Category: Spencer Harmon

Articles written by Spencer Harmon

Waiting With Simeon

My name is Simeon, and I have been refined through the furnace of forbearance.  I had a promise stored away in the confines of my heart for many years.  A confidence; an assurance; a hope; a revelation.  All of this from the very Spirit of Yahweh.  You see, I had the great promise of looking incarnate salvation straight in the face.  Israel’s consolation.  The Messiah.  The Lord had promised that I would not see death until this promise had been fulfilled before my eyes.  And, oh, how it’s fulfillment was so sweet.

Yet, between the birth of the promise and its consummation, there were great days of angst.  You know the feeling, don’t you?  The promise is received.  The fire of faith is white-hot in your soul.  Then a week goes by, and then a month, and a year; your hair starts to grey.  Your skin starts to wrinkle.  Your bones begin to ache.  And things grow dark.  Do you know what I mean, friend?  Do you know this feeling?  Do you know the feeling of a promise received from our great God, but then the tides of time beat on your shore, grating away at the foundation of your hope?  I knew this feeling.

You see, friend, rarely do we hear of the between days.  Those twenty-four hour cycles of waiting.  When all one can do is cling to what one knows is true about the promise-making God while his promise remains unfulfilled.  This is my story.

How did I wait on this promise-making, delaying God?  By constant reminder.  How David’s songs soothed my soul!  It seemed as though David’s song voiced the words that were in my heart that I could not speak.  I can’t begin to number the times that I reminded myself of this great confidence he had:  “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:13-14)  This was my song.  Because it seemed that all I had was a promise. And yet, I believed that I would see that promise.  My stumbling, weak hope was set steadfast on the sovereign God of Israel.

And so, in the weary days when the promise had no vigor, I reminded myself.  In the temple, in the Spirit, my faith was refined through hope deferred.  Do you know this, friend?  Have you felt the tender hand of our Father who is never slack on his promises, but also never premature on his delivery?  This is our great God.  The one who gave our people 430 years of silence until the cries of John in the wilderness.  All of this according to plan; all of this by great orchestration.  No promise unfulfilled; and no child of his unpurified by patience.

But, friend, when I held the promise in my arms for the first time – when my heart sighed in great relief while holding the Messiah of the nations – I knew that I could die.  For I had looked upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  I had tasted and seen that the Lord is good.  Yet, I did not just see and taste his goodness in the moment the was promise fulfilled.  I had seen it in the waiting.  The Spirit of God was upon me, giving me faith in his promises during the weary days of lost hope.  When my faith was gone, I knew that my God held my right hand and was the one who helped me (Isaiah 41:13).  I have seen Israel’s hope with my own two eyes.  And I have seen Israel’s hope with my heart, as well.

So, friend, take advice from an old man who will soon die.  Wait on the Lord.  He is never slack, yet never premature in his fulfillment of his promises.  Yet, be sure of this, he will keep the promise he has made.  For his promises are always “Yes” and “Amen” in that child that I held in my arms.  If you ever doubt God’s promise to you that he has made in his word, think of me.  Think of my days of waiting.  Even more, think of that child.  The Messiah.  Who grew, and lived the life of obedience that I could never live (no matter how hard I tried!), and then died for all my moments of weak, silly unbelief.  And his resurrection speaks to you and I.  It is the great, “Yes!” to the promise.  Believe, believe, believe!  You shall see salvation, perhaps at a distance for now.  But soon, face to face.

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen you salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” -Luke 2:29-32

Spencer Harmon

To Know

One lazy Friday evening a few years back, my Mom and I picked up a movie called “Second Hand Lions.” Apparently, it was a story that chronicled “the comedic adventures of an introverted boy left on the doorstep of a pair of reluctant, eccentric great-uncles, whose exotic remembrances stir the boy’s spirit and re-ignite the men’s lives.” It sounded like the kind of story that my Mom and I would like, and my Dad and brother would hate. So, Mom and I, after successfully convincing ourselves that my Dad and brother might like it, rented it. At one point in the movie the two uncles and their nephew drive to a local restaurant to get some food. At the restaurant, Hub (one of the uncle’s) is harassed by a local hooligan who tries to steal some of his barbecue. Hub turns to his nephew and says, “This boy has been given everything but discipline. And now his idea of courage and manhood is to…ride around and irritate folks who are too good-natured to put a stop to it.” To which the hooligan responds, “Hey! Who do you think you are?!” Hub grabs the boy by the neck, stares him straight in the eye and says:

“Hub McCain. I fought in two world wars and countless smaller one’s on three continents. I’ve led thousands of men into battle with everything but horses and swords to artillery and tanks. I’ve seen the head waters of the nile and tribes and natives no white man had ever seen before. I’ve won and lost a dozen fortunes. Killed many men. And loved only one women with a passion that a flea like you could never begin to understand – that’s who I am.”

I remember watching this and having a rush of manly masculinity rush through my body. I dreamed of knowing myself in the way Hub knew himself. I boyishly fantasized for a brief moment about being like Hub: fighting in battles, seeing great things that no one has seen, winning many prizes, traveling to far lands, and being a amorous husband to one women and protecting her to death. But then I was sucked back to where I was, eating my chips and drinking my highly caffeinated beverage – fighting no battles, engaged in no romance, and living in a relatively small town in the middle of the cornfields of Ohio. As I sat back and thought about this brief fantasy I realized how silly it was of me to want to be able to tell people about me. When someone challenges me, I can’t answer like Hub. I’ve never been in a real fight, I’ve never traveled across an ocean, and I’ve never led thousands into battle across an ocean. For me, I can’t brag about what I’ve done. However, I can remind myself of who I know and what He’s done. The last thing a synopsis of my life would do is put a bunch of hoodlums to flight. So then, to whom shall I run when I’m challenged? Every day there awaits for me a new confrontation. Shall I look this world in the eye and say to them, “Do you know who you are messing with?! I am Spencer Harmon! I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was home schooled through the eighth grade! I lived in the same town all my life! My Dad is a truck driver! My mother is a home maker! I read books! And I…I am a Bible college student!” No. This will not do. There is a rock that is far more sturdy than any story I can give. I would much rather, when the strains and weight of this world crash in, say this:

“He is the image of the invisible God.  He upholds the universe by the word of his power.  He made propitiation for my sins by his blood on the cross.  He rose victorious over death.  In him all things hold together.  He healed the sick.  He is highly exalted.  At his name, every knee will bow.  His kingdom is everlasting.  He never sinned.  He is sovereign over all things.  He is always faithful.  He is perfectly just.  He is coming again.  He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

There is an old Greek aphorism that reads, “Know Thyself”  This is a good thing.  We should know ourselves; yet, the knowledge of ourselves should drive us away from ourselves to our powerful Savior.  As C.S. Lewis puts it in Mere Christianity, “Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”  Jesus is too powerful, too beautiful, too perfect, and too sovereign for you to try to find confidence in your own anecdotes of small victory. He is a rock, a refuge, a brother, a friend, and a champion for those who trust Him.

Spencer Harmon