Archives by: Gary Hoag

For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the Spirit. 1 Peter 4:6

“We focus on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but we forget to pause in the stillness of the day between. Find time today to be present in that place of waiting. There is treasure to be found in the sacred peace that comes as you breathe in that place of quiet surrender. Don’t rush through the space called “between.”

Katherine J. Walden

On 8 April 2022, just one week ago, Dan Busby (my dear friend, mentor, fellow Major League Baseball lover, and basically like a father to me) wrote a CaringBridge post on waiting. It touched me deeply. It was called “There Is a Purpose for Being in God’s Waiting Room.” Check it out here. This paragraph stuck with me.

“I have never been good at waiting. I missed that course in college. Still, the word “wait” keeps showing up in my Bible. It reminds me that while I am waiting, God is working. Jesus said, “My Father is always at His work” (John 5:17). The sign on God’s waiting room reads “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

So, as I sit “between” Good Friday and Easter just waiting and reading God’s Word, I find the “treasure” Walden was talking about. Jesus was working that Saturday. He was proclaiming good news to the dead and setting those captives free. So, when I am waiting, I can find peace in that place of surrender because He is working.

Thanks Jesus for your work for me and all of humanity.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

“The highest act of love is the giving of the best gift, and, if necessary, at the greatest cost, to the least deserving. That’s what God did. At the cost of His Son’s life to the totally undeserving, God gave the best gift – the display of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.”

John Piper in God is the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005) 139-140.

It’s a beautiful day! I am not referring to the weather. It’s Good Friday, the day that the God gave sinful humanity the gift of His one and only Son. It was the highest act of love because God gave us the best possible gift at the greatest cost when we were totally undeserving.

It prompts me to think of ways I can follow suit. What is the best possible gift I can give others, not because they are deserving, but out of love? Sit with that idea today. I will too. Then give as the Spirit leads with love, joy and thankfulness to God for His generosity toward you.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

“So our Lord Jesus Christ presented us in His passion with all the difficulties and the daily grind of this present age; while in His resurrection He presented us with the eternal and blessed life of the age to come. Let us endure the present, hope for the future. That’s why during these days, we spend the days that signify the difficulties of the present age by grinding our souls, as it were, with fasting and discipline; while during the days to come, after Easter, we signify the days of the age to come. We aren’t yet there; I said “we signify them, “not” we possess them.” Until the passion, you see, penance; after the resurrection, praise.

That, you see, will be our business in that life, in the kingdom of God: to see Him, to love Him, to praise Him. What, after all, are we going to do there? In this age there are works of necessity… What are the works of necessity? Sowing, plowing, planting, sailing, milling, cooking, weaving, and any other similar works of necessity; and those good works of ours are also works of necessity: breaking your bread to the hungry is not a necessity of yours, but it is one of the person you are breaking your bread to. Welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, redeeming the captive, visiting the sick, giving advice to the uncertain, freeing the oppressed, all these belong to almsgiving; they are works of necessity…

Well, in that kingdom there won’t be any works of necessity, because there won’t be any neediness there… Where there is no neediness, there are no works of necessity… What, after all, are you going to do in order to eat, when nobody’s hungry? How are you going to perform those works of mercy? Who can you break bread to, when nobody is in need? What sick people can you visit, where perpetual health is the rule? What dead persons can you bury, where immortality never dies? The works of necessity vanish…”

Augustine of Hippo in Sermon 211A.1-2, “During Lent: A Fragment” in Sermons: The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, translation and notes by Edmund Hill (New City Press: New Rochelle, 1993) 133-134.

Happy Maundy Thursday.

It’s the day we celebrate the new commandment Jesus gave us: to love one another. We get to do it as He did it to us. It takes the form of sacrificial service. This side of glory, we get to love through “works of necessity” to all people, especially the undeserving.

Since the days of the early church, the Lenten practices have aimed to teach us self denial, such as prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, which were collectively codified as penance. And penance prepares us for life after the resurrection, or a time of praise.

We are in the days of penance, there are needs everywhere so we get to be generous at all times and on all occasions because that is the purpose for which we were saved by grace. To do good works of necessity which He prepared in advance for us to do.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

“The ‘looking unto Jesus’ which the apostle advises [in Hebrews 12:1-2], will keep us from being weary or fainting under our crosses; for this name was set upon the cross over our Savior’s head. This same Jesus at the end fixes and fastens all. The love of God in Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us; come what can, it sweetens all.”

Mark Frank in a reading from one of his sermons in Celebrating the Saints, compiled by Robert Atwell (SCM: Norwich, 2004) 2.

I feel my perspective changes as I look unto Jesus and approach the cross. Likely, you feel the same way. We shift from weary and fainting to being fixed and fastened.

This relates to generosity because Jesus meets us in our trials and brokenness. He often does not save us from challenges but through them. The key for us is to trust in His love and not money.

Many try to navigate hard times by holding on to money. Don’t do that. Put it in play. Pitch it in like a small stone. Like the rocks in the picture, when coupled with others, it makes a difference.

And it provides a solid foundation for us to walk on. If your cross is heavy today, look to Jesus. I find it helps me stay the course with living, giving, serving, and loving generously.

When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 2 Kings 6:15-17

“If the outward were the measure of the Church of Christ, we might well despair. But side by side with us, when we fondly think like Elisha or Elisha’s servant that we stand alone, are countless multitudes whom we know not, angels whom we have no power to discern, children of God who we have not learnt to recognize. We have come to the Kingdom of God, peopled with armies of angels and men working for us and with us because they are working for God. And though we cannot grasp the fullness of the truth, and free ourselves from the fetters of sense, yet we can, in the light of the Incarnation, feel the fact of this unseen fellowship, we can feel that heaven has been reopened to us by Christ.”

B.F. Westcott in Christus Consummator (London, 1886) 58.

I needed Westcott’s words today. They caused my imagination to picture the heavenly host with me with the vivid imagery that I have only seen in Lord of the Rings movies, patterned after the classic works by J.R.R. Tolkien.

I was reminded that no matter how big the challenges we may face, we are not alone. We are part of a community of workers for God that are unimaginable in number and strength because they serve the King of Kings.

But alas, we are limited by the “fetters of sense” or by the world we can see, hear, and touch. But God’s power and His people number far more than those. We need only eyes to see that we are not alone but part of this community.

Open our eyes Lord, that we may see the hills full of horses and the chariots of fire surrounding us. Fight our battles for us as we stand trusting completely in You. Help us give others this perspective as part of our generosity. Amen.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom. Luke 12:32

“God is using these difficulties to give us the Kingdom and the coming of the Kingdom is conditioned only by our consent and acceptance of the situation. One may try to change the situation, but always with detachment from the results.

The Kingdom is most powerful where we least expect to find it. God does not take away our problems and trials but rather joins us in them. Such is the profound meaning of the incarnation: God becoming a human being.

The Kingdom will manifest itself, not because of our efforts to keep trying, even when all effort seems hopeless, but because God loves us so much that God won’t be able to stand seeing us struggle and always failing. God will do the impossible.”

Thomas Keating in St. Therese of Lisieux: A Transformation in Christ (New York: Lantern, 2001) 45.

God, thank you that you don’t take away our problems but you join us in them. Thanks for good times and hard ones. Bring the Kingdom in every corner of our lives. Do this so we can show others that hope is found in You. Amen.

As we think about generosity, perhaps the lesson today for us is to accept our situations with thankful hearts and to ask God to make the Kingdom manifest itself where we least expect to find it so that hope abounds for us and others.

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

“Would you know him who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fast most; it is not he who gives most alms; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.

If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and perfection, he must tell you to make a rule to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. Whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, it turns into a blessing. Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit; it turns all that it touches into happiness.”

William Law in 1729 in his treatise entitled A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life as recounted in a new book I am reading, compiled by Robert Atwell, Celebrating the Saints (SCM: Norwich, 2004) ii.

While I am grateful that everyone has recently shared my joy regarding the recent addition to the family, I must acknowledge I am personally going through an unexpectedly hard time in my personal life.

It’s as hard and knotty as this wood floor. I won’t go into the details, but what I will say is that after spending solitude with God, I am giving thanks for this “calamity” because it is His will for me in Christ Jesus.

Late yesterday I prayed for a miracle, and then I read this. I found what I was looking for. Not people who fail me, but gracious God whose unfailing love endures forever, and whose generosity is boundless.

God, thanks for the good times, and the hard times. Each teaches us something new about your generosity and love. Cause a thankful spirit to positions us to work miracles. Hear my prayer in Jesus name. Amen.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Matthew 18:1-5

“It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than infants; it checks there confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.”

Charles Dickens in Day’s Collacon, compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day (New York: IPPO, 1884) 100.

Got to meet Evangelene last night and hold her. She slept peacefully in my arms and lap the entire time. That was a lesson for me in itself. She can enter into rest because God has everything sorted.

Then I reflected on today’s Scripture and realized that God wants each of us to avoid the worldly and cultural initiation that fosters worry and fretting and remain like children our entire lives.

He wants us to retain what Dickens describes as the “confidence and simplicity” given to us from heaven. Then as I reflected on generosity this though surfaced clearly.

We can only be generous on all times and on all occasions when we don’t allow the world to check our confidence and simplicity which is rooted in our trust in the goodness of God.

Grandpa’s sweet little “angel” as I plan to call her (as the word is in the heart of her name evANGELene) taught me this whilst I was holding her peacefully. It was a sweet moment.

May you live to see your children’s children—peace be on Israel. Psalm 128:6

“Children are very nice observers, and they will often perceive your slightest defects; in general, those who govern children forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves.”

François Fénelon (1651-1715) French archbishop and theologian in Day’s Collacon, compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day (New York: IPPO, 1884) 100.

Today I hope to see our new granddaughter after she and mommy are released from the hospital. It’s a joy to have lived to see her. What I am realizing is that she will also see me. As she grows up, she will be a keen observer. She will watch my every move. And what Fénelon has taught me today is to be generous with grace and forgiveness toward her and disciplined toward myself and not the other way around. Wow!

God help all of us set a good example so that our gracious generosity draws our children and grandchildren toward us, in your mercy, hear this prayer in Jesus name. Amen.

Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. Proverbs 17:6

“God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race–to enlarge our hearts, to make us unselfish, and full of kindly sympathies and affections; to give our souls higher aims, and to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion; to bring around our fireside bright faces and happy smiles, and loving, tender hearts. My soul blesses the Great Father every day, that he has gladdened the earth with little children.”

Mary Howitt (1799-1888) in Day’s Collacon, compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day (New York: IPPO, 1884) 100. Enjoy the first ever photo and moment of interaction between me and my grandaughter.

Yesterday, when I was walking into the United Club en route home for three weeks without travel to welcome my first grandchild, well, I got word that she could not wait for me to get home.

I love that her name means “good news” because our world needs to know about Jesus. I pray she shares the “good news” like an angel wherever she goes. May she bless every person she meets for God’s glory.

Also, I pray she enlarges my heart and makes me a better person “full of kindly sympathies and affections” and with many “happy smiles.” I have so much room for growht. And I pray she will “gladden the earth!”

Sammy and Emily’s job will be to raise her, but when I am with her, I will teach her what it means to be a Hoag. To be a Hoag is to show the world the love of God by living, giving, serving, and loving generously.

Pray for strength for mommy, daddy, and baby, and that they can come home soon because I have yet to meet the little angel. I can’t wait. Thank you God for Evangelene Peliah Hoag.