Managing Separation
John 14
CH (CPT) Keith J. Andrews
All Scriptures Marked NKJV; The New King James Version. 1996, c1982. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Readers Digest had a story about a soldier’s who dropped fiancé off at the airport after a week long visit.
The young girl was waiting for her plane and began to realize how much she missed her fiancé. So she began to cry.
The woman next her tried to comfort her by asking what was wrong. The girl told her how she was on her way home after visiting her fiancé.
The woman said, “If you truly love him, it will work out. I know. My ex-husband was in the army.”
We in the military are all too familiar with separations. We experience separations due to back to back deployments, training exercises, and schools.
How should we react during the separation?
We can look to Jesus as an example on how to react, when we are separated from people we love.
In John Chapter 14 Jesus is explaining several things to the disciples.
It was the night that he would be betrayed. Jesus knew it was. He was giving them his last words of instructions.
Jesus knew that in the very near future, he would be separated from his disciples; the friends that he has made and the friends that have followed him. He knows that in a matter of days, he will be hung on a cross and die – only to rise from the grave.
The separation that Jesus is talking in John 14, however, is not about his death, but his ascension into heaven.
In heaven, he knows that he won’t be physically with them as we understand it. He won’t eat with them. He won’t share stories with them. In a very real sense, Jesus will be separated from them.
But by the way Jesus acts, teaches, and provides for his friends he gives us an example in how we are to live when we are separated from our love ones.
He first shows us that
When we are separated, remember why we are separated.
Look at John 14: 1-3:
1“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. (Jo. 14:1-3, NKJV)
Jesus is going to prepare a place for us. He must leave in order to do this. We can get into a long theological discussion of why Jesus ascended into heaven, but here in John 14 he says that he is going to prepare a place for us.
Jesus has a purpose for the separation.
My wife, Monica, makes the best cakes. I especially like her chocolate, chocolate cake. Sometimes, she will make a cake and I will have it for breakfast everyday for a week.
I love her cakes.
She is very particular about following the recipes. When she is cooking, she always separates the egg whites from the egg yolks. Coincidently, all cakes recipes have that requirement.
There are several reasons for this. The one that makes the most sense is concerning the baking temperatures.
The whites cook at a lower temperature than the yolks. If you leave the whites in, you will have a “scrambled egg” in the middle of the cake and it will be completely destroyed.
There is a purpose for the separation.
We are separated from our love ones for a reason. We are all in the military or supporting those who are in the military. We have a purpose being away.
I talk a lot about my journal. One of the biggest motivations for me to journal is to tell my little girls why their Daddy was gone the first year of their life. That God had called me to go to Iraq to be with soldiers.
When you speak to your loved ones, you need to remind them of that. There is a reason why you are separated from your family. You are here to bring freedom to a world of terror and tyranny. And it is an important reason. You may also have other reasons besides that one.
Jesus example also teaches that
When we are separated, remember that commitment is to be reinforced, not abandoned.
Look at John 14: 12-14
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. (Jn 14:12, NKJV)
Jesus tells his followers that whatever is asked in Jesus name, it will be done. He is committed to them. The father will be glorified in the son! If they trust in him, they will do even greater works than Jesus did.
Jesus made a commitment to us. When we are separated from our love ones we need to uphold our commitments.
The Bible says Proverbs 5:18
Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice with the wife of your youth.
(Pr 5:17, NKJV)
It is one of my favorite Bible Verses; a verse that reminds me to maintain my commitment to my wife—the girls I married almost six years ago.
We need to be people that honor those commitments.
Loretta Lynn told esquire Magazine that she’s a big opponent of divorce; She said, “Why leave the nut you got for one you don’t know?” (RD, Sep. 05)
We need to maintain our commitments.
While divorce, is the first that comes to mind, staying married is not the only commitment that you made.
We have plenty of other commitments to our families.
We have the commitment of connection. We need to maintain a sense of connection or belonging with others. This done primarily through regular communication, but it is also done through sending pictures, gifts or clips from articles. You can do anything, just as long as your loved ones have the opportunity to feel apart of your life. They need to know that they are important to you.
We have commitment of safety. We have a dangerous job, some more than others. We need to keep ourselves safe from accidents. People that love us care about our safety and our well being. We need to take every step to be safe, if for nothing else bt our families sake.
We have a commitment to strengthen our relationships. General Richard Cody told our battalion before we came out here; to not only bring ourselves back in one piece, but “to also bring our families back in one piece as well.” (BN formation, Aug. 05) This takes hard work. Yes, we have enough to worry about, but let’s not think that we are the only ones in our relationship that do. Our families are trying to manage life without us being there, while at the same time worrying about us. It is our responsibility to take steps to strengthen relationships back home.
We need to continually reinforce our commitments to our families. These are the most important earthly relationship we have. We can not allow them to fall apart simply by apathy.
We also see through the example of Christ that
When we are separated, remember that communication is be deliberate, not accidental.
John 14:15-18:
15 “If you love Me, 4keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another 5Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. (Jn 14:15-18, NKJV)
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us after his ascension. The Holy Spirit is our helper and our counselor.
The Holy Spirit represents Christ’s willingness to communicate to us. Through the Holy Spirit, he can maintain contact with us throughout our days. He has made a deliberate choice to communicate with us.
One fourth of all households (RD, August 2005) are making scrapbooks. Scrapbooking has become an underground movement of recording personal history. One reason for this swelling movement are worries about preserving today’s digital photos for tomorrow.
Scrapbooking is a deliberate way to record personal history. It is a deliberate way of communicating with future generations.
It is amazing to me as I counsel people that we have marriages falling apart because of distance, but then we have people falling in love on the internet.
The difference is the intentional nature of the relationships.
With internet dating, both people are excided about relationship and are more intentional about maintaining the communications.
In the marriage, too often we get comfortable and allow the communication to slide.
Dr Gary Chapman says that there are five love languages that we use to communicate our love.
1) Physical Touch
2) Acts of Service
3) Quality Time
4) Receiving Gifts
5) Words of Affirmation
(www.fivelovelanguages.com)
As much as you may want to be with your family, you can not, you are here. This limits the way you would relate to your family. The only love language that you can work on while you are in Iraq is “words of Affirmation.” Interestingly enough, communication is the biggest problem in most marriages. The only thing you can work on out here is your communication. We need to be intentional about our communication.
After all this rain, I thought about Noah. Noah saw a Rainbow.
Scientifically, a rainbow is observed when there are “water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind the observer at a low altitude or angle.” It is caused by the dispersion of the sunlight.
When the sunlight passes through, the colors of the light are separated.
The Bible says that the rainbow is something entirely different.
In Genesis 9:13-17, God tells Noah;
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; 15 and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. (Ge 9:13-15, NKJV)
The rainbow’s purpose is to communicate to us the commitment of God to handle our sin in a different way.
Instead of destroying the earth with water because of our sin, God sent His son to pay the penalty Himself.
The punishment of sin is death; whether through water or fire. Jesus died in our place so that we would never have to endure this death ourselves.
All that we must do is to accept this payment. And his payment will cover your sin.
Tonight, you are invited to accept this gift of salvation. I will be done here at the front, and I am available throughout the week, I ask that you come and talk to me about your desire to accept his gift of salvation.
