Lift up your eyes and look around
- Isaiah 49:18a
Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
- John 4:35
And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
- John 20:22
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”
- Mark 1:17
“This time [Self-pity] began by saying, ‘Why must you always live out of your suitcases? Stay at home and then you won’t have trouble with customs officials, passports, luggage, plane connections, and other things. Every night you will be able to sleep in the same comfortable bed; and there are no earthquakes in Holland. After all, you are no longer young. You’ve lived like a tramp for many, many years. It is time to hang up your harness and retire into a nice green pasture. Let someone else do the work. You’ve earned your reward.’
“By this time I was nodding. ‘Yes, yes, Satan, you are right.’ So, having listened to his advice I wrote a friend in Holland who managed an international guest house where at the time I had a room kept for me with my own few pieces of furniture.
“ ‘I believe the time has now come for me to work in Holland,’ I wrote. ‘I am tired of all this traveling and I cannot stand having wheels beneath me any longer. Will you arrange to have a desk—a big one-—put in front of the window in my room; and an easy chair—a very easy one-on the right . …” In my fantasy I had worked out a lovely dream of heaven here on earth, and me in the middle of it! …
I remembered the words of a paratrooper instructor. He said that when he had his men in the plane and they were over the battlefield he gave four commands:
“FIRST Attention! Lift up your eyes (???).
“SECOND Stand in the door! Look upon the fields, for they are white already to harvest (John 4:35).
“THIRD Hook up! Be ye filled with the Holy Spirit (see John 20:22).
“FOURTH Follow me! I will make you fishers of men (Mark 1:17).
“I sat for a long time—thinking. It is not our task to give God instructions. We are to simply report for duty.
“I laid my Bible on the bed and picked up pen and paper. Balancing the pad clumsily on my knee I wrote my friend in Holland.
“Forget about that last letter I wrote. I am not coming home to Holland. I refuse to spend the rest of my life in a pasture when there are so many fields to harvest. I hope to die in harness.”
- Corrie ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord
Two posts in a row that I copy a quote and the publisher got the Bible reference wrong. “Lift your eyes” is definitely not in John 4:35, but they used that reference for the first two jump commands.
And no, I never went to jump school. I never got the wings. My ROTC commander the year before I graduated went to jump school and fell on his entrenching tool which then ripped through his hip. The last I heard, the military career that he wanted was over, but then again, he might never walk again. Yes, most have no problem at all and this was his fifth and last jump necessary to get his wings, but the wind was marginal that day. I considered the wings unnecessary.
But taking a day off from writing is necessary. I get tired. I stare at the screen and nothing comes to mind. I make a sandwich and a thought pops into my head. I leave the sandwich and run to the basement to the computer, but the idea is gone by the time I sit down. And I really had a good idea a couple of days ago.
But quitting completely? No way. When this post comes out, I should have over 2100 consecutive days without missing a post. And that should be close to a guarantee, since the posts are already scheduled between now and then. “Almost” in that the internet could fry its circuits. Even if I am caught up in the rapture, the posts will still be scheduled, but hopefully you won’t be here to read them if that happens.
And Tante Corrie described Satan’s temptation quite well. You have a test of faith, and then he throws a curveball at you that looks so easy to hit out of the park. Oops, a swing and a miss, and you are the one with egg on your face.
Within two years of this book being published, she had two massive strokes. The first robbed her of her speech. The second stroke paralyzed her. She died in California five years later, on her birthday. Even when we intend to glorify God and spread Good News, only God knows the trajectory of our journey.
But this is not the end of this book. This book touched me deeply, above and beyond my wife being Dutch.
Lord, strengthen me. Help us to be bold. Help us to recognize when Satan is throwing us a curve. May we always keep our eyes on You and the mission that is set before us. Only You know the finish line. In Your name I pray. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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