Lost In A Cause
Lost In A Cause
The memories of growing up on the farm will always be with me. Some bring warm, happy emotions. Others bring sadness.
My Dad, a small farmer who supplemented his income by working for the Department of Natural Resources six months of the year, continually struggled with making ends meet. As hard as he worked, it seemed as though he could never get ahead financially, and it showed in his demeanor.
In the kitchen one day, he was looking particularly blue, sitting at his customary spot at the end of the table, next to the stove, drinking coffee. Dad was almost never seen in the house without a cup of coffee in his hand.
He turned in his chair toward the middle of the room where Mom was just opening the flour bin. Mom spent most of her time in the kitchen, cooking something, or baking something.
Something was plainly on Dad’s mind. He had that semi-dark brooding look, as if he was processing something and couldn’t arrive at an answer.
Then finally it came out. The inner brooding broke out in a sentence . . . a short sentence, but those few words said it all.
“Just can’t get ahead, you know it?” he said to Mother.
This was it. This was the essence of Dad’s frequent sadness. As hard as he worked, he felt he just couldn’t get ahead financially.
Dad didn’t know the Lord at this point, and as a young boy, I watched his struggles almost daily. Sometimes he went into the living room with his cup of coffee and looked out the picture window to the north at the dark overcast sky. Dad’s mood and the brooding weather outside were a match.
At one point he returned to his spot at the end of the couch everyday for nearly a month, just sitting there staring out the window. Finally, Mother walked into the living room and spoke some very direct words.
“Jim, you’ve gotta snap out of it,” she said. “Your’e making George depressed.”
That got his attention, I guess. He looked up with an expression of half shock, half bewilderment. Then he got up and went outside. He didn’t return to the couch. I guess he reasoned that he didn’t want to make life harder for his son, so he got himself in motion and carried on with life.
Well, this is a sort of gloomy kind of story, but hold on, because there is a happy ending.
In my senior year of high school, I left my rock and roll group, the most important thing in my life at the time, and gave my life to Christ. It was all new. God’s people in the little Baptist Church became my second family. My life completely changed.
That was followed early the next summer by Dad’s turnaround. The two of us were working together on the farm on a Monday. Toward supper time, I told Dad I had to get cleaned up because I was supposed to lead the meeting at the church that night. It was film night. Once a month, Reverend Ortman, from a border town north of us came with a projector and played a Christian film.
Dad decided to go with me. I led the meeting that night and at the end, God was prompting me to give a salvation invitation. Dad jumped up from his seat and nearly ran to the front.
From that time forward everything was different in our home. I don’t think I ever saw Dad sink into depression again. There was a lightness to his step, and though things sometimes got him down for while, he always sprang back.
Dad had joined a cause much bigger than he was, and much bigger than any of us, the cause of Christ.
What is the cause of Christ? Jesus, God’s only son, left the splendor of heaven to come to earth and be born of the virgin, Mary . . . in a humble stable, no less. He grew up and was the only human being ever to live without sin. Then, He went to a cruel cross and died for the sins of all mankind. From that point on He gave eternal life to whosoever would believe in Him for the forgiveness of sin.
That is a cause bigger than any of us. We were never intended to live for ourselves, only to amass possessions and pleasure for our own benefit. When we give ourselves to Him who loved us so much that He died for us, then we are part of a bigger cause.
We have much more than what pleasure and success we can obtain here on earth. We have eternity with Christ and with the saints in heaven to look forward to. If this hope lies within us, then also the love of Christ dwells within us and we live no longer for self, but for the good of others.
This kind of mindset frees us from self-destructive selfishness, that looks only to our own interests and pleasure.
Dad found that God worked on his behalf. The taming of wild rice occurred about that time. I was ready to go to Bible college in St. Paul. The bill for the year was $2000, more money than Dad had ever been able to access except through a loan. That first year as a rice farmer, Dad made an extra $2000.
God provided, and suddenly there was a different dimension to Dad’s lifelong struggle with finances. Not to say that it ever became easy, but Dad now had a Divine helper on his side.
My talent as a musician wasn’t wasted. In a couple years, I recorded a record album entitled A Brand New Song. On it was a song called Lawyer On My Side that got airplay on a major Minneapolis radio station. The Lawyer On My Side is none other than Jesus Christ, the Lord. The book of first John talks about an advocate. The original Greek word is paraclete and it means helper, or one who goes alongside and pleads our case . . . a lawyer.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
1 John 2:1 ESV
Since film night in the little Baptist church in Waskish, Minnesota, my Dad spent the rest of his life with a Lawyer on his side, and he found the journey much better; he joined a cause much bigger than himself. Dad was permanently lifted out of his habitual depression.
If you need someone to lift you out of a dark and oppressive existence, full of struggle, I assure you, Jesus is only a prayer away. Call on Him and He will answer! Give your life to Him and He will give back to you a brand new life, better than you could possibly imagine.