Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

(From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.)

• Genesis 10:5

But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.

• Matthew 9:31

Yet the news about him spreadall the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.

• Luke 5:15

So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

• Acts 6:7

“The sacrifice of selfish privacy which is daily demanded of us is daily repaid a hundredfold in the true growth of personality which the life of the body encourages. …Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

On the day that I had just turned down a chance to go with friends to a parade, I got the C.S. Lewis quote on a site that randomly quotes him.

Should I have gone with them?  I still have some lingering effects to the various medical procedures that I have had this year.  I feel good, but the stamina is not there yet.

And I can spread the Gospel of Christ from my basement office, over the internet.

But I cannot make that human touch without touching a human.  Being in the north, Sunday school is shut down until September, basically following the same schedule as the school system.  I know.  I grew up with Sunday school being every week of the year, even holiday weekends, Easter, Christmas, never missing a Sunday.

But I say that in that it will be so tempting to skip a Sunday and write more.  I will be digging into God’s Word.  I will be praising Him.  But then, I spend even more time not touching another human being.

My wife passed away over two years ago.  She always needed to be around other people, and I was her driver.  I could have dealt with much less of the pressing of flesh.

But God wanted the people of the earth to spread out and take dominion over the earth.  They built a tower instead to show how wonderful they were.  And when you see the beginning of the Christian church in the book of Acts, the church is focused in Jerusalem until the persecutions started.  The people spread out because of persecution.  But that was what God had commanded from the beginning.

As for me, I go to church, the pharmacy, grocery stores, once a month to the credit union to deposit a check, and the occasional doctor visit.  The people at the diagnostic center do not have my name down yet, but they greet me with “you are back again.”

Those human interactions satisfy me, but there is something missing.  I am praying about that.  Even though it will cut into my Bible study time, I think I need something else.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.