I Corinthinians 4 & 5, selected verses
Nov. 22, 2013
***
“So we do not
lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is
being renewed day by day. For
this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory
beyond all measure, because we
look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen
is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the
earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to
be clothed with our heavenly dwelling… so that what is mortal may be swallowed
up by life. He who has prepared
us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So
we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the
body we are away from the Lord— for
we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes,
we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home
with the Lord. So whether we are
at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. … For the love of Christ
urges us on because we are convinced that one has died for all, so that those
who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who died and was
raised for them.” I Cor. 4-5 (selected verses)
***
Alfred Dikken had only been in the nursing
home in Renville a short while when I walked past his room and recognized the
name near his door. Our church had been
praying for Alfred after his son shared that he was very sick and in the
hospital. Since Alfred lived in Willmar,
I didn’t expect him to show up at the Renville nursing home. And I was on my
way to serve communion to the man next door to Alfred, whose family was
gathered and waiting for me. So I stopped only briefly to say hello, introduce
myself, and see how he was feeling.
I told Alfred I would be back another
day. He said he would like that. Turns out, he was easy to talk to. So over
the next few weeks, I sat on his windowsill or on a folding chair beside his
bed and got to know him through about a half dozen conversations, his wife
Dorothy listening in a recliner nearby. I learned about Alfred’s family and his
taste for sweets. I discovered that Alfred and I both liked vanilla ice cream
with peach sauce—and that he and my dad were born in the same year. Sometimes, when the small room was crowded
with visitors, Alfred talked with me while I sat at the foot of his bed. But I
stopped doing that after one day, when he was especially restless—and almost
kicked me off.
I also enjoyed watching and
listening to him talk with his family and friends. Several times I was there when his cousin
Louie came. Louie and Alfred were
boyhood pals, children of our church. They rode Harleys together, and the story
goes that Alfred was the one who kept Louie out of trouble. Louie had a nickname for Alfred—“Crink.” If Alfred was sleeping when Louie came to visit
him at the nursing home, all Louie had to do was lean in real close and say,
“Hey, Crink!” And Alfred would wake up and smile.
When I asked Alfred why Louie called him
“Crink,” he laughed and said he didn’t know.
So I asked Louie. He laughed and said he didn’t know, either. I think maybe they just didn’t want to tell
me.
On my second visit, Alfred told
me how much he loved and missed the people of Renville and Ebenezer church. He said
his grandfather Stomberg had been one of the charter members, more than 100
years ago! Dorothy told me later that Alfred had been a Sunday school teacher
and an elder on session.
Alfred
and Dorothy joined another church in the 1980s when they sold the farm and
moved to Willmar where Alfred could more easily access the medical care he
needed. He had struggled with serious health problems since he was a teen and had
rheumatic fever, which damaged his heart.
In Willmar, Alfred found a variety of
jobs—hauling for a candy company, laboring for a poultry company, and working
at a tractor museum. At all of these jobs, Dorothy worked alongside him. She truly was his life partner, as well as
his caregiver. She was the one upon whom
he relied. They had been together—in sickness and in health—for 55 years.
She
was a 21-year-old nurse at Granite Falls hospital when her friend and coworker,
Junith, introduced her to Alfred. Junith
was dating Alfred’s cousin Louie. Louie told Dorothy that she shouldn’t be too
nice to Alfred. That she shouldn’t agree with “Crink” all the time; Alfred wouldn’t
like that.
Dorothy took Louie’s advice. And 24-year-old
Alfred, an aspiring farmer, soon proposed. He used the money from the sale of
his wheat crop to buy her an engagement ring. Dorothy said yes and accepted the
ring, but couldn’t resist commenting, “Boy, it must have been a small wheat
crop.” They married at her church in 1958—4 months after they had met.
For sure, there wasn’t much money in
the beginning. For the first four years of their marriage, they lived in a tiny
rented house with no running water. They
had milk because they shared a Guernsey cow with their neighbors across the
road, Lawrence and Alice. Alfred and Lawrence bought “Gurney” through an ad in
the newspaper. Alfred milked Gurney in the morning; Lawrence milked her at
night. Gurney wintered in Alfred’s barn and summered in Lawrence’s pasture.
It was a simpler life, in some respects,
but also a hard life, without many of the comforts and conveniences we enjoy
today. But in those early, struggling years, they made some happy memories—stirred
when old friends visited Alfred at the Renville nursing home.
Alice and Lawrence came to visit one
day, and Alfred joyfully proclaimed to a nurse, “I know these people! We shared a cow!”
In
all our conversations, Alfred never complained of his pain, though I know he
was hurting. He only made one request. He
made me promise to make sure that he and Dorothy’s membership would be moved
back to Ebenezer church. He said he felt
like he had come home.
I understood. Still, my faith told me he
wasn’t home, yet. But he was on his way. That “homey” feeling Alfred experienced was
the peace of Christ, a gift from our loving God for all who trust in Him. Alfred was happy to come to the place he used
to call home and see the people he loved, but what gave him real peace was that
he was ready to go home and be with the Lord.
He didn’t lose heart, as the apostle Paul
urges the church at Corinth. Alfred had suffered,
but his faith had endured. He knew that
the pain of this world would end—and not follow him into the world to come.
Friends, this isn’t all there is! There’s
more than what we can see. And what cannot
be seen is “eternal.”
Paul says the suffering in this life is
but a “slight momentary affliction.” And that it is preparing us for “an
eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.”
Our outer nature, our physical body, won’t
last forever. Our body is just a “tent.”
A “building from God” awaits our imperishable soul—our inner nature—that is
being “renewed every day.”
Like Paul, let us we walk by faith and
not by sight.
And may the love of Christ urge us on.
For the one who died for all was raised for
us—so that we might live for Him!
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