimes, I will search out the verse found at the top of each page in that devotional, and sometimes I will not. Today I did, being drawn to read First Peter. I love the way Paul finishes up this chapter in the Bible, he says, “My purpose in writing is to encourage you and assure you that the grace of God is with you no matter what happens.” 1 Peter 5:12b (NLT) That makes me smile, because I hope that what I write encourages all of you!

It also said today, on November 5th in this devotional, “If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across.”

Who knows what I will come across next Saturday night? Who knows what souls I will meet from the past and what they will have been through in their own lives? It is interesting to think that the “multitude of experiences” we have had in our lives were not meant for us at all, but so that we could be useful in God’s hands, more able to understand those we meet along the way. That should help bring us all together!

My classmates from thirty years ago don’t know me now, but neither do I know them. We will, for the most part, be a group of strangers that come together for one evening, putting on our best face, smiling for the cameras, telling of all the great things that have happened, of our children, of our grandchildren, of our travels and our jobs, and yet, is that who we really are? Will we know each other better when the night is over? I would like to think so. I would like to think that it will not be a night of play-acting, or making it look like our lives are so wonderful and perfect, but that we will be able to sit down beside one another and really catch up on what life has been like since we put on that cap and gown and all graduated together back in 1975.

Remember all the different “groups” we put ourselves in back in High School? There were those who did, and those who didn’t, those who cheered, and those who sat in the bleachers, those who ran for the touchdowns, and those who played in the band. We kept ourselves separated in our little groups, never daring to venture into another group because we knew we just didn’t belong there. You don’t hang out with the smokers if you don’t smoke, you wouldn’t sit with the band if you didn’t play an instrument, you wouldn’t carry a load of books in your arms if you weren’t one of the studious ones…our roles were clearly defined and there was no crossing over to the other side. But times have changed, the years have gone by, and we are all adults now…

So get rid of all malicious behavior and deceit.
Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with
hypocrisy and jealousy and backstabbing. You
must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can
grow into the fullness of your salvation.
1 Peter 2:1-2 (NLT)

The time is well passed now to grow up, to put behind us all the foolish ways we had of looking at things when we were teenagers. I know there are people who are my good friends now who I probably never would have even talked to in High School. We would have been part of a different crowd, but not now, especially not now as believers in Christ. “Of course, your former friends are very surprised when you no longer join them in the wicked things they do, and they say evil things about you. But just remember that they will have to face God…” (1 Peter 4:4-5 NLT)

It is hard to see someone differently than you have always known him or her, but times do change and so do people, especially when a heart has been surrendered to God. “…God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3b NLT)

I sat across the table from a very good friend of mine about five years ago…we talked of many things but as the conversation went on, I could tell she didn’t really know me anymore. We had not spent a lot of time together and what she knew of me was outdated, and it surprised me. I guess what surprised me the most was that she thought she knew me, and in many ways she still did and our conversation was relaxed and easy on that day, but there were pieces missing in her picture of me, and I would have to believe that when I attend my class reunion next Saturday, it will be that way with all my old classmates. I will see them as I knew them, not as they are today. I want to get to know them as they are today. I want to hear about their “multitude of experiences,” and know their new hearts, and even cross over to the “other side” and embrace those who were seemingly off-limits to me in high school. “Don’t slip back into your old ways of doing evil; you didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God—who chose you to be his children—is holy.” (1 Peter 1:14b-16 NLT) “Now you can have sincere love for each other as brothers and sisters because you were cleansed from your sins when you accepted the truth of the Good News. So see to it that you really do love each other intensely with all your hearts.” (1 Peter 1:22 NLT)

I’m sure we will all go into the evening with certain expectations. I know that I, for one, have been looking in the mirror a lot more lately, and I keep seeing a woman who is almost fifty now…in all honesty, I want to look younger. I wonder if they will be shocked, wondering what happened to me…is that ridiculous or what? They will all be almost fifty also!! I might wonder what happened to them!

But what should we really be looking at? I’ll tell you what, the same thing Edith Bunker was looking at when she went to her class reunion--the heart! Yes, we were watching an old “All In The Family” the other night and Edith was at her reunion. Everyone there, including Edith, could not wait to meet up with the football hero they all loved in school. Archie of course, met up with him first and he had changed, shall we say! He told Archie that no one had even recognized him yet. Archie couldn’t wait to take him over to meet Edith because he knew she might even have had a slight crush on him way back when…as Archie started to introduce him to Edith, she wasn’t even listening, she knew immediately who he was and was overjoyed at seeing him again! The football jock asked her how she knew it was him, and she said it just took one look into his eyes…she was looking at his heart, not his girth.

Edith’s character had a sincere love for others. She modeled Christ in that show long before I even realized what she was doing. We might have thought her foolish, but she was very wise and Archie was actually the dingbat!

People are like grass that dies away;
their beauty fades as quickly as the
beauty of wildflowers. The grass withers,
and the flowers fall away. But the word of
the Lord will last forever.
1 Peter 1:24 (NLT)

Our son, Chris, is very busy these days applying for a new job. He would very much like to join the Sheriff’s Department as a future career. He has been going through testing, starting with written tests, then physical tests, and his most recent was a face-to-face interview which also required reams of paperwork that he had to fill out so they can know him probably better than anyone else ever will. He has had to put down everywhere he ever lived, went to school, worked and also give the names of family and friends who can be interviewed as to his character--but what I find most interesting is the questions he says they are asking him to answer. He has to tell them everything he has ever done, whether he got caught for it or not! Think about it…some say, oh that wouldn’t be so tough. He tells those that have said that, “Read the question and then ponder it for a week, you’ll be amazed at what you start remembering in your past!”

To tell you the truth, I don’t even want to know! I’m old now, almost fifty as I’ve told you, and I would like to think my children are saints. They are of course, as all believers are in God’s eyes, but you know what I mean. Chris said the most awesome thing when he was telling me about filling out all the forms though…he said that even if he didn’t get the job, this has been so good for him--to take a look back, to really think about the kind of person he has been. He said it is helping him to want to be a better person for God. I have to believe this is a cleansing experience for him, and I wonder after hearing about it if it is not something we all should do in our mid twenties after coming out of, many times, tumultuous teenage years?

As parents, we must have great patience with our children as God does with us. In 1 Peter 3:19, it says “…long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat.” Can’t you just see it? God could have had that boat built in the blink of an eye, Noah took about a hundred years…and God waited for him. I wonder what lessons Noah learned, besides how a boat went together? He must have had a lot of time to think over his life as he worked, and when he was finished; he was more than likely a different man than when he started. His patient Father watched him work and grow and learn and was probably beaming with his son, Noah, when he was done with such a huge project—one that was built out of obedience.

As I watch our sons build their futures with their families, it leaves me beaming. Not because of where they live or even the jobs they work at, but because I see the growth in their hearts towards God. It hasn’t been easy, it has taken great patience, and more times than I would care to count, I lost my patience…but God has been so good. He has taken all the mistakes I have made and covered them with His love and forgiveness. He is able to do exceedingly more than we could ever dare to ask or imagine, even with our children! This doesn’t mean their lives will be perfect, because no one’s life is, but we can trust God with the life He has planned for our children, knowing that whatever it is they are going through has a purpose behind it and ultimately that purpose is to draw them close to Him--even though we must patiently wait...

Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you
are going through, as if something strange were happening
to you. Instead, be very glad—because these trials will
make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and
afterward you will have the wonderful joy of sharing
his glory when it is displayed to all the world.
1 Peter 4:12-13 (NLT)

Everything we went through during our high school years, everything Chris is now having to put down in black and white on those forms, is what shaped all of us. It is part of who we were, but it does not have to be the whole of who we are now in Christ! We are a new creation when we are willing to lay it all down at the foot of the throne, bringing it into the light and asking for forgiveness. “This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9 NLT) We all have a past, but it doesn’t have to be dragged into our future!

When we go back to our class reunions, it gives us that opportunity to take a look back and also to see how far we have come…to examine who we are now as opposed to who we were then. If we are the same, something is wrong! We are missing something very important in this life…growth! Yes, we will have all grown older, and hopefully wiser and maybe even financially, but that is what we will be looking at when we look at each other, that is not what God is looking at. He wants us to see us grow closer to Him through the years, to have taken the fiery trials we have been through and let them bring Him glory, to offer our hearts each day to Him for inspection, for purification, for renewal…He wants to grow us up in His way, in holiness, far beyond the natural, worldly way of growth that surrounds us.

When we gather together, even with those we don’t know well, we should never feel alone on the journey through life--we should be comforted to know that those we meet also have a “multitude of experiences” to share with us. Their lives have not been perfect either, they have struggled just as we have, they have seen great miracles, just as we have, and they need to be loved, just as we do. “Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are.” (1 Peter 5:9 NLT)

After thirty years, there should no longer be “groups,” there should be oneness. We all started this journey together years ago, and even though we have been apart for most of those years, our lives have not been so very different. We have all had choices to make with education, careers, to marry or not, to have children or not, to move around, or to stay in one place…the list could be endless, but most importantly, “…if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.” (1 Peter 3:15 NLT) And if we cannot explain it because we have no faith or even hope…it really is time to take a look back and see when and where and why we made that choice. I have heard it said that, “No choice is making a choice.” We have chosen, “And if even we Christians must be judged, what terrible fate awaits those who have never believed God’s Good News?” (1 Peter 4:17b NLT)

The choice is very simple, heaven or hell. If someone can honestly say that they don’t care if they spend an eternity in hell, then there’s no use in even reading what I have been writing about for the past four-plus years. But if there is someone still reading who does care about his or her eternity and they are wondering about that choice, perhaps that person wants to choose heaven, even if they are still in “resistance mode.” But, in 1 Peter it says, “The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.” (V. 4:7)

If that’s you, please be earnest and disciplined in your prayers,” or the end may come and you may not be ready. There is no time to waste…just yesterday I graduated from high school. Next Saturday it will be thirty years…Jesus will come in the blink of an eye!! “And when the head Shepherd comes, your reward will be a never-ending share in his glory and honor.” (1 Pet. 5:4 NLT) You don’t want to miss it!!

I don’t want to miss my reunion either, even though my classmates don’t know me now, and I don’t know them either. Hopefully, we will remedy that situation as best we can in the few hours we will have together on that night, and if we never meet up again on this earth, I hope to see most of them in heaven one day because of the choices we all made during our growing years!

In his kindness God called you to his eternal glory by
means of Jesus Christ. After you have suffered a
little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen
you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. All
power is his forever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 5:10 (NLT)

Some of us are no longer the almost 30 years olds, still just getting started in life that we were at our ten-year reunion. We are no longer the almost 40 year olds, in the throes of raising kids and building our careers at our twenty-year reunion. We are now the almost 50 year olds, heading into a time in most of our lives where we are able to do a lot of looking back and seeing where we’ve been, hopefully having learned a great deal, having made some wise decisions, and having a peace in our heart as to where our future lies. That future, if not built on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, is useless. Life is fleeting, thirty years are gone in an instant, and the next thirty will go even faster…

These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is
strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies
gold—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere
gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by
fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor
on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
1 Peter 1:7 (NLT)

Like my oldest brother says, “You gotta ask yourself a question…Are you ready?”
Are you ready for the greatest Reunion of all when Jesus returns?
It’s time…fill out the form and mark the box that says, “Yes, I will be attending.”
Jesus already paid the price!
Come, join the party!! You won’t want to miss it!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Diane