Heaven Is Real

I learned about Heaven and angels and Jesus when I was a little girl in Sunday school. We sang songs about Heaven, so I have always known that Heaven is real.

“I’m going to Heaven, I’m going there when I die
I’m going to Heaven in the sweet, sweet bye and bye
So angels place my order For a mansion and a crown
and in that Book up yonder Just write my full name down.”

“Heaven, happy home above, Heaven, land of peace and love
Oh, it makes me feel like traveling on
Heaven, eternal, Heaven, supernal
I’m so glad that it’s real.”

It is like getting on an airplane bound for Ireland. I have never been to Ireland. I know it exists because I studied geography in school. I have heard of people from Ireland. In fact, my ancestors were probably from Ireland (and Scotland and England.) I’d love to go to Ireland some day and visit the countryside where my ancestors lived and listen to the people speak Gaelic, the Irish language or English with an Irish brogue. But I have never been to Ireland, so I must take it on faith that Ireland actually exists.

I have never been to Heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma. I was born in Oklahoma. I’ve lived in Oklahoma all my life. Some people think Oklahoma is cowboys and Indians, oil derricks, flat plains and the Dust Bowl. But Oklahoma around Vinita is hills and valleys, Grand Lake, the tail end of the Ozarks out of Missouri and Arkansas, lush hay fields and cattle ranches. Oklahoma has a wide range of environments.

Heaven is as real as Ireland and Oklahoma. One day, like Paul, I will say, “The time of my departure is at hand.” 2 Timothy 4:6, then I will step out of Oklahoma and into Heaven.

The door to my airplane will close, the airplane will taxi down the runway, lift off and fly away, and when the door opens, I will be in Heaven.

“Lavon, you are not in Oklahoma anymore,” the Lord will say as He welcomes me Home to the Country of Heaven.

Best Friend

Who’s your best friend? In high school, there was a gang of us that hung around together. About five of us, including my sister, went everywhere together. Sandy got her car first, and I got mine soon after, and we transported all our friends to ball games and “draggin’ Main.”

I remember the first time I ever met Sandy. I was in the sixth grade and she transferred to Vinita, Ok. School from Big Cabin school. I was friendly to this new girl in school and after that Sandy and I spent a lot of hours together. She lived in Ft Worth for many years and I didn’t see her very often but our roots go way back to the sixth grade in 1961. She recently moved back to this area and we saw each other for the first time in several years.

I have many best friends now—my husband, my daughter and son, and my mother and my sisters. I have several friends from the past I don’t see very often who I am close to also. As soon as we get together, it is just like we have never been apart.

 I know people think you can only have one best friend, but answer me this: how do you narrow it down to only one?

 “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24.

I looked this up in the Hebrew and the first word “friend” means companion (and even husband) and the second word “friend” is a different word that means “someone you love like a relative.” This means a friend that you love better than some of your kinfolks. I have some friends like that.

Jesus is the Friend that sticks closer than a brother. He said he would never leave me or forsake me, that he would go with me till the end of the world.

He is my Savior, my Lord, my Boss, my Master, my Mentor, My Councilor, my Psychiatrist, my Comforter, my Best Friend.

If Jesus was the only friend I ever had, He would sure be more than enough.

Deer Hunter

My husband is a deer hunter. No, he doesn’t hunt bambi; he hunts the big one. We eat deer meat year round. Deer steaks, deer chili, deer spaghetti, deer jerky–you just can’t beat my husband’s deer jerky.

 Esau was a deer hunter, a man’s man. He loved the great outdoors. I can just picture him as a big woolly backwoodsman. The Bible even says his hands were hairy.

 Esau came in from hunting one day, famished from hunger. In a moment of lust for food, he gave away the blessing of the firstborn to his younger brother Jacob for a bowl of stew. Then he forgot all about it. One day his father Isaac told Esau, “Take your weapons, your bow and arrows, and go hunting and bring me some of that deer that I love to eat so my soul may bless you before I die.” Then Jacob and his mother Rebekah tricked Isaac into giving the blessing to Jacob.

Isaac didn’t completely disown Esau. Esau still got a blessing. Hebrews 11:20 says that Isaac blessed both Jacob and Esau. In spiritual terms, Esau lost out on being in the lineage of King David and Jesus. Jacob became the ancestor of Jesus, because of that firstborn blessing.

Hebrew 12:16-17 says “Lest there be any…profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”

Phil 3:19 speaks of a people “Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”

What a shame to be so concerned with natural things that he gave up the greatest opportunity of a lifetime, to be the ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ, for a bowl of beans.

 How many opportunities are we missing because we have our mind on things of this world and not on things of heaven?

Jacob possessed Esau’s blessing. Who is possessing your blessing?

The Sumac Shrub

Sumac shrub in the fall

 

I was driving along a stretch of hay country in northeast Oklahoma, admiring the autumn colors as I sang along to the radio. I kept noticing a reddish-brown shrub that just glowed in the afternoon sun. Pretty thing, I thought, I should plant one of those in the yard. I wonder what it is?

I had to slow down for a truck going around a hilly curve and that gave me a chance to get a closer, longer look at the shrub. It was a sumac, which is considered a pest in Oklahoma. The old-timers called it “shoe-make.” It grows everywhere. It is considered invasive, because it will take over if you don’t keep close control over it. I read in a decorating magazine recently that people are planting sumac for its rich autumn color and low growth habit in their landscaped yards.

Reminds me of the time back in the 70s, when I planted honeysuckle on the trellis of my front porch at my first home. In 2 years the porch was almost hidden by the honeysuckle.

When I was a little kid, we had honeysuckle growing on the fence row on the north side of our house. I loved to pick a little honeysuckle blossom and suck the nectar out of it, pretending I was a bee. The juice was barely sweet and just a tiny sip, so you had to sip several to get a good taste of it. Every summer Mom spent hours cutting back the honeysuckle to keep it from breaking down the fence.
 
That is like sin. Sweet, fun, beautiful color and blossoms. Then gradually it consumes your life. Takes over the whole fence row and breaks down the fence. Satan puts these temptations in your pathway and you are drawn to the beautiful color, the nice shape, the sweet nectar, but in the end, those things will break down your defenses.
 
I Peter 5:8-9 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him steadfast in the faith.”

Keep a watch out for the adversary. Resistance is not futile.
 

Quarantined

 

Our family was quarantined with scarlet fever when I was about 10. Someone from the health department posted a notice on our front door saying no one was to enter or exit the house for two weeks.

The corner grocer left sacks of groceries on our porch.  The school teachers came by to check on us and talked to Mama through the door.

Mama babysat a 2-year-old neighbor girl, so she was quarantined with us. I remember her mama talking to her through the window, but I don’t remember Diana being particularly upset. She called my mama “Mama Hightower” and spent almost as much time at our house as she did at her own.

After a couple of days, when we started feeling a little better, our experience was more like playing hooky from school. We did the same thing we usually did—playing school and Sunday school. I was the teacher as we studied reading, writing, and arithmetic. We memorized Bible verses and read Bible stories.

It was fun for us kids but I can’t imagine what our poor mother went through, with four sick kids, and only herself to take care of them.

Lepers were quarantined in Bible days. They were required by Levitical law to call out as they walked, “Unclean, Unclean!” so that people would know they were about to come in contact with a person with a highly contagious disease.

 Luke tells the story of Jesus and the ten lepers in Luke 17:12-14 kjv. “And as he [Jesus] entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”

It was unheard of for a quarantined leper to show up in the temple, to get near a priest, but if Jesus told them to, they believed they must obey, and as they did, they were healed.

As you believe and obey, your healing will come.

Football

Vinita, Ok. State Football Champions Verdigris Valley conference
Vinita, Ok. State Football Champions Verdigris Valley conference

“Are you ready for some football?”

When I was in Camp Fire Girls Horizon Club during high school, we invited the football coach to come speak to our club about football. He explained the rules of the game and how it was played and I can truthfully say it went right over my head.

I understand that a bunch of guys on two teams face off on a field with two goal-posts, with the purpose of getting the football across the opposite goal line. Am I right so far? Then someone kicks the ball, or throws it, or hikes it between their legs to the guy behind him and they all run and jump on the one carrying the ball.

I was a member of the pep squad so I went to pep rallies, home football games, and some out-of-town games. We admired and looked up to our Vinita high school football boys. The members of our football team were talented football players which they proved when they went to Oklahoma high school state division championship playoffs in 1967, 43 years ago.

A person doesn’t have to be an expert in the field of football to enjoy the experience. I have never enjoyed sports, either watching or participating, but I admire others who do.

The Holy Spirit is our coach—telling us what to do, telling us what “play” to put into operation at the exact moment that it is needed. He signals us through our hearts, our spirits, by the Word of God, the Bible, and by advice from other Christian leaders. He sees the Big Picture and knows what is ahead.  He tells us, “Turn here,” “Stop!,” Don’t do that,” Do this,” and if we would listen to the voice of our coach, the Holy Spirit, our lives would be much better off.

I Corinthians 2:12 says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

Christians are called to participate, not to watch. We are players on this field, in this game of life, not bench-warmers.