Beech Tree News Network

Three Brothers-in-law

I have three brothers-in-law. 

One firmly believes he will not die a natural death but will instead be caught up in the clouds to be with Jesus during the Rapture, within his lifetime.

The second brother-in-law says he is 100% sure that he knows who the Anti-Christ is, and that the Roman Empire will rise to prominence once more, ushering in the Anti-Christ, who is a Roman citizen.

The third brother-in-law believes that God’s business is above his pay grade.  He makes no predictions.  He just keeps delivering Meals-On-Wheels to the elderly and food insecure, a task he took up many years ago.  Wisdom is knowing that you don’t know.  “We plan, and God laughs.”  I heard that on a British TV show.

Two Dreams

My guitar teacher at WKU shared a dream he dreamed one night.  At the time, he was wrestling with issues he didn’t understand.  He asked God for answers.  In the dream, he was in Heaven.  While there, many things were explained to him.  His understanding was enhanced, and everything made perfect sense.  He said, “Oh, I see.”  When he woke the next morning, he couldn’t remember the things that were explained to him, but he did remember that everything made sense while he was there.

My sister—now retired—was an English teacher at Apollo High School in Owensboro.  She had one student she was particularly fond of, because of his wonderful attitude.  After the student graduated, he enrolled at WKU for college.  He lived in an apartment off campus.  One night, someone broke into his apartment.  The student was shot and killed during the burglary.  When my sister heard the news, she was devastated.  She turned to God for answers, telling God that she needed to know that her student had left this earth for a better place.  One night, in a dream, the student came to her and said, “Mrs. Dailey, it’s so much bigger than you think.”  My sister made peace with his death.

One Universe

Recently, I saw a diagram of our solar system.  The sun was a huge orange ball at the center.  All of the eight—nine if you count Pluto—planets were lined up in front of the sun.  There was an arrow pointing to a tiny round rock, about the size of a marble.  It was earth.  The caption read: YOU LIVE HERE.  The workings of the universe are so much bigger than we are.  That’s either good news or bad news, depending on your perspective.  I think it’s good news.  

C.S. Lewis wrote, “If there is nothing in this world that can satisfy me, it must mean I was meant for a bigger world.”

Sometimes, when I am beaten down by world chaos and personal chaos, I put my thumb and index finger together to form a small circle, the size of the marble-sized earth in the aforementioned diagram.  I look at that small circle and say, “You live here.”  It puts things in perspective for me.