Bits for Sunday, April 19, 2009

My sister emailed this week about a woman who had died and donated her personal library of over 4000 books. Good thing I was already in a chair. A four thousand book library? The only thing that could top that would be a room with a fireplace, a fat chair, and ladders to climb to the tops of the shelves…

While I have a decent book collection, I have a long way to go to reach four thousand. But I’m doing my part to add to the collection whenever I can. Earlier this year I stopped by a bookstore during its going-out-of-business sale. I found a 475 page book that caught my attention. The Journals of Jim Elliot.

Jim Elliot (in case you can’t quite place the name) was one of several missionaries killed by Auca Indians many years ago. His wife, Elisabeth, wrote about him in books such as Through Gates of Splendor and Shadow of the Almighty.

In those books, she shared bits and pieces of Jim’s journal, but later published his writings, she says, “almost in their entirety. The sum of all deletions amounts to perhaps two or three pages.” While I was intrigued to get to peek into his personal life, it felt a bit strange to open a book and read what a man wrote between himself and God over fifty years ago. I felt a little better when the first sentence said, “What is written in these pages I suppose will someday be read by others than myself.” It must have been the permission I needed, because I kept reading.

My grandma used to keep a diary, which mostly served as a written account of each day’s menu, combined with a list of things she did. My journals over the years have contained stories of things that could only happen to me, “hopelessly romantic” accounts of my crushes, whose names I so well-coded that even I can’t remember who some of them really were.

Jim’s journal entries, so far, are not so much about his caloric intake or the state of his romantic life, but much more about what he learned as he carefully studied his Bible. I find myself underlining and writing in the margin and adding snippets of thoughts to my own prayer journal as I try to digest the same lessons he learned half a century ago.

The first journal entry was about his study of Genesis 23 – when Sarah had died, and Abraham needed to bury her. Here is what Jim gathered from that piece of Scripture: Abraham calls himself a “stranger and a sojourner” in a land he believed God was going to give to him. This is the first time he shows any real inclination to making a home on earth, and how slight it is – only a field, some trees, and a cave in which he can bury his dead. Lord, show me that I must be a stranger, unconcerned and unconnected with affairs below…Help me, Lord, not to “mourn and weep” only for those things, once precious, which You teach me are but dead (whether desires, pleasures, or whatever may be precious to my soul right now), but give me a willingness to put them away out of my sight. Burying places are costly, but I would own a Machpelah where corpses (dead things in my life) can be put away.

Just as a side note – Machpelah was the name of the place where Abraham ended up burying Sarah.

Over the past few weeks, God has been working to teach me…or is it that I have been working to learn?...how to put away things that no longer need to have a prominent place in my life. It’s not easy. I love some of those things – much as Abraham loved Sarah. But for me to continue to carry them around and fit them into my life would be as productive as Abraham journeying through life carrying Sarah’s body with him. Some things must be put to rest.

When I went on my retreat last month, I had a Machpelah of sorts…a time and a place where I “buried” something in a very specific place. I do well with moments of the tangible. I think perhaps there are more Machpelahs in my future – when I make the distinct decision to bury something that needs to die from my life.

Since I’m only on page fifteen of the book, I have a feeling I might bring back another nugget to you soon. But in the meantime, think about these words…over fifty years old…and yet brand new.