WHERE Does Your Sky-Line End?

The story of Abram is a vividly detailed picture of the story of faith.  It is a journey riveted with potholes, but leading from Abram, the would-be father, to Abraham, the father of a nation and of the Christian faith.  Neither picture nor journey is static, but frame upon frame, it relates a tale which is quite like our own.

I see myself sitting with Abram in his tent (see Genesis 15).  He is in such a dwelling place with the flap of his tent down.  In the imagery of this chapter of Genesis, I can feel his darkness.  He is shrouded in gloom; his murky place is thick and heavy with despair.  Its pollution squeezes his lungs spiritually as much as any stench could possibly foul the air of a nomad’s dwelling.  This is his universe; his life is an utter failure; the dark depression of this tent is a mirror of his dreams and aspirations.  We can feel his experience, and it awakens within us, similar emotions of the low places of our life. 

You know the story. Heaven had beckoned Abram to found a nation, his heirs were to be as the sands of the sea; but this would-be father could not even produce one child.  No child means no hope to found a patriarchal clan, little less a nation. With this hope dead, his future is but a grave and a meager legacy of an old man’s tale of what should have been.

Then it happens – an invading Light rises like the morning sun into his darkened world; His God lights a candle to erase the cursed darkness; from His LORD’s mouth there is a slight whisper but with the power of a rushing mighty wind to replace the silenced emptiness of his withered manliness.  How great was this darkness upon his life, but even greater is this light that rises with healing in its rays.  I rejoice because of this light; it is the light of grace empowered by the Author of salvation and hope.  It is the Light and the Voice of the One in Abram’s life.  It is the Word of restoration of faith to Abram of little faith.  His LORD and Savior assaults the gloom, and throws back the flap of his tent, and commands him to leave his old man’s, self made tomb.  His LORD says, “Look towards the heavens, I want to show you the stars!”

“Abram, come out; Look to the horizons; Look to the far horizons!  It is time to dream again!”

I, like Abram, have also sat in my tent, and all but died in its darkness.  The story of Abram challenges me to look again to the horizons.  God made man for the sky line.  One’s horizon is his sky-line.  That sky line can be small or large, according to each vision or dream.  It can be a patch of ground and a tent, or it can be the stars.  I believe that God commands us to look to the stars and see the far horizons.

We relate to Abram on so many levels.  There is a time to dream again!

Thus Abram did, and his manhood revived. He gazed at the stars, and perceived that the world was bigger than the plot of land on which his tent was leaning. He saw that the sky was superior to his ridge-pole. He got a sense of far horizons. His soul revived, and turning his back on the grave, the old gentleman went away to found a nation.

Is my skyline a short horizon?  Many folk live in a small world. They survive for the day.  They judge their success by only that which can be turned into cash on the spot. It is hard to see beyond your tent when its flap is down!

I believe this is a poor way to live because it shortens everything. It is so easy to pollute the small square where your tent leans.  The stench of anxiety and despair can destroy you.  It is time to open the flaps, take a step out and look to the heavens.  Do you know what you’ll see?

You will see the infinite nature of the universe, and thus the infinite nature of our LORD!

The further we look into the heavens, the more of glory we realize is there.  God is that way!  “Look to the stars,” he told Abram.  I am speaking of a skyline filled with far horizons!

I have problems, but I also have Christ.  Greater is He that is in me than any problem in my world.  My problem is not one of supply but of vision.  “Look to the stars!” is the voice within me in my time of darkness.

To the tired, discouraged, defeated men and women who feel there is nothing left to live for, He lifts the curtain and reveals His bigness and the awesome glory and the endless possibilities of life. This is His memo to those who are sordid and grasping.  There are times when your soul is hectored by the senses of what should be, but is not.  It is easy to be tempted and tethered to your fleshly appetites, and barter eternity for time, and sell your birthright for a mess of pottage.  There is such power in this message, “Look now toward heaven!  …  It is time to dream of glory.”

I ever need a perspective. A right vision produces faith.  The bigger I see God, the greater faith I can exercise!

This is the preciousness of heavenly hope. We are pilgrims here, but we search for a country. In this hunt, we are bombarded with all sorts of problems.  Many of us fold the flaps of our tents downward to insulate us from distress.  However, when we do so, we often lock the darkness within and destroy our dream.

John 18:36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

Jesus is born king of kings, but He told Pilate that this kingdom is not from this world, but one from the skyline, one above Pilate’s citizenship or understanding.  Jesus knew dark times awaited for His earthen tabernacle.  He often compared His Body to a tent, a temporary dwelling.  However, He always kept His eyes on His skyline, the far horizon of eternity and purpose that even His disciples struggled to understand, little less see.  

Jesus draws the picture of this far horizon.  How could he endure the cross?  “For the joy that was set before him” – He saw beyond the cross to the skyline of eternity and joy!  This did not mean that Jesus’ tabernacle did not grow dim.  Even our LORD felt forsaken. 

Mat 27:46  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

 Listen to Jesus’ prayer.  Forsaken, but not unpleasing to His heavenly Father,  He endured the unbearable, because he saw His skyline of joy.  What is this joy? Jesus could see beyond the puny cross and the place of the skull, and the borrowed tomb and the ramblings of a crowd which had no idea of what they were doing.  Like Abram, He dare not dwell in a darkened tent.  His Divine eyes are opened towards the skyline.  Jesus looks to the stars and sees a horizon of reunion with His Father in glory, and He rejoices at the perspective of reinstatement of name and authority that he appeared to set aside in order to feel the pangs of humanity.  Then, last but far from least, He sees a skyline of redemption, not for Himself, but for all of us who now love His appearing.  This is I; I am part of His skyline, AND He is my skyline.

 What a prayer Jesus prays!  Unusual are many of His entreaties to His Heavenly Father!  This, too, is part of the mystery of prayer. We think sometimes of prayer as a cheap, economical way of getting what we are reluctant to work for ourselves.   Prayer, for many, is a scheme to manipulate the Almighty in order to meet our wants. However, prayer is a far higher and holier thing. It is our soul revealing itself out toward the infinite. It is our spirits looking toward heaven!  Prayer is seeing heaven’s skyline and continuing our Christian journey. 

It is perhaps what God means when He says: “Have faith and hope and charity.” Open your tents, look to the stars, and march!   It is time to move to larger quarters!