And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing to his sight. And this is his commandment. That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment. I John 3:22, 23
All the bibles are the same in this Victorian-frilled cottage where I am staying. Translated out of the original tongues and with the former translations diligently compared and revised set fourth in 1611 and commonly known as the King James Version. But it is quite clear. And it is clear on the dozens and dozens of knickknacks which tumble off of every cut lace and doily-covered table and bureau and cupboard and crowd together on every wall and, well there are no empty spaces. Love Never Faileth: For God so love the World that He gave His Only Begotten Son that Whoever Believeth in him should not Perish, but have Everlasting Life.
And the wind is whipping fiercely through the crackling Prescott pine trees, but I am secure in this home opened up in love, His love. And one of the things I did last night was read an old copy of Newsweek, after I went over to the very nice public library across the street, which I am quite sure is my favorite thing about America and blessings on Benjamin Franklin’s head, and checked my emails and talked to a lonely old man about how do you start using computers because he bought one because everyone has one but now he doesn’t know what to do with it. And if he opens it up, where would he type google? Anyways, he does know about the World Championship of Texas Hold ‘Em High held in Vegas, and he knows every little card flip and every little year who won what and when the rules changed in 2006, and now I know a lot about it too, I would really like it, he can tell by the look in my eye.
The cover article is “Heaven is Real: A doctor’s experience of the afterlife,” written by an academic neurosurgeon at Harvard who fell into a meningitis-induced coma and experienced the truly unexpected, a journey to the afterlife. And he freely admits that there is not scientific explanation for the fact that while his body lay in coma, his mind– his conscious, inner self was alive and well and traveled to a dimension which the old, pre-coma him would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility. And he has spent months trying to sort through the experience and wrap words around it, but the overall understanding that he now knows is that he is loved and cherished, dearly, forever.
And every time he began to wordlessly frame questions like Where is this place? Who am I? Why am I here? the answer came instantly in an explosion of light, color, love and beauty that blew through him like a crashing wave.
Which is what God is saying here, and says to us every day: I so love you that I sent my Son, offering my self up in love. Believe and do likewise. That’s it. And I can get a glimmer that if He did not withhold even His son, there is nothing that He will withhold. Whatever I ask, I receive. I am secure and at rest. Just like in this rattling, humming, clunking but warm old house.
So now there’s this big shot doctor whose nice prestigious and comfortable life has been dumped upside down, because everything he knew to be true now lies broken at his feet, destroyed, and that is OK because now he understands. And he intends on spending the rest of his life getting people to grasp the enormity of what he has seen and experienced. Sort like John and his Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him. And now, when Dr. Eben Alexander looks at the painting that I too am looking at straight in front of me, of Jesus breaking bread with the disciples, it evokes the message that lays at the very heart of his journey: that we are loved and accepted unconditionally by a God even more grand and unfathomably glorious that the one we both learned about in Sunday School.
Paul heard the same voice that also crashed and burned his big shot plans, dumping them upside down broken at his feet, and set him on a new road. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye, being rooted and ground in love, May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Dear LORD, this is my prayer, even if it means taking my life and dumping it upside down broken at my feet. Because it’s not just about His love for me. Because there were much more important things to talk about with the lonely old man with only two bottom teeth at the public library than google. Let me be faithful as well, to speak boldly of what I comprehend.
Together with all the saints.
