Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

People stalked us at every step, so we could not walk in our streets. Our end was near, our days were numbered, for our end had come.

• Lamentations 4:18

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

• Psalm 90:12

For through wisdom your days will be many, and years will be added to your life.

• Proverbs 9:11

In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.

• 2 Timothy 2:20-21

I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

• Acts 26:18

I had a dream, or a vision.  I did not feel that I had fallen back asleep, but my eyes were closed, and when the dream had vanished, my eyes opened with a jolt.  Maybe I was asleep.

The dream was very simple.  My eyes were closed, but I could see a page of Scripture.  I could not read it, but as I squinted to focus, it looked like poetry literature in the Bible, laid out by verses rather than a large paragraph.

As I continued to try to focus…

Let me interject something here.  My eyes were closed.  I was not wearing my glasses, although they are a bit scratched.  How on earth could squinting help me to focus well enough to read in that situation?  What was I thinking?

But as I squinted, I saw a verse beneath the verses.  It was printed in gray ink instead of black.  Here I was, unable to read the black ink Scripture, but I became intent on reading what had appeared beneath it.

As I made out two words, the gray text faded.  I was unable to read further.

The two words were “Your completion.”

I was then awake, and my mind went to a dream my wife had many years ago.  She was in Heaven.  God allowed her to go into a room.  The room had table after table of scrap books.  She opened one and the image was not a still frame.  It was a video.  She saw images from her life.  She loved looking through the different scrapbooks.  She saw people she had forgotten: school friends, teachers, neighbors.  But as she put down one scrapbook and went to another, she saw one scrapbook at the end of the table.  She reached for it, and God said that she was not allowed to open that one.  She asked me what that might mean, and I said that the last scrapbook was probably of her future.

But then I was wondering what my completion meant.  My mind focused mostly on sanctification.

Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, had an odd saying placed on her tombstone.  The story behind it was even more odd.  It was some words on a road sign, and the circumstances made her laugh.

She and her husband, Billy Graham, had been traveling somewhere and they were returning home to their house near Montreat, NC.  On the mountain road, you could not see what was ahead.  They got stuck in a construction zone.  Rev. Graham had things to do at the house.  He could not be delayed by construction.  He did not curse or fuss and fume, but he voiced his irritation softly.  For a while, there was no traffic moving in either direction.  He muttered “What is going on?  The line should be moving one way or the other.”  His wife sat smiling at her husband.  They finally started moving, very slowly.  When they got to the end of the construction zone, there was an unusual sign.  It read: “End of Construction, Thank you for your patience.”  She turned to her husband and laughed at his impatience.  And thus, she had those words placed on her tombstone.

We are all under construction, being prepared for the next life.  Some of us are headed for glory, others, not so much.

Those headed for glory are being sanctified.  The psalmist wrote that we should be taught to number our days.  Paul wrote Timothy that we should cleanse ourselves of the common things, for God has special use of us to do good things.

And Acts 26 describes the sanctification process, in a way.  We obtain salvation from sin, but for what purpose?  To glorify God, to shine God’s Light in the darkness.  We are to use God’s power to turn from Satan and to God.

But are we to know when our sanctification is completed?  No.  But that does not mean that God does not have that written in stone.  Our days are indeed numbered, and we need to be ever more diligent in doing those good works and spreading the Love of God to those around us.

“Your completion …” and then it fades.  All the more reason to remain focused on the task at hand, to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.