"Then" and "Now"

Don't feel you have to read this.  It is only my devotional journal for today.  My SOAP.  S=scripture, O=observation, A=application, P=prayer.  I'm just letting you look over my shoulder if you wish.

S.  Philemon 10-16  "I appeal to you for my child, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, Onesimus, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me.  And I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that in your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel; but without your consent I did not want to do anything, that your goodness should not be as it were by compulsion, but of your own free will. For perhaps he was for this reason parted from you for a while, that you should have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother…" NASB

O.  There is an obvious “then” and “now” in this letter. “Then” is a slave named Onesimus who once served Philemon, who was “parted from him” most likely as a runaway slave.  “If he has wronged you”, back “then”… “now” put that on my account.  “Then” he may have stolen from you, but “now” he is profitable to both you and me.  “Then” he was a slave, “now” he has become my son and since you are also my son, you have new relationship.  “Then” you were master and slave.  “Now” you are brothers.  

Do you have a “then” and “now”?  That’s what Jesus offers us. 

A.  Paul adds this comment: “And in case you didn’t realize it, you owe your very life to me.”  For some reason every time I read this portion I think of my Pastor William Booth-Clibborn.  I do not recall the details, but I am sure he used this same kind of rhetoric on me at one time… politely demanding something of me... and then reminding me that I owed it to him.  The fact is that I owed more to him than I realized at the time, since he took time on Sunday afternoons with two teen-age boys, Erwin Bush and myself, insisting that we ride our bikes the 5 miles across Portland to the church, arriving an hour before evening service time, for him to take us down that curving stairway at the base of the altar… down to the basement prayer room to “teach us to pray”.  He also encouraged me to memorize Psalm 103 and give it before the church, not as a rote memorization, but with proper emphases and hand motions that would make this beautiful Psalm come alive, something that was extremely difficult for me, for I was very bashful.  He promised me a book from his library if I did it.  I was 15 years old, going on 16, and I did it.  I went into his library with the idea that I was going to choose any book from his library, but he chose the book.  

It is a paperback book that is falling apart now, but is still in my library.  It is called “The Blood Hunters”, by Gordon Hedderly Smith. (Zondervan 1943) I just now pulled it down from the shelf and read again his dedication to me, penned in his unique handwriting. “To Ralph Hiatt in recognition of application and memorization of the Scriptures that was exceptional.  With a wish for a great and useful spiritual future… W. Booth-Clibborn.  New Year 1948.” Okay, now I am in tears.  

The book is a heart-breaking story of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hedderly Smith, CMA missionaries to French Indo-China before and during the 2^nd World War, in the area now called Viet Nam (1929-1943).  It tells of their efforts to reach the most primitive and dangerous "savages" with the gospel, their advances, their setbacks, the Japanese invasion, and finally how they were ordered to leave their converts behind possibly to die as martyrs as they would have to flee the country for their lives.

P.  God, through my tears, what is my prayer today? First these are tears of thankfulness for Your servants of the past… these pioneer missionaries who risked their lives almost daily… and for my pastor who cared enough to take his valuable time with us to point two teenage boys in the right direction.  Then as I reread today his dedication note referring to a “great and useful spiritual future” I am overcome… as I now look back on that “future” and have witnessed with my eyes what only You, my God, could have accomplished… Yes, I am overcome!  Where am I in this picture?  Where am I now at 82 years of age?  Can You use me?  Can you fill me again with Your Holy Spirit?  Can you anoint me again with Your Holy oil?  Can you charge this old body with renewed physical strength?  Can I rise again to minister Your Holy Word to a lost and perishing world?  Oh my God, I am Yours and Yours alone!  I have no other purpose in extending my days on this condemned planet.  But if I am given more time, let me be an example to my offspring… offspring both by DNA and spiritual offspring… and may I still be used to reach many more lost ones!  And, like Onesimus, may they have a blessed testimony of “a then” and “a now!”  Amen.

Ralph