Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

• John 13:34

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.

• John 13:14

We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.

• 2 Thessalonians 1:3

“This thing called life is an awfully long journey. For some, it seems an endless trip, filled with thankless responsibilities and relentless tasks, disappointments and deadlines, and daily demands.
“Being imperfect doesn’t help. Every so often we make stupid decisions. We don’t mean to, but we say things we wish we could retrieve. Selfishly, we look out for number one and later regret it. We act impulsively and realize, after the fact, how foolish we were, how dumb we looked. On top of all that, we hurt the ones we love the most. All this stuff caves in on us at certain times and we wonder how anybody could ever love us … especially God.
“Ever get the feeling that life is a violin solo and you’re wearing boxing gloves? l sure do. Some days it seems like this pilgrimage from earth to heaven is an Indianapolis 500 and I’m driving an obsolete, rusty tank. That thought hits me when my load seems extra heavy and it appears that the other guy’s load is virtually nonexistent. And haven’t you noticed, comparison is lethal! When you’re down—l mean whale-belly, bottom-of-the-ocean down—and you focus on how easy others seem to have it, self-pity siphons that last drop of motivation you needed to finish the day. Every time we compare (yes, every time) we wind up with the short end of the stick. Either we start feeling smug and sassy or we feel even worse because the other person is better looking or makes more money or is thinner or smarter or wears nicer clothes or has gotten the breaks or is better read or … or …
“When we start thinking like this, we need to turn our mind to the ‘one anothers’ in the New Testament. Here’s lust a sampling; Love one another, build up one another, live in peace with one another, confess your sins to one another, speak to one another, admonish one another, comfort one another, pray for one another.”

• Charles R. Swindoll, The Finishing Touch (Devotion for week 41, Thursday)

Rev. Swindoll touches on several topics here.  I agree that comparison is a very dangerous thing, and always ends badly, even if we simply say nothing.

But he goes on to talk about two people hiking in the mountains.  One is wearing a child’s backpack, and it is half loaded.  The other is wearing a huge backpack with all of their remaining needs.  It might be easy on a hiking trip to ask to share the load, but when the backpack is metaphorical and the load is a lot of “life” and the other person is the couple sitting next to you in the pew, it becomes a lot harder to reach over and offer to help.

In the end of his devotional, Rev. Swindoll talks of the beauty of small groups.  They can do what a worship service in church fails to do.  In honest Bible study, you can find those heavy burdens and you can develop the friendships necessary in simply asking if you can share part of the other’s burden.  Even if you only pray for one another, those small intimate groups can do wonders.

When I read his story about the hikers, I remembered going to Philmont Scout Ranch when I was fifteen.  I was fifteen years old and an eagle scout.  I left Philmont sixteen years old, and no one on my trek new when my birthday was.  As luck would have it, we climbed Mt. Phillips that day, all 11,700ft of it.  Each of us standing on the survey marker at the peak.  The trip down the mountain on the other side was complicated in that there had been an earthquake in the off season and the trail simply disappeared.  Most of the guys decided to slide down the side of the mountain.  This caused half the guys on the patrol having the bottoms of their scout uniform shorts ripped out.

That night, our adult leader asked each person, and I was the only one who had packed a sewing kit.  I repaired everyone’s ripped shorts.  They dubbed me “the seamstress of Philmont.”  And that was on my birthday.  We were camped that day in a primitive camp, meaning no resupply of food or water.  We had climbed Mt. Phillips with double rations.  Instead of the usual 35-50lb packs, our packs were over 80lbs that day.  But unlike Rev. Swindoll’s example, we all carried roughly the same load.

But the workload was heavy on me that day.  When we set up camp, I had a half dozen pairs of shorts to repair, but in the usual duty roster fashion, I had cooking duty that night also.  When I opened the dehydrated packets, I learned we were going to have beef stroganoff.  I was one of the few that had ever eaten the dish.  No one wanted the dehydrated sour cream, but our adult advisor said that he would try it.  He and I had beef stroganoff.  Everyone else had dehydrated beef on gravy and noodles.  He raved that the sour cream made the dish, but no one else tried it.

And having cooking duty, that meant I did most of the sewing deep into the night.  At least the guys held their flashlights so that I could see what I was doing.

And as I stitched, I sang, silently, so that no one would know, “Happy Birthday to me …”

At the time, I was doing my “one another” duty, but I was not too thrilled about it.  But I can look back at that freshly minted sixteen-year-old and say, “You have yet to see a heavy burden.  This birthday celebration is nothing compared to what is ahead.”

But God tells us to find Joy in such times.  That is even harder, but I will endure more pain in my life… Anything to reach that place where there is no more pain, no more suffering, no more sin, and no more death.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.