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About lamptofeet

I specialize in pushing the “Michael Jackson” drug followed by a paralytic agent into the veins of my anesthetized patient to ensure respiratory arrest so that I may then ever so gently insert a curved metal object between their teeth and into the throat as I expose their airway that I might subsequently push a piece of cuffed sterile PVC pipe through their vocal cords, into their trachea to supply them oxygen and breaths as a “sadistic surgeon” cuts away diseased anatomy. I am successful when you wake up, look at me and say, “When are we going to get started?” God was the first Anesthetist to Adam in His creation of Eve. An honorable profession!

The Advent Renewed by My Daily Walks in the Psalms

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With good reason I start my day with a reading and reflection upon the Psalms:God speaks to my need and renews my vision of glory therein. A great Light appears where there was darkness. That Light is sufficient and relevant today. Whether cloud or pillar, He leads. Stand and see His salvation.
Psalms 113:3-7 (NASB)

“From the rising of the sun to its setting 

The name of the LORD is to be praised.

The LORD is high above all nations; 

His glory is above the heavens.

Who is like the LORD our God, 

Who is enthroned on high,

Who humbles Himself to behold 

The things that are in heaven and in the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust 

And lifts the needy from the ash heap…”

 
#Perspective

Isn’t all of life about perspective and worldview? Who do you believe? What do you believe? How do you act upon what you believe? Show me faith by works. Let’s move beyond word-faith. “Talkative.” What are you given to pursue? Do you chase trinkets or true treasure? Do you know affliction or shared blessings? God has not changed. He is “patient toward you not willing that any should perish but that all might come to repentance.” It is His kindness manifested that acts as the tentacles of love that draw you irresistibly toward the Manger to consider the Babe, and then to Behold the Man lifted high to die as One cursed of God on the Tree, whose cry of finality in death sprung the captives unfettered and Free into the Most Holy Place. We still “call His name Jesus, who saves His people from their sins.” From the guilt. From the power. From the pollution. And finally in glory, from the presence of sin. Jesus. There’s something about that name…

“No more let sins or sorrows grow.

Nor thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make His blessing known,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found.”

 

He speaks still. He commands as King, “Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden. Rest. I give you rest and an easy yoke… Learn. Follow. Live. Love. Dance with joy!” His sheep still hear the Voice of the Shepherd. The call shall forever ring throughout the ages, world without end until that final Day, “Adam. Where are you?” Then we shall know. “We will see Him as He is and be like Him.” Glory. Throughout all the ages to come, we shall bask in His glory and dance in His Light.
The Psalms put all these things into perspective for me and daily drives my heart to constraint of love and worship of the King as the shepherds and then as the Magi of old. “The things of the world glow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
“Mary treasured all these things in her heart.” The shepherds returned to their labors changed, full of joy and worship. What do I return too? Who has my heart? Do I worship a “what” or a “Who” or my “Self”? Or do I worship Christ the newborn King? Joy to the World! The Lord is come!
#GloryToTheNewBornKing who is birthed again through the Psalms with fresh urgency and relevancy to me in my walk through life. Today. And all days. “World without end. Amen. Amen!“
#ILoveChristmas
#YadaYada
I’m afflicted. But I’m loved of God. What else matters? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Oh the Reasoned Hell of Vain Worship

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“BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.”

(Jesus quoting Isaiah in Matthew 15)

Vain worship is not an act of ignorance performed in darkness but a carefully distilled product of Man’s reasoned logic boldly set forth in brilliant humanistic display. Vain worship has qualities that replicate the form of true religion because it is based upon thoughtful conclusions. Though it seems the right way to a man it still lands one in a dark hell cut off from Eternal Light fully equipped with a powerful argument that dies upon the resounding closure of the prison doors.

The fallacy of vain worship is our normative acceptance of rational, cultural arguments that minimize the significance of or our transition beyond, (and then the subsequent denial of), the revelation of the righteousness of God, especially as “He has spoken to us in His Son in these last days.”

A reasoned argument based upon a relative religion expressed and experienced in an aesthetically pleasing manner may assist my conscience to be quietened and my mind to be convinced I have discovered an acceptable alternative to homage of the King’s Son. This will perish into the wisps of vanity it is “as all together we are lighter than breath” as we bow our knee and confess with our lips that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth.

Priorities

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“Let me hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning;
For I trust in Thee;Teach me the way in which I should walk, For I trust in Thee.

Psalm 143

We are the better to prepare for the day than to simply resort to repentance of the day after the fact of ill-prepared failure. Accuse me of legalism if you will but why should a new creature in Christ not early hunger and thirst after His presence in preparation for the struggles against our three-fold enemy who has risen to rush toward us with designs to crush us in mortal, spiritual combat?

Spiritual disciplines affirmed by the Carpenter of Nazareth at an introductory minimum would require “rising early, departing to a lonely place and praying there.” (Mark 1:35)

The old legalist that I am… this is my only hope. God is faithful to covenant love; God is faithful to normative principles. The Father sees in secret and subsequently rewards openly those who know their God in secret. They shall do exploits in His name.

The quality of gathering with the community of believers is limited by the preparation and condition of the heart. “We cannot give that which we do not first possess.” (Lewis) The Church alone can’t fix what one hides as perverted or broken by secret sin. If the fire of love for Jesus does not burn within the inner recesses of the breast then pretense will be the garment worn in public. The perversion of doctrine and lack of power in preaching in the contemporary pulpit can often be traced back to a mere academic pursuit that sacrifices devotional purity and worship of the King in secret. “The things my hands have handled and my eyes have seen… these things I make known to you…”

And that is the glory and joy of seeing His face even in midst of sorrow and struggle which we all know and that without honest exception. He is the Friend and Savior of sinners and I am glad. Yet He does not endorse that which is not changed and requires us to die daily to His glory. 

“When all around my soul gives way,

He then is all my hope and stay.”

Oh to Cure the Malady of Prayerful Silence

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Irony was discovered lurking at the end of Session 6 of the Prayer Conference when the pastor’s request for closing prayer was greeted with resounding silence. Uncomfortable silence. Twitch inducing silence.

Thankfully, yet sadly… the paid professional flinched first.

Why does the church struggle with prayer? Is prayerlessness the auditory evidence indicative of a larger problem hidden beneath the spiritual waters? Do we fail to pray for we are unfamiliar with our God? The guesses could become endless. Some elementary notes:

  • Prayer is work.
  • Prayer is joy.
  • Prayer is essential.
  • The Lord inclines his ear to hear our prayers.
  • Prayer is learned.

The response of silence to a given opportunity to practice what we were just taught is not unique to this church or that church. Not in my experience. Moreover the distinguishing mark of churchmanship we long for is that rare assembly become many where the men trip over themselves to seek God in public for they are much acquainted with Him in private.

“Brethren, do you pray? Do you seek God in secret?”
#AH

Preaching & Prisoners & Prayer

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When prisoners of #CCC (Caddo Correctional Center) crowded round in response to the Gospel message there was joy as God made His move at the end last evening’s chapel service. They soberly entreated prayer for felt needs and tangible fears. You see they have no hope nor help unless God acts, and they daily live in the driven reality of this constraint. That is not all bad. It can turn redemptive by Divine design.

“Dust and rust, thy life’s reward? Slay the thought! Believe thy Lord!” (A Carmichael)

Ideally this present life of imprisoned restraint could actually become the narrow neck of the funnel that rapidly propels the prisoner toward that unique avenue that opens into the flowing River of Life. Part of my role as “shade-tree” pastor-counselor is to first isolate their location and then encourage their escape out of the difficult place they live by entry into the path of possibilities filled with Gospel promises. This great escape can only be offered without promise of immediate change in circumstance and with no pretense of anything beyond God’s presence and approval in the final analysis. This is not really a “hard-sell” to the inmate if they are apprehended by the God who delights to build His new house upon the very foundation that their sin constructed. It rings with a clear, full tone of eternal truth and hope. Otherwise their life seems destined for destruction. 

Simply stated their surroundings are at work to sharpen their spiritual acuity as their visual perception becomes focused upon an ever-narrowing experience of reality. The fluff and stuff of life are gone. These disappeared into Neverland with the resounding clang of the prison doors. Four walls now encroach upon their existence. Their experience is confined to the consequential grind of old life choices come home to haunt them. We on the outside easily neglect and even stumble over that which they have come to value as true needs in their distilled, simplistic world. Our affluence becomes a distortion… an idol… of our perceived reality, and we easily miss what they learn, where they live, what they value, and why this is Truth that screams incessantly to Conscience. 

In retrospect I think the real obstacle in this opportunity of prayer is to draw their attention to prayer’s reality, not as an “abracadabra magical-method” to swish away all troubles. The goal is the challenge to unmask prayer’s mystique. The prisoner must begin to embrace prayer as quiet communion with God as an elementary exercise God affords to teach us to entrust our cares and burdens to the wise, personal, powerful God who knows our needs before we even think to ask.

So my real goal in prayer with any inmate is for us to seek God together, not to the end of audible clangs of the cell doors as they rattle and swing open; rather my prayer for them is answered if I point them to a God who is near to the broken-hearted and a God who is willing to forgive the debts of those now crushed in spirit.

The Divine Designer’s Treasure Trove Entrusted to Flawed, Dusty Earthen-Ware Vessels

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2 Corinthians 4:7

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves…”

I am ever so aware of my earthiness. Ten thousands of witnesses who know me can testify the same. Earthiness is merely a sophisticated human way to say “we are but dust and to dust we return.” And if this is so I see an argument for eternal God: That He is. Dust lacks creative capacity apart from a visitation, an intervention of the Outside into the inside. Otherwise dust doesn’t do much but cause sneezes and sniffles, and dry irritated eyes. It hangs out in inconvenient places and gets stirred up at the least breeze. Apart from divine glory acting it remains innately of no estimable value.

Though we know we are dust and it is to dust we return, natural man glories in his dustiness. Most are therein content. In contrast the shameful reality of our earthiness is to be embraced via repentance as cause to glorify God, and not man who drifts lower… the dust that he is. God made us and crowned us with life and glory as image-bearers of God. Our distinctive earthiness argues this in honest comparison to other creatures of dust created but none suitable as replicas of the Almighty. It is rumored that He has made us but just lower than God.

God is the One who delights in bestowal of transforming power upon and through the ordinary microbes of assimilated dust. Common dust becomes extraordinary stuff by calling and association with greater purpose. Our union with God is extraordinary. This redemptive union is remarkable. The gospel is His particular word and power unto the remolding of the common into treasure vessels to hold the catch of the ages, the Glory itself.

Earthy wares are always flawed. They are common. They lack luster and are rather dull when viewed in their natural habitat. They must be raised up. Brought near Light. Imperfections appear. Restoration requisitioned. Repairs must begin. Purpose bestowed. All those who meticulously peruse their surface still see cracks and fault lines, and those who look more intently may notice rough imperfect areas even within the inward regions that touch the treasure catch itself.

God is never hindered with preexisting flawed earth-wares. He embraces ordinary as the skilled Potter renown to refashion a story. He reveals glory. He bestows glory. Dust and flesh never share intrinsic glory, nor can they steal Creator’s glory; but they by design receive and reflect what is rightfully His alone.

If God gives no pause and declares He shall never cease His labor upon the earthy, why should the earthy cease their labor on behalf of the Heavenly irrespective to faults? Even so this offers no comforting excuse to remain a cracked cistern leaking refuse from revealed imperfections. The revelation of the reality of the earthy is grace-calculated to produce gospel drive to be cleansed as a vessel, fit for honor in the Master’s hand for glory… containers refashioned into the Master’s Treasure store.

Our greatness is correlated only to His power demonstrated upon our earthiness… our inherent, persistent weaknesses that bring Him glory as in His rescue as He entrusts the extraordinary Treasure for safekeeping and distribution by living dust who finally begin to see and touch glory and know life eternal.

Alternate Plans: A Non-Option Cast aside by the King of Glory

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But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter & said, “Get behind Me, Satan…”

The strength of Christ’ response to Peter’s proposed alternate plan demonstrates the legitimacy of the claim, “He was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin…” Since the alternative was folly and death with no opportunity of life for the sheep the force of the rebuke resounds the truth to answer a fool as his folly deserves.
Our worthy high priest knew that life without death, was nonexistent. The grain must die for the fruit to be yielded. He alone had capacity to bear the fruit of perfection and the ability to crush the head of the one who owned the power of death. The King must come but He must come by blood of the cross and the crown of life bestowed by the Father of lights.

Mr. Bojangles was Really a Hero in Disguise

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or
 THE DAY I GROSSLY UNDERSHOT AT THE DRUNK
WHO WAS A HERO IN DISGUISE

The power of the preconceived notions that had developed within the darkroom of my mind caused me to miss the obvious first clues. I erred as I denied what I really saw before me. The old man who greeted me simply did not fit the clinical picture that I thought I saw, and was supposed to see, even though I stared straight at him. The written information stated the old man, who pushed really hard on 90, tended to drink more than he ought. “Excessively“, the papers said.

The wiry-framed man lay dressed in scant more than mere quiet dignity as he stretched out upon the operating room table. For some undisclosed reason, it just seemed he did not fit the stereotypical hard-drinker profile. He patiently waited upon me to finish my final preparations of magical medicines, powerful potions, and to complete the connection of the required monitors that would soon assist me to render him insensible to his surroundings and asleep into the “Never-Never-Land of Propofol.”

Our conversation continued and I acknowledged with some surprise his clarity of thought and speech that exceeded my expectation for his age and supposedly perpetually inebriated condition. I gave pause once again as I also considered his glaringly contorted arms that lay outstretched in a symbolic, cross-like fashion, suspiciously covered in scars that smacked of the work of knives, many knives that marred not simply in a superficial style. Rather, his arms revealed deeply eroded, carved caverns which had been hewed out of what remained of his sparingly defined muscle layers. This noteworthy evidence in conjunction with my record that stated his tendency to be a “Mr. Bojangles” who “drinks a bit”, made me assume these scars testified a visible war record of many, many bar room brawls and knife fights of younger years.

So I asked the question that had invaded and continued to haunt my previously, biased mind… “Those look like old knife wounds on your arms… uh, what happened?”

In a surprisingly, dignified, (and I perceived an almost defiant manner), the old man answered, “They are knife scars. Most are anyway.” But he was not forthcoming to confirm the details of my suspicions that had already yielded my foregone conclusion of a guilty condemnation and the “just” reasonable consequence rendered upon the old drunk for past foolish behavior.

So I asked the question again, refusing to be satisfied with anything less than the best of the worst so I might more easily exalt myself over and above him in a self-righteous satisfaction all at his expense. And before I knew it, the trap was lightly sprung, and I found myself wading off into the deep snare a of dark history that was to flounder me in abject humility. It was as though the old gentleman himself unwittingly and carefully assisted me to tie the millstone about my neck as I insisted to the point of intrusiveness, “But how did you get so many knife wounds?”

In a gentle, almost surreal tone he answered quietly, but loud enough to resound as thunder throughout the hum and activity of the OR, which suddenly ceased as he uttered these words, “I was a POW.”

Momentarily stunned by this revelation that seemed to hang in the air near half an eternity, I finally managed a pathetic sound that was supposed to come out something like, “Uh, where, uh… where were you?”

“I was a POW in Germany for ten and a half months during WWII.” And then visions of atrocities beyond my imagination flooded my brain and burst upon my sight as this old hero and warrior who lay before me, quietly trusted me to do him good, not evil, as he drifted off to sleep. My knees were literally weakened and my body gave a visible shudder as I pondered this quiet declaration of war upon my pride and arrogance. I then briefly shared a story from my VA days of an old veteran volunteer who helped out there, and who had actually survived the Bataan Death March. This old grizzled warrior looked at me and simply said, “Now that was really a hard thing to do.”

I smiled as I looked at his scars again, and then thanked him for his superior service to our country, above and beyond anything I had ever done or conceived of doing. Then I repented to my God for my erroneous view and sinful disdain of a true hero, whom I initially identified as a simple drunk bearing marks of the consequences of riotous living. But in truth there lay before me a real-life American hero who actually bore in his body the marks of my freedom. I took excellent care of this old gentleman, my true hero, who once endured much hostility for me, (and many others), that we might continue to draw breath in a free land until this day.

God bless America. And God bless those whose hands You have trained, (and those You still train), for war that we might live in peace and liberty to know and worship Thee. And let us not forget… thank You for the right to write in English… not German, and thank you Jesus, by all means, that I did not have to learn Japanese!

Well it’s the Fourth of July in a few days. This true account seems appropriate.
My son, Stephen Paul Vining, is currently being trained in the art of war at Ft. Benning.
Please pray for him and for all others training to fight freedom’s fight.
May we never forget those who guard the line that we might live.
Pray most especially that he and the others might know
the nearness of God for their good..
July 1, 2012

rv

My son did WHAT? He’s in the ARMY NOW!?!?

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To recall a Day back in December 2011

I’m sorry. Excuse me. I really do struggle with hearing rightly these days. But I thought you said… but no, that couldn’t be… I know you didn’t just say, you couldn’t just say, my son, my baby, my Stephen, has dropped out of a “free” college education in a relatively safe environ, and joined “This man’s Army.” No, that can’t be. Pinch me. Shake me. Wake me. This nightmare seems all too real.

Remind me again, why did I swear off strong drink? I seem sense a need for something warm in my hand, that transmits its resolute way from gut to heart as it anesthetizes me with pseudo-courage in its attempt to dull my perception of loss of control. Of loss of my son. Of a heart departed. Of a home splintered by pain of applied parenting as children mature, grow. As they Leave.

O God! How the mighty, (and faint alike), have fallen! Mind spinning. “Who’s on first?” ” What’s on second?” Who’s in charge? What’s happening here? What’s that 60’s song… “War! Huh, Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!”

Wow! From whence did all these thoughts and fears awaken and arise? Are we still at war? Wars, you say? How long have we been there? Why are we there? Where is there? What did we learn from Charlie Wilson’s War? What did the Ruskies learn? Is this winnable? Is what winnable? For what are we fighting? Pseudo-peace? Where is Fort Benning? Is Georgia in the continental US? Didn’t “What’s-His-Name” make a hollow statement about ending all wars in that God-forsaken land of the Middle East? What was purported a Garden is now an Abomination of Desolations. So it seems… So it seems…The very mouth of hell itself?

(God, are You there? You are on the clock, aren’t You? Where is “There”? I need help “Here”. Remember me? And my son? The one You have used to teach me to pray? Yes. That one. That one so much as I in so many ways that I sometimes give a free pass cause I understand so well the inner turmoil.)

My son? My only son whom I have loved, yet failed so frequently and so miserably, in the “Father-School.” My great discovery of Self… some tests and tasks shall I forever be inadequate and ill-prepared for. Parenting is one… Parenting… a true OJT enterprise.

No, Stephen is not my only son, but so it seems today. Wow! Wasn’t it just several days ago when I witnessed him in the buff, being towel-dried, screaming that first cry to the heavens, as mom lay rendered insensible to the world, and to the new life just risen from her womb? But then, mom had not so chosen to intentionally miss this momentous event. She lay with belly splayed open and an ET tube sprouting from her throat, as an even greater participant in the miracle than I. She still bears the scars in her body. Yesterday, wasn’t it? So it seems. Images burned indelibly in my pea brain. Blood pressure 60ish, yeah Hespan sounds a good plan. How ’bout NOW! That is MY WIFE, this screaming boy’s fussing for. Fix her. So she can see her firstborn son. And they did, and she did. And she does.

Now fix us. Help us. Son 1 leaving? Or rather our living testament that God brought us together as husband and wife; now this image bearer, our own Stephen Paul Vining is leaving. And he bears our heart in his backpack. Does he know? Probably not. That comes with time and separation and grey hair.

Another chapter in the saga of a new life filled with exciting change, and the other continued life of unstable stability, that seeks to overcome pain of loss.