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Yesterday, I walked on a cold winter afternoon, but I was
warmed by the brilliant sun. I thanked God that he had thought to
put a stove on our planet. God's benevolent energy is always
overflowing into the world about us. Even in times of darkness,
discouragement and fear; in spite of the darkness, there is
always "a crack in the door of darkness:" for those who have
faith. God is extravagant with his sustaining care and love; it
is always there. "He anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth
over."
Strangely my wounds are healed; strangely my life overflows
with meaning. Joan Sauro, in a meditation in Weavings, suggests,
"I was born connected." Through those prebirth nine months she
had been sustained by the umbilical cord which connected her to
her mother. Everything she had needed as a growing fetus had been
supplied through that connection. Then she became aware of the
spiritual cord of sustenance that had always connected her to her
Heavenly Father and still met all of her deepest spiritual needs.
We were "born connected" and we still are.
There is much that modern science and technology cannot do for
us. They can get us off the launching pad; they can guide us to
the moon. But science and technology cannot make the astronauts
love each other; nor can science meet their eternal needs if
reentry fails. There is that deeper supply line that we depend
on. Herschel points it out: "The predicament of the child is the
predicament of the parent; the predicament of a human being is
the predicament of God." It comforts me to know this.

I am hit with an unresolved conflict in my daily living. I
call out to God for help. I get more than I ask. The thief on the
cross cried out to Jesus: "Remember me." He got back: "This day
you shall be with me in paradise."
We are told that a shepherd in Palestine will stand each
evening at the door of the sheepfold and examine each sheep for
wounds, cuts and bruises, and bites. (There are warble flies, bot
flies, heel flies, nose flies, deer flies, black flies, green
flies, mosquitoes, gnats.) Such is life, so many things attack
us. The shepherd will gently rub into these wounds a healing
ointment. Perhaps the wound is on the head; and he anoints the
head with oil. Over and over again my hurts and wounds have been
healed: Peace has been restored; hope has dawned again; health
has returned. If this were not true, by this time, I would be
wrapped from head to toe in the bandages of my own sufferings.
But some might say, "We just got well! We just got over it."
That is true. God has so ordered the universe; God has so
structured human nature. But we have felt something more,
especially as we have looked back upon life: A love and a
tenderness (a warm experience in the subconscious), a personal
concern for our needs. "Like as a Father pitieth his children
..." "Not even a bird falleth to the ground ..." "I am healed, I
am launched again into life." He anointeth my head with oil."
God has maintained a heavy bank account of love and care in the name of
each of us. Sadly, we have failed to draw on our account. Thornton Wilder in
his book, The Eighth Day, tells about a man riding a slow train up the Andes.
At a little Andean village a mother and seven children crowded into his tiny
compartment. The father had just been killed in a mining accident. The oldest
daughter was trying to comfort her mother and the children. But the mother
continued to wail: "Tell them we have nothing to live for -- tell them we have
nothing to live for."
Then some fool comes along (God's fool) and declares: "He anointeth my head
with oil; my cup runneth over." "Fear not

little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom (Luke 12:32)." "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the
world (John 16:33)." "God loves you -- particularly you." And the
little family begins to catch a glimpse of the possibility of
life yet ahead of them.
George Buttrick once wrote that we are walking across the
crust of hell, and the crust is thin. When we look at life we see
some truth in this. But we can listen more deeply and hear the
concerned agony of God. We can see Christ in his resurrection
beckoning to us. When fear, guilt, death are so "in," in our
secular culture; God, forgiveness, love are just as much "in," in
our faith culture.
Why do we doubt our beliefs and believe our doubts? It is far
better to doubt our doubts and believe our beliefs. When we dare
to trust our beliefs, we hear some strange echoes from the
eternal:

"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities,
Who healeth all thy diseases,
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction,
Who crowneth thee with loving kindness
and tender mercies."
(Psalm 103:3-4)

An old Rabbi was on his death bed and he whispered: "God won't
ask me why I wasn't Moses; he will ask me why I was not myself."
He has called me to be me. I must find out who that me is. What
does God have in mind for me?
Life can be rough on us. Like sheep we go out into the world
every day to graze. It's a rough world. And at times we make it
rough for others. Sometimes it is like a person trying to run up
an escalator that is coming down. It's hard to get ahead. At
times we are caught in a one-way street going the wrong
direction, and we are blocked. Why does all this happen to us?
Jean-Paul Satre says, "We are condemned to be free;" and that
is rough. We have to make decisions; we have to make our own way
and we bump into other people who are trying

to make their own way. God does not put us in a strait-jacket. He
gives us freedom and therefore we are responsible. Freedom is
wonderful, but freedom is costly. This is not a world of happy
stories about happy people who have happy problems. No, but it is
a world that grows people, when they are sensitive to God -- and
Christ is the key. He is the one who heals our wounds and guides
us in the way.
At times there is mass wandering because of conformity to the
wrong peer group. There was a recent news story of a sheep
stampede in Switzerland. A thousand sheep ($42,000 worth of
sheep) stampeded over a high cliff into the valley below. There
was nothing left but a tangled mess of broken bodies at the base
of the cliff. How did it start? Perhaps a small rockslide, maybe
some wild animal. It started; each sheep following blindly the
sheep ahead of him, not seeing the end result of such a race. Now
the sheep could not stop if they wanted to. The pressure of the
sheep racing behind them prevented them from turning back. It was
like a living stream of death; it flowed like a waterfall over
the precipice. Perhaps the real cause was fear; no vision, no
understanding. They were caught, like some of us, in the evil
flow of life that became the flow of death; and after a certain
point could not be stopped. But Christ is the kind of shepherd
who even after the panic button has been pushed, can make
something out of the mess of broken lives at the foot of the
cliff. I have seen many broken lives restored. Christ doesn't
give up on us. I am beginning to understand the meaning of grace
-- God's power in my life to produce a new nature.
Sometimes we are caught in a situation we can't handle; it
won't work out. Perhaps it's alcohol or drugs, or sex, or greed,
or fear or guilt. Desperate, we attack it with all our strength
and fail. Exhausted, we cry out to God for help. We feel a new
assurance. We make progress. We are thrown back. But a strange
inner drive, that seems to come from beyond ourselves, keeps us
at it. We won't give up; something won't let us give up. We
figure to find a more satisfying adjustment to things, to people
and to ourselves. People begin to respond

to us. People change, situations change, I change. Life begins to
be ordered on a higher level, from a deeper center. God kept us
on our feet, going forward, until we saw "the crack in the door
of darkness." We begin to understand our freedom, our cross, our
victory. This is God's grace in action -- "My cup runneth over."
We have a simple illustration: A mother's world has gone sour.
It is more than she can handle. Her home is going to pieces. She
cries out to God for help. She starts a new quest in Bible
reading -- letting it speak to her problem. She begins a new
prayer program where she thinks with God about her real problems.
She examines herself and her relationships with her family. She
began to see that love had to be practiced and that someone had
to start. She couldn't put it off until other members of the
family acted.
She was moved to plunge headlong into a new pattern of life.
The next morning, instead of fussing at everybody, she amazed her
husband by asking: "Cup of coffee, dear? Your majesty, would you
like your breakfast in bed?" He flipped! But he reacted to a new
attitude, with a fresh attitude of his own.
She went to her son's room. She kissed him. (There had been
little affection between them.) She said, "Bob, darling." He
answered, "Darling?" She came back, "Yes, I love you, Bob."
That day there were many surprises and laughter. Such things
as, "Let me do it." The spirit caught in the whole family. There
was a revolution in that home. A revolution began to take hold of
the neighborhood.
The mother felt a new joy, a new confidence. Amazing grace! He
anointeth my head with the oil of peace. My cup of joy runneth
over into the lives of others.
Sadly, there is another side of the coin. If we insist we can
make every day a deadly burden. In his book, Under His Own
Signature, Leslie Weatherhead tells of visiting a home which was
more like a tomb than a house, the persons living there were more
dead than alive. "No light in their eyes, no joy

in their voices." Weatherhead continued, "They reminded me of
dull, heavy oxen plowing a muddy field uphill on a rainy day."
This is where some people come out. God does not intend it so.
When we deny God, we refuse his blessings.
This is a searching question: What if God gave us only the
same amount of time and attention we give to him? The more my
mind is open to God the more blessings I receive. Again and again
in our lives God has broken in, the direction of our lives has
been turned, we have been prevented from the precipice.
At times our problems are tasks that God has assigned to us.
Problems can be a mission: a family problem, a business problem,
a community problem. This can be a call. But some of us are 4F
Christians. Life is full of divine assignments. In spite of his
sufferings, Christ's cup of joy overflowed. Because of life's
involvements, my cup overflows.
General Booth of the Salvation Army, as an old man in the
hospital, discovered he was going blind. He said, to his son,
Bramwell: "You mean I am going blind." His son answered, "I am
afraid that is true." "You mean I will never see your face
again?" Bramwell answered, "Not in this world." The old man
reached his hand across the bed and said, "Bramwell, I have done
what I could for God and the people with my eyes. Now I shall do
what I can for God and the people without my eyes." Now that is
the grace of God made possible by faith. God is always at the
other end of our faith.
Look at Moses. He was a fugitive from a collapsed life in
Egypt. He was caught up in an encounter with God on the back side
of the desert. He was launched again in a dangerous mission
freeing his people from slavery. The impossible demands of his
mission forced him into a deep dependence on God. He was
sustained in his mission. At the end of the journey he is alone
as his people march on into the Promised Land. But he has found
his peace in the presence of God. God and fulfillment are at the
end of the journey of faith.

Someone suggests a frightening thought:

If God Should Go On Strike
How good it is that God above has
never gone on strike
Because he was not treated fair in
things he didn't like.
If only once he'd given up and said,
"That's it, I'm through,
"I've had enough of thee on earth,
so this is what I'll do.
"I'll give my orders to the sun, cut
off the heat supply.
And to the moon give no more light
and run the oceans dry.
Then just to make things really tough
and put the pressure on,
Turn off the vital oxygen till every
breath is gone."
You know he would be justified, if
fairness were the game.
For no one has been more abused
or met with more disdain
Than God, and yet he carries on,
supplying you and me
With all the favors of his grace, and
everything for free ... .
-- Author unknown

But God doesn't go on strike, just the opposite. C. S. Lewis
describes his Christian experience in his book titled Surprised
by Joy. Why should we be so surprised by joy? It is God's plan
for us where we are faithful. Evelyn Underhill shames our lack of
faith, "(God) rides upon the floods. It is because of our
limitations that we seem only to receive him in trickles." The
fact is that in that final day:

"The morning stars
Shall sing together;
And all the sons of men
Shall shout with joy."

Sometimes in experiences of prayer it is given to us to know
in flashes of insight the wonders of God present within our
lives. Power surges through the soul, clearness and vision
possess the mind, the vistas of the future open up, the paths,
once clouded, are seen straight and clear. Walls and fences
disappear, there is no real threat anywhere in the universe. We
are free; life is seen in the new dimension, horizons stretch out
toward the dawning visibility of the city of God.

My cup runneth over --
In deep and moving experiences of worship.
My cup runneth over --
In prayer and adoration.
My cup runneth over --
In joyous service and love.
My cup runneth over --
In sharing and in healing.
My cup runneth over --
In seeing, in feeling, and in living.
My cup runneth over --
In Christ, in the Holy Spirit, and in God.

This is life eternal. This is God's extravagance.