Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday April 3, 2008

Most sensible people come to the recognition that life really is what you make for the most part. This is not to leave God out of the picture for a walk with Him increases the zest and joy of living as we understand the greater purpose of the trip. Several years ago I quoted the Apostle Paul as saying the he had learned to be content in whatsoever state. A radio listener missed the point and called the phone bank and stated: "Yeah, sure Paul could say that cause he never lived in Central Indiana!" True story. Many folks spend the bulk of their life complaining about the location of their domicile actually thinking it is or is at least near the worst place ever selected for human habitation.

On the other hand many as had Paul, have learned the inner secret that transcends place and thus they enjoy whatever place, for they have learned something I learned when I was just a kid hitchhiking around the country. I don't remember how I learned this, but 47 years of studying life from the biblical perspective have seared the truth deeply into my fiber. True living is an inside job.

For instance, the next time you read the grand scenes from the book of Revelation and try to enter the utter grandeur of the New Jerusalem and redeemed choirs numbering the millions, of streets of gold, of scions of people who cry no more, a land with no hunger or morticians, keep in mind that John wrote of this while cold, naked and hungry as a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos, a rock quarry where most prisoners were worked, beaten and starved to death. John seems to have been flourishing in the inner man.

Some of the grandest love letters ever written are those of Richard Lovelace from the Westminster Gatehouse prison where he wrote "To Althea From Prison" with lines from the last stanza that will live on for all time:

"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage"

The idea of hermitage means in this instance a quiet place of solitude, removed from the fray. Not a bad idea for the creative mind and heart. It worked for John and for Richard, and for millions of others from John Bunyan to Alexander Solzhenitsyn to Charles Colson, Jeremiah Denton and John McCain. Most of the Apostle Paul's writing was accomplished in ancient vermin infested dungeons.

One of Samuel Rutherford's most famous letters was signed, "From the Lord's palace at Aberdeen." The "Lord's palace" was a reference to the prison at Aberdeen, Scotland.

And what of Abe Lincoln, fashioned from the rotten wood of grinding poverty in a backwoods cabin into one of the grandest orators of all time and a not so ordinary president. Yep, what/who is going on in the inside is more important than what is going on all around.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit.

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