Life Lessons from the National Parks

January 25, 2013

This is what the Lord says: “Seek Me and live.”  Amos 5:4

Perhaps you’ve been reading in the paper or online about the python hunt in the Everglades. It’s illegal to hunt in the national parks, but the search for these snakes that is currently taking place (and runs to February 10) on state lands surrounding Everglades National Park definitely affects it.

I talked about these invasive, non-native creatures in a previous blog post, and the problem has gotten worse since then. Over 1,800 have been removed since 2002, according to the park’s website, yet it’s estimated there are thousands more, and the Park Service is constantly searching for better methods to control the population.

As of Friday, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is conducting the Python Challenge, 30 of the huge pythons have been caught and disposed of. (Just how big are they? The largest one ever found weighed 164.5 pounds, was 17-feet-6-inches long and had 87 eggs, notes an article on CNN’s website; last year, officials discovered a 76-pound deer in the stomach of one).

Now perhaps you’re wondering how one goes about capturing and killing a Burmese python. To compete in the challenge, hunters had to take an on-line training course in which they were instructed in, among other things, how to identify the snakes and euthanize them in a humane way. And here’s the incentive (aside from environmental): The grand prize for the person who kills the most pythons is $1,500; $1,000 goes to the one who bags the longest one in the contest’s two categories, the general competition and the python permit holders competition. Roadkill, it should be noted, doesn’t count.

As humans, we imagine we’re the hunters, not the hunted. In reality, we’re both. “Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,” the apostle Peter warns (1 Peter 5:8). But we are pursued by Someone greater than a fearsome animal (1 John 4:4)—a tender and merciful God who woos us with boundless love (Jeremiah 31:3, John 3:16, Romans 5:8), infinite patience (2 Peter 3:9) and great kindness (Romans 2:4). He seeks us out no matter how far we’ve strayed (Luke 15:3-32), to help and support us in whatever circumstances we’re in (2 Chronicles 16:9). When we hunt for Him, He’s right there (Jeremiah 29:12-14).

The Everglades python hunt only lasts a month. Only three prizes will be awarded. For God hunters, however, the rewards are not only here and now (Philippians 2:14, Psalm 16:11); they’re out of this world (Revelation 22:12)!

Comments (1) Jan 25 2013

April 4, 2012

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes.  Genesis 49:10

This week is the 150^th anniversary of the battle of Shiloh, fought in Tennessee on April 6 and 7, 1862.

Shiloh National Military Park commemorates this Civil War engagement with a slew of activities: caravan tours, which take visitors to important points along the battlefield; in-depth hikes to follow the movement of the troops; the debut of a new interpretive film, “Fiery Trail;” and a Grand Illumination, scheduled from dusk to 10 p.m. on April 7, with about 24,000 luminaries placed around the battlefield, each representing casualties from the battle (see details on these events here).

That number of men killed, wounded or missing in just this one battle is more than America had suffered in all previous wars. My cousin Sue sent me this link to a group of Civil War photos from The Atlantic magazine, and while there aren’t any photos of Shiloh among them, they’re a solemn reminder of the war’s devastation.

Side note: Fort Pulaski National Monument near Savannah, Georgia is also commemorating the 150^th anniversary of its Civil War battle. Activities will be held April 10-15, and include a special boat tour. And the National Park Service has a website devoted exclusively to the Civil War, since its sesquicentennial runs through 2015. It’s information about the war all in one place—history, battlefield locations, events calendar, and even a soldiers and sailors database.

But back to Shiloh. In the Bible, Shiloh is the place where the Israelites first set up the tent of meeting, the tabernacle (Joshua 18:1). Within the tabernacle was, among other things, the Ark of the Covenant, which held the tablets of the Law—the covenant—given to Moses by God. Those tablets had been sprinkled with the blood of young bulls as a peace offering, a kind of ritual ratification of the agreement between God and the people (Exodus 24:5, 6; Hebrews 9:18-21).

Exodus chapters 25 through 31 detail God’s instructions for the tabernacle’s construction and contents, while chapters 35 through 40 describe how the people carried them out. After all was done, “the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34). So when the tabernacle was set up in Shiloh, that city became the religious center of the nation, where God’s presence and power resided.

Shiloh means peace, and indeed many visitors find the Shiloh battlefield a very peaceful place. The National Park Service calls it one of the Civil War’s most pristine battlefields. But on those long ago April days, it was anything but peaceful.

Easter is a nice holiday in our culture. The weather usually is balmy, full of hope for warmer weather to come. Cute bunnies and chicks, bright springtime colors and lots of chocolate predominate.

But the getting to the first Easter wasn’t any prettier than the road to Shiloh was.

This week leading up to Easter, we reflect on the real reason for the season, Jesus’ sacrifice and death. Reading the accounts of His trial and especially His crucifixion at the end of the Gospels (the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) do not paint a rosy picture. Jesus was whipped, spit upon, mocked and nailed to a cross to die an agonizing death. Like those young bulls whose blood sealed the covenant in the tabernacle, Jesus’ blood sealed the new covenant (Matthew 26:28). As Charles Ryrie puts it in his Study Bible’s Introduction to the New Testament, “The Old Covenant revealed the holiness of God in the righteous standard of the Law and promised a coming Redeemer; the New Covenant shows the holiness of God in His righteous Son.”  Jesus came “to minister in the sanctuary, and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man…Not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12).

620,000 people gave up their lives during the Civil War. That was the price of conserving the Union, of making peace. But it took just one Man to bring us our Shiloh, to take on the punishment for all our sins, be our Prince of Peace (Romans 5:12-19, 1 John 2:2, 1 Corinthians 15:21, Isaiah 9:6), the One whom Scripture pointed to from the opening book of Genesis.

Something to celebrate not only at Easter, but all year ‘round!

Comments (1) Apr 04 2012

December 2, 2011

 Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.” I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.  Luke 15:4-7

And what, you may be wondering about the title, does the Occupy movement have to do with the national parks?

Bear with me. On Thursday, a group of protestors from Occupy Washington, joined by a group from Occupy Wall Street that had walked from New York, began a march from D.C.’s Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial to King’s gravesite in Atlanta. As I mentioned in a previous post, the memorial is on the National Mall, which is part of the National Park Service (NPS). King’s grave is located at The King Center, which is operated in partnership with NPS’s King National Historic Site.

The march is to mark the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. This led to the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott, a watershed event during the push for civil rights that some compare to the Occupy movement (an Associated Press article notes that King’s children have said their father was planning a poor people’s campaign and occupation before he was assassinated in 1968). Rosa Parks’ act is commemorated at many civil rights historical locales in the NPS.

This piece of news got me thinking about the Occupy slogan, “We Are the 99%,” and the Biblical passage that mentions that percentage. Okay, so the verse I quoted at the beginning doesn’t actually say “99%,” but Jesus is talking about leaving 99 out of 100 sheep to look for the one that was lost, which is the same as saying 99% and 1%, right?

Luke 15 became a favorite of mine years ago when I taught children at church and at a summer program at my house. I used a lesson put out by Child Evangelism Fellowship entitled “Three Lost Things,” based on the trio of missing things mentioned in the chapter’s parables—a sheep, a coin and finally, and perhaps most well known, a son (aka, the Prodigal Son).  Each of them is lost, then found, and then there’s a party! “Rejoice with me,” the shepherd and the woman who misplaced her coin say to their friends and neighbors (vv. 6, 9). Music, dancing, a special feast, and general merriment accompany the son’s return (vv. 22-25). It’s a great lesson to teach because everyone, even kids, understands losing and finding, and everyone loves a party.

The word “lost” or “loses” is mentioned seven times in Luke chapter 15, using a strong Greek verb emphasizing possessiveness, indicating these were not trivial or inconsequential things that had gone missing. The shepherd valued each sheep, the woman treasured her coin, and the son—well, his father saw him coming “while he was still a long way off” (v. 20), so he must have been on the watch for his dissolute but precious boy.

As I’ve mentioned before—and you might already know—a parable is a story about everyday life that illustrates spiritual truth. The stories here are about the incredible worth of one—one sheep, one coin, one son. The truth they present also is about the incredible worth of one—you. And me. And every single person who’s ever existed, is now living, or is yet to be born.

Kind of hard to wrap your mind around the concept that we are all individually prized like that, isn’t it? That God is so interested in us. As King David put it, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (Psalm 139:7).

And because God is so engaged—or, in another way of putting it, preoccupied—with us, He’s always looking for us. Isn’t that something, that the God of the universe should put Himself out for each one of us? The reason He came as God in the flesh, Jesus declared of Himself, was “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

But what about those other sheep, you might be wondering, those 99% who stayed put, who the shepherd left behind to look for the drifter? Why leave all the others to go look for one measly straggler? Isn’t 99% in the hand worth 1% in the bush, so to speak? Why all the fuss over the “bad” sheep?

And what about the upstanding older son who did what was right, while his idiot younger brother went buck wild? Why should the “bad” kid get all the attention? Shouldn’t Mr. Responsible be lauded for his good behavior? He certainly thought so: “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (vv. 28-30). Talk about favoritism!

Does God, like the Occupy movement says of corporations and the government, care only about the 1%, and not the 99%?

Absolutely not.

Each night, a shepherd counts heads. If one’s missing, he must hunt for it—sheep, unlike other animals, can’t find their way back on their own. But a good shepherd wouldn’t leave the others vulnerable; that would have been a given in the story. Of course he would secured them before he searched for the laggard.

The father of the parable, the embodiment of a loving God, answers his angry offspring with a gentle reminder: “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (vs. 31). It seems one can be a little lost even within the safety and security of the fold, forgetting that what is needed is there for the asking.

This Christmas season, whether you’re a 99% stayer or a 1% strayer, reflect on how much God loves you. He’s written it over and over again in His Word, and demonstrated it by sending His Son when you and I didn’t even deserve it (Romans 5:8). Just like the father sent his servants scurrying to prepare a feast for the admittedly unworthy prodigal (v. 21).

Whether you’ve allowed God to find you, or whether you’re still out there wandering around, mistakenly believing you can find your own way to Him, remember that He’s always on the lookout for you. He’s longing to show you grace, compassion and abundant forgiveness (Isaiah 30:18, 55:7), no matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been.

“We had to celebrate and be glad,” the father explains to his older son, “because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again: he was lost and is found” (v. 32).

What a great reason to party!

Of that, I’m 100% sure.

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Comments (1) Dec 02 2011

November 29, 2010

In Jesus was life, and the life was the light of men. John 1:4

If you see a large glow in the sky over Washington County, Maryland this Saturday, don’t be alarmed. It’s just the luminaria.

Every year on December’s first Saturday, Antietam National Battlefield sets out sand-and-candle-filled bags to honor all the casualties of the bloodiest one-day battle in American military history.

Care to guess how many that is?

23,110. That’s one luminaria for each Union and Confederate soldier killed, maimed or lost on September 17, 1862.

A staggering number, isn’t it?

The bags are placed along a five-mile route through the battlefield. Apparently it’s quite a popular drive-through event—the park’s website warns that the line of cars to get in can be up to two hours long (no pedestrians allowed).

If you can’t get there, the site has a seven-and-a-half minute video explaining how the preparation is done, which includes panoramic shots of what the illumination looks like. Very moving.

Light is a central theme in Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas. We have an Advent wreath in our house—4 purple tapers surrounding a while pillar candle—and we do readings every night relating to this season when we celebrate Jesus’ birth. Each candle has a theme that centers on the Christmas story—prophecy, shepherds, angels and wise men. The one in the middle is for Jesus, whom the apostle John describes as “life,” “the light of men” and “the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:4, 9). Jesus called Himself “the light of the world,” providing “the light of life” to all who follow Him (John 8:12; 9:5; 11:9-10; 12:35-36, 46).

The Savior came into the world at a dark time for the nation of Israel. Nearly 2,000 years passed since any inspired prophet had arisen in the land, 400 between the completion of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament writings.  I’m sure God’s people wondered when the Messianic prophesies were going to be fulfilled, and many were undoubtedly disappointed to realize they would never see them come to pass in their lifetime.

And yet…God was still at work. I won’t get into the events that occurred during that time that paved the way for Christ’s coming, but you can read about them in this article by Bible teacher Ray Stedman.

Needless to say, the Israelites were ready for some word, some revelation from God. And when that light came, that “good news of a great joy” (Luke 2:10), it was in the form of a baby, God in human form, who “became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

While I was on the Antietam website, I read a little more about the battle. The savage twelve-hour combat engaged nearly 100,000 men from both armies, concluding when Confederate General Robert E. Lee withdrew back across the Potomac River to Virginia, thus ending what had been his first invasion of the North.

I imagine the Union Army must have seen the outcome as a good news/bad news sort of victory. So horrible a fight, so many lost (if they’d known that the war was going to continue on for another two-and-a-half years, they would have been further disheartened).

And yet…a major victory had been won.

And that wasn’t all. Lee’s retreat gave President Lincoln the opening he’d been waiting for, to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery.

Many of the soldiers memorialized at Antietam never lived to know how much good their sacrifice accomplished for their country. But we do, and that is why we honor them.

Generations of Israelites also left this world not knowing that, as the beloved Christmas hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” puts it, “the hopes and fears of all the years” were met.

But we do. And that is why we memorialize Him, lighting our candles in a dark world to honor Him who brought good news amid the bad by making the greatest sacrifice of all, dying for the entire world “at the right time” and reconciling us to God (Romans 5:6-11).

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings, Risen with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King.”

Comments (3) Dec 02 2010

June 22, 2009

We exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:2b-5

Caves hold a special fascination for me. There’s just something so cool—literally and figuratively—about descending beneath the earth and discovering a dim, eerie world miraculously filled with astounding formations. So naturally when my family and I were in New Mexico one summer, we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns.

Aside from walking through the twisting cave, viewing the nightly bat show is another attraction at this national park. Mexican free-tail bats fly from the caverns in a mass exodus at dusk from spring through October, and apparently it’s a fascinating sight. My husband was very excited to see the show, but our daughter wasn’t (she was at that age where everything is boring…). I volunteered to stay with her at our hotel, and my mother, who’d come along on the trip, went with Joe to observe the bats.

As I heard the story later, the two of them settled into their seats in the park’s amphitheater in the fading early evening light, surprised to discover they were the only ones there. A ranger gave a short talk on the nocturnal creatures, and then the three of them waited for the bats to appear.

And waited. And waited. Not a single bat flew out of the cave the entire time. The ranger shrugged and said it happened sometimes. They all finally gave up and left.

Hope. It can be as minor as looking for bats, or as gut wrenching as holding your breath for a doctor’s diagnosis. Joe was ticked off that he didn’t get what he expected, Mom more philosophical, but they got over it.

Major heartaches and disappointments aren’t as easy. My family still grieves my father’s premature death thirty-five years ago. And I’ll never be fully reconciled to the fact that Joe and I weren’t able to have more children.

You undoubtedly have your own frustrations, regrets and dashed dreams, large and small. Maybe like me, cynicism and disillusionment at times nip uncomfortably close to your heels, and the evening news brings out the pessimist in you. Some days it’s difficult to feel hopeful about this old world.

The thing is, hope that’s focused on anything or anyone else but God will always disappoint in the long run. Circumstances and people change, we’re up one minute and down the next, bats appear or maybe they don’t. God remains the one constant. As the Christian group Selah sings in  Wonderful Merciful Savior, “You offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost our way.” It’s that simple—and that hard.

Caves are formed over time by the never-ending drip, drip, drip of water on rock. But oh, what magnificence comes out of this slow but steady shaping process! And how much more beauty results when we let the continuous poured-out love of God flow over our disenchanted hearts!

Invite God to work in you. Ask Him to help you look beyond the pain and disappointment to the riches He offers—perseverance, character and above all, hope.

Comments (4) Jun 22 2009