We’re in Gold Beach, Oregon, and I’m sitting at a coffee shop/ book shop that has wireless internet access—not for free, but for a reasonable price. Chuck went fishing today, but I was not interested.
I mentioned something about romance novels last time. The thing that bugs me about romance novels is that there’s always a bad boy who falls for a nice girl and she finally overcomes her aversion to his bad habits and falls head over heals for him. I first noticed this story line some years ago when I watched “Carousel” (Rodgers & Hammerstein?). What really stopped me in my tracks is when the girl (I can’t remember if it’s the young wife or later the teen-aged daughter) says, “When somebody who loves you slaps you, it doesn’t really hurt.” Oh, right! That gives permission for men everywhere to continue beating their wives, as long as they really love them.
Danielle Steele (sp?) and Victoria Holt are not much better. There’s always a pirate or a gambler or a womanizer who is drop-dead gorgeous and the heroine always chooses him over the reliable, respectful—albeit slightly boring—lord or earl or businessman. I thank my God I chose the reliable, respectful, and never boring Chuck Wilson; yesterday we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary and I have not regretted even one day of our life together.
My second thought for the day is a bit more religious in nature, because after all this is a missionary blog, so you do expect it to be religious, don’t you? We have majored for about 5 years now on God’s blessing to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. God promises Abraham to bless him and make his name great and to bless the whole earth through him etc. etc. In our presentations at churches, we have tended to stress the fact that when God blesses, He intends the blessed person to be a blessing: “We are blessed to be a blessing” is the jist of it.
Recently, though, my attention was drawn to God’s promise to “make his name great.” I began to contrast that promise with the efforts of many a man to “make a name for himself.” For several days I couldn’t track down a verse in the Bible that refers to a person “making a name for him/herself” and then I finally remembered the Tower of Babel story. Those people wanted to build a great tower, using brick and mortar, to make a name for themselves (and to keep from being scattered througout the earth). It’s no coincidence that most of the people who have impressed me recently as trying to make a name for themselves have done it with brick and mortar.
I have often regretted the fact that Chuck and I are not in-demand conference speakers. You won’t find our name on brochures for camp meeting speakers, church-growth seminars or big revivals. We have not risen to leadership in our mission organization either. Nobody knows our names.
Except for the God of heaven. I will leave it to Him to make our names great.
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