Reflections on 9/11

Today is the anniversary of 9/11/01 when four planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers realized that their plane was headed to Washington, DC and they attacked the hijackers.  It was the first foreign attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, and it was totally unexpected.  There was a great loss of American lives that day.  We must never forget this fateful day, nor the lives that were lost.  Many things changed in America after that day. 

Where were you when you heard the news about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center buildings?  I was working at the now-defunct Walnut Street Securities, a broker-dealer affiliated with MetLife.  My hours were 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM CST.  There were four TVs hanging from the ceiling at our reception area, which were tuned to the financial news channels.  When I got to work, the news channels were broadcasting the news about the plane that had hit the World Trade Center.  I went to my desk and clocked in, searching the Internet for any news or updates.  On the way back to my desk after getting my second cup of coffee, I looked up at the TVs and saw the second plane hit the other World Trade Center tower.  Everyone at work was in shock and no one was getting any work done anyway, so the powers that be let us go home at 11:00 AM.

I watched the TV all afternoon after I got home from work.  There was no Twitter or Facebook back then, so I had several browser windows open to news websites such as CNN, MSNBC and kept refreshing them to see if there was any updated news.  I and many others watched in horror on TV as the towers collapsed and people jumped from the buildings. I had a browser window open to the message board on RaptureReady.com, where my friends and I had a long thread going updating everyone on what was happening. 

Those people who died on 9/11 didn’t realize when they boarded those planes or when they went to work at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center buildings that they would not be coming home that day. Events like 9/11 should have us contemplating our eternal destination.  Tomorrow is not guaranteed, and your life could stop in the blink of an eye.  Make sure you know your eternal destination. Two thoughts on this – Hell is a hot, hot place and eternity is a long, long time.  The only other eternal destination is Heaven.  There is only one way to get to Heaven and that is through Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. If you would like to make Jesus Christ your Savior and assure your place in Heaven, please leave your contact information in a comment below and I will be glad to help you. 

And if you have the opportunity today, thank a first responder.  Many first responders lost their lives and/or became permanently injured or sick from rescuing people from the World Trade Center collapses.  These people could have chosen a different line of work but they did not, and for that, we should be grateful.  I’m thinking about my friends Jason Blum and Steve Cange, who are first responders, and I am thankful for their service. 

September 11 has now been designated a National Day of Service in memory and honor of those who lost their lives that day, but I think we should go one step further.  I think 9/11 should be designated a Federal holiday. Everyone should be off of work that day, not for holiday sales or party activities, but for solemn remembrance of that day and those who lost their lives.  We must make a conscious effort to never forget what happened on 9/11.  If we do forget, there is a real chance that the U.S. will be attacked again and you and/or I could be the victims this time. 

Thanks as always for reading!

Diane

The fruits of our labor

Today is the last day of Labor Day weekend.  This blog post is being posted this evening because it's the first free time I've had since returning home from the Labor Day family camp we attend every year.  I had to put everything away, and start the laundry. Thankfully, I didn't have to cook supper tonight.  Even on a day where you're supposed to not work, there is still work to do.

The first Labor Day parade was held on September 5, 1882, in New York City.  It was organized by various labor organizations under the supervision of the Central Labor Union of New York.  In 1894, Labor Day became an official Federal holiday.  The town in which I live still holds an annual Labor Day parade. The union members march in the parade and after the parade, there is a picnic for the union members and their families.

Most people, however, consider Labor Day weekend to be the last big party weekend of the summer.  They may take trips out of town and/or go camping, boating and drinking.  These folks probably don't think about the real meaning of Labor Day and what it represents.

Labor Day may have started in 1882, but the idea of enjoying the fruits of your labor was thought about a lot earlier than that.  In the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon wrote several verses about work and how labor should be enjoyed.  Here are the verses in Ecclesiastes that reference labor:

Ecclesiastes 2:24 -  Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.

Ecclesiastes 5:18 - Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 - So I commended enjoyment, because a man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life which God gives him under the sun.

So enjoy the Labor Day holiday!  Thanks for reading and see you next time!

Diane

Bibliography:

Labor Day, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day

"It is Well With My Soul" - the origin story and an analysis

“It is Well With My Soul” is one of the best-loved hymns of the Christian faith. “It is Well With My Soul” is in many hymnals, and many Christian artists have covered it. But do you know the story behind the hymn? 

The lyrics of “It is Well With My Soul” were written in 1873 by Horatio Spafford, a lawyer/ businessman from Chicago.  Mr. Spafford experienced great tragedies in the two years preceding the writing of the hymn.  His 2-year-old son died in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which also ruined him financially because of the many buildings he owned that burned down in the fire.  In the economic downturn of 1873, his business interests also took a downturn. The family was ready to take a cruise to Europe, but Spafford sent his wife and daughters ahead so he could take care of zoning problems that arose after the Great Chicago Fire.  He planned on meeting them in Europe after he had taken care of the zoning problems.

During the voyage to Europe, the ship on which Mrs. Spafford and her four daughters were sailing sank after colliding with another sea vessel.  Mrs. Spafford was the only family member who survived the crash, and she sent a telegraph to Mr. Spafford that read, “Saved alone.”  Mr. Spafford traveled to meet his wife and as the ship on which he was traveling passed the spot where his daughters drowned, he was inspired to write the words to “It is Well With My Soul.” The hymn tune was written by well-known composer Philip Bliss, who named the tune Ville du Havre, the name of the boat that sank. 

The lyrics of “It is Well With My Soul” are posted below. I will add the refrain after each verse and not post it separately. I’ll post my comments about each verse after the verse. 

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul

It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul),

It is well, it is well with my soul.

No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, if we trust in and know Jesus as our Savior, it will always be well with our souls.  He is sovereign over all; nothing happens without His consent.  Sometimes it is hard to remember that it is well with our souls during trials we may be encountering.  We may not understand why things happen the way they do when they occur. 

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul),

It is well, it is well with my soul.

No matter what trials and tribulations we may be going through, we are assured that Jesus loves us. He loves us so much that He died for us on the Cross so that our sins are forgiven.  We are to keep our eyes on and our confidence in Christ no matter what is happening around us or to us. 

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought,

My sin, not in part, but the whole

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, oh my soul!

It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul),

It is well, it is well with my soul.

When Jesus died on the Cross, He became the perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind.  When we trust in and believe in Jesus, our sins are forgiven and are nailed to the Cross with Christ. Christ’s death on the Cross was a selfless act deserving of all of our glory and praise.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

Even so, it is well with my soul.

It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul),

It is well, it is well with my soul.

The hymn writer was looking forward to the Rapture in this verse.  We believe in Jesus although we have never seen Him in the flesh.  We will, however, see Him in person for the first time at the Rapture.  The description in lines 2 and 3 match the description of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:16. (1 Colossians?)  When we are finally at home with the Lord, it will be well with our soul for all eternity!  That will be one incredible day and I can’t wait for that, can you? 

There are two verses in the original hymn that are not sung in churches today.  They were probably removed so that the hymn wouldn’t take so long to sing, especially since there is a refrain at the end of each verse.

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live,

If Jordan above me shall roll,

No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,

Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul),

It is well, it is well with my soul.

But Lord, 'tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,

The sky, not the grave, is our goal,

Oh, trump of the angel!  Oh, voice of the Lord,

Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.

It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul),

It is well, it is well with my soul.

The second verse ties into the last verse of the hymn, I think, and in my opinion, should probably be sung too.  The “blessed hope” referred to is the Rapture, and lines 2 and 3 also match the description of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

If you would like to see the handwritten manuscript of "It is Well With My Soul," you can go to the link here:  https://www.loc.gov/item/mamcol.016/

I hope that “It is Well With My Soul” is one of your favorite hymns as well.  Thanks for reading!

Diane

Bibliography:  "It is Well With My Soul," Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Is_Well_with_My_Soul

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Down in the dumps? You’re not alone

When you turn your life, heart, and soul over to Jesus Christ as your Savior, you may think you are going to live a happy ever after life, like in a fairy tale.  But it isn’t like that. Christians have the same problems as the world has, but Christians have Jesus, their Rock and their Good Shepherd to lean on and cry out to in their times of need and times of despair.  The world does not, for they love the darkness rather than coming to the Light.

In the Bible, you will find people turning to God in their depression and despair.  Job is one example.  Satan took just about everything away from Job.  Job had a right to be angry and sorrowful.  He lamented the fact that he had even been born.  Yet Job turned to God to vent his anger and sorrow.  He knew who his Helper was.

Hannah was sorrowful because she could not get pregnant.  So she went to the temple and poured out her sorrow to the Lord.  Hannah’s sorrow was so profound that Eli, the priest, couldn’t understand what she was saying to the Lord.  Yet Hannah knew that the Lord would comfort her and heal her.

David, the great man of God, also suffered from great sadness.  Most of David’s sorrows were of his own doing – he sinned by sleeping with Bathsheba, he had rebellious sons because he didn’t discipline them correctly, and at times, he didn’t trust God to deliver him from the hand of Saul.  Yet, like Job, David took his sorrows to the Lord and confessed his sins.  In the book of Psalms, we find David’s lamentations and we can relate to his sorrows. 

Even Jesus was sad.  He was half-human, after all, so He has all the emotions that we have.  He cried when Lazarus died, even though He knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.  He wept over Jerusalem, even though the people had hailed Him as Messiah and four days later, demanded that He be crucified.   In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wept so hard, it was like great drops of blood fell because His human side didn’t want to die a horrific death on the Cross. 

You are not alone, my fellow Christian.  I too have been sorrowful, for reasons I don’t wish to go into detail about here. You may have noticed that I have not written many posts on this blog in the last two years and my sadness and sorrow is why.  There is a line in Psalm 56:8 where David says, “You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?”  God’s bottle of my tears must be as big as the Atlantic Ocean.  I have done more than my share of crying and despairing.  But I too have turned to God as my Comforter. 

We can look forward to the day when there will be no more pain and no more suffering.  In Revelation 21:4, it says: "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

God will comfort you from your sorrows too, if only you will turn to Him.  He is always available when you need to pour out your sorrows.  But sometimes, the pain and despair are so deep that you feel the only way to be free from your sadness and despair is to end your life. My friend (for if you are reading this, I count you as my friend), that is when you need to cling to Jesus all the more.  But if you are in deep despair and need a human to talk to, visit with your pastor and he will give you godly counsel; or, if he’s not available, call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at (800) 273-8255 or go to the website.

Thank you as always for reading.   

Diane

Reflections on the three wise men

Today is January 6, which is also known as the church holiday of Epiphany.  Epiphany, which occurs on the church calendar 12 days after Christmas, marks the visit of the three wise men to worship Jesus and present gifts to Him.  The Gospel of Matthew is the only gospel that contains the wise men’s story. It can be found in Matthew 2:1-12. 

Matthew states that the wise men were from the East.  He is not specific about the country that the wise men came from.  It was not important which country they were from, only the area of the world that they were from, to show that they were not Jewish. 

 How did the Gentile wise men know about the Star and that it would lead them to the King of the Jews?  Some of the Jews did not return to Israel from Persia after the Babylonian exile. The Jews may have told the wise men of the Persians about the coming of the Messiah.  They may have pointed out Numbers 24:7, which states: “There shall a Star come out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel,” along with other Old Testament Scriptures about the Messiah.  This information would have been passed down by the Persian wise men over the centuries until the Star of Bethlehem finally appeared, fulfilling the Messianic prophecies.

The Persian Jews must not have told the wise men where the King of the Jews was to be born, however, so the wise men went to Herod, the Roman leader in Jerusalem. The wise men must have thought that since Herod was the ruler of the Jews, he would know where the King of the Jews was to be born. Herod didn’t know the answer to their question, so he asked the priests and the scribes if they knew where the King of the Jews was to be born.  They told him in Micah 5:2, it stated that the King of the Jews was to be born in Bethlehem.  Herod told the wise men and they left to find Jesus.

Most people set up their Nativity scenes with the three wise men near the manger.  This is wrong, however, because Jesus was not a baby when the wise men visited Him.  Matthew refers to Jesus as a young Child – if He had been an infant when the wise men paid their visit, Matthew would have referred to Jesus as the Baby Jesus.  Herod also refers to Jesus as a young Child, according to the time he determined from the wise men. Matthew also states that Mary and Jesus were living in a house, which meant they had left the stable.  Interestingly, Joseph is not mentioned in the story of the wise men – perhaps he was out of the house when the wise men came to call.

Even if the wise men had seen the Star of Bethlehem on the night of Jesus’ birth, it would have taken them a while to travel by camel and/or by foot to Bethlehem, perhaps up to 2 years, depending on what part of the east they lived in.  There were no interstate freeways and modern forms of transportation to get the wise men to Bethlehem sooner. Since they were important wise men, they may have had a large entourage to attend to their needs.  This would make the travel time even longer since there were more people traveling in the group.  The song “We Three Kings” states that the wise men were from the Orient.  It would probably take more than 2 years to get to Bethlehem from the Orient since the designation “the Orient” usually refers to China and Japan.  

After the wise men went home by another way and Herod realized he had been tricked, he ordered the deaths of all boy children under the age of 2 according to the time that the wise men had told him they had first seen the Star. This is another indication that Jesus was around 2 years old when the wise men visited. 

Legend has it that there were three wise men because of the three gifts that were presented to Jesus.  However, Matthew does not state for certain that there were only three wise men, and indeed, there could have been more than three wise men in the entourage, but only three of them presented the gifts. 

The wise men have been given names over the years and even been promoted to kings, but Matthew does not call them by name nor does he call them kings.  Matthew does not say that the three wise men introduced themselves by name to Mary either. 

More important than the background of the givers were the gifts themselves and the meanings of the gifts.  Gold was very valuable and it was given to a king as a tribute.  Jesus is not only the King of the Jews, He is the King of Kings.  Myrrh was a bitter perfume used for medicine and anointing oil. Myrrh was offered to Jesus on the Cross, and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus’s body in a mixture of myrrh and aloe after He was taken down from the Cross.  Frankincense was a symbol of holiness and righteousness and was used as incense in the Temple.  It represents Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, as frankincense was burned with the sacrifices on the showbread altar in the Temple.  

I am going to try and write more this year.  I apologize for not posting very often.  Thanks as always for reading and see you next time!

Diane