"Just Begun"

    A friend once told me about a preacher who testified, "I retired because I ran out of things to preach about."

    "His understanding is infinite… the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge… the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Psalm 147:5; Ephesians 3:8; 19).

    Preachers may find it necessary to step away from the pulpit for personal reasons, particularly regarding matters of health.  Never, however, do they or can they exhaust the subject matter that originally called them to their ministry.  One wonders whether the man referenced really knew the extent of the Truth he ostensibly communicated - "infinite… beyond knowledge… unsearchable."  Obviously, he didn't, and as one called to communicate the Christ who surpasses all measure of understanding, love, and riches, I find his resignation one of the saddest and most disturbing things I've ever heard.

   In this lifetime, we will barely break surface of God and His Truth.  We know nothing yet as we ought to know declared the Apostle Paul, and the more deeply we dive into the shoreless ocean that is the Lord Jesus Christ, the more we realize the impossibility of reaching the floor of His infinite depths (I Corinthians 8:2).  As the hymn writer beautifully exulted, "His love has no limits, His grace has no measure, His power no boundary known unto men, for out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and giveth and giveth again."  This we must believe about our fathomless Lord, first because it is true, and also because limitations of our expectation stifle our capacity for acquiring the growing knowledge and understanding that fills our hearts to overflow again and again and again.  "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).

    If our voices and pens are stilled, the silence and the bare page speak not of the Subject, but of our limitation.  We do not "run out of things to preach about."  We rather exhaust our ability to venture more deeply into Ocean that is Christ.  We do well to remember and affirm that in both time and eternity, we will never touch bottom of God and His truth.  

There is no end to the quest we know,
forever beckons on.
For we soar in skies so bright and blue,
above all clouds and storm.

Yes, we fly into the heart of God, 
as in His Son we trust,
and earth will soon be nothing more
than long forgotten dust.

So spread your wings and catch the wind,
o journeyman of hope,
and race toward horizons blessed
with those who also know

That the quest of hearts is Jesus,
He is our shining sun,
it matters not how far we've come,
the Journey's just begun.

"I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

(Philippians 3:13-14)

Weekly Memory Verse

    Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in Thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee.

(Psalm 143:8)