Ode to 9-11

Staggered and shattered, broken and battered, lost and lonely in the incredible death and destruction. It could not happen here nor could it happen to us, but evil came upon us.

Hands and hope, courage and comfort, effort and energy in the residue of utter despair and discouragement. It happened here and it happened to us, but good has restored us.

Remember those that died and remember those that gave beyond measure. Remember those that comforted and those that responded. Remember to be like them. Be willing to sacrifice and even die for others, be willing to cry and comfort one another and never, ever forget ... to pitch in with your heart and your hands to bring hope and restoration to your world.  It matters.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 ESV).

After the miracle …

“The demons implored Him, saying, "Send us into the swine so that we may enter them." Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they were drowned in the sea.” (Mark 5:12-13, NIV)

  The man lived out his days overpowered and tormented in every facet of life by demonic oppression. His emotions were so explosive and violent that chains could not contain him. He fled the constant inner hellish onslaught by dwelling in a place no one would usually venture.  This wild man spent his life roaming without relief, screaming and raging at the world and his tormenters while cutting at his very flesh to release  the demons haunting him without mercy. The people around him lived in fear of him but could do nothing to help him much less to contain him away from their community.

     The path of Jesus traveling through the region intersected with this tormented man.  Jesus came by and the life of this man would never be the same. The demons so overpowering of the man now trembled in fear at the presence of the Son of God.  Jesus cast out the legions of evil in an instant and instantly the man was given a peace beyond understanding. After this miracle … Jesus sent the man to his family. 

     This tender act is often overshadowed by the miracle and is hardly even noticed, but it shows the deep compassion of Jesus.  Jesus knew the brokenness of this family. He knew the lifetime of sheer heartache and loss they had endured as their son and brother was worse than a dead man to them.  Jesus sent his redeeming and restoring mercy in the gracious gift of a new son and brother to them. 

     Jesus does miracles today … millions of miracles. Miracles of release, healing and mercy in countless lives.  The miracles are powerful, amazing and life changing but we must never forget the great gift of redeeming and restoring mercy and grace that comes after the miracle.  This is the power of the Risen Christ. He always brings new life to the brokenness of life before He comes again to us … over and over, again and again.

But Jesus said, "No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been." (Mark 5:19, NLT)

 Suggested Bible Reading ... Mark 5

Called to follow to a different place.

“The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”  (Genesis 12:1, NIV).

 We may never receive a call from God like Abraham was given. The call we receive from God may not be to travel to another country. We not even be called to leave the city where we live but are all called to a different place.  The place we are going is different than the place we are living.  It is a different place of faith traveled only by followers who journey simply by trusting their very lives to God. 

     Our journey as a follower of Christ will not be much different from Abram’s journey of faith in the Old Testament.  We follow God’s call to a place unfamiliar and so did Abram.  Abram’s journey followed an unpredictable path with difficulties, anxieties, pressures, testings and failures.   What makes our journey of faith like Abraham’s journey so long ago is common reality of being called to follow God to a different place in faith. Faith ties our unique journeys as followers of Christ together with Abraham’s journey.   If a person has faith in God and follows the call of the Savior in their life, they will trust in the grace God will supply for the journey.  

    There will be grace coming to us as forgiveness when we fail to see or respond to God’s guidance and there will be grace coming in overflowing amounts to strengthen us in our needs and difficult moments.  Jesus Christ our Lord, promises to be with us everyday of our lives and throughout the course of our lives. Through familiar and unfamiliar, throughout leaving and arriving, through losing and gaining, throughout comfortable and uncomfortable, through lean times and times of abundance.  Sure you may never travel across the ocean, you may never leave your hometown but you may find yourself in many situations similar to Abraham, which may or may not have come from the choices you made.  You may not travel far but you will have losses and blessings throughout your life in many ways similar to Abraham.  Isn't it wonderful to know that God is with all of us in our faith journey?  He loves us before we ever know it with a great love and He walks with us when we ask Jesus into our lives to every place we journey.  We are called to a different place in faith.  It is a place where He gently and watchfully leads us and a place of His unending abiding. 

“And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  (Mt. 28:20, NIV)

Suggested Bible Reading ... Genesis 12

On the cross ...

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me,

so far from my cries of anguish?”  (Psalm 22:1, NIV)

  There is something so powerful in the prophetic verses that come true in the death of our Lord recorded in Psalm 22. Not only in their recording of the death of Jesus but in the deeper sense of Jesus grasping  our hopeless predicament as people lost in our sin and redeeming us by laying down His life.  He experiences our loneliness by experiencing the deepest loneliness ever experienced … as Jesus the son was separated from His Eternal Father (Psalm 22:1-2).  For eternity the communion, fellowship and love was complete in perfect unity and now He was separated from the Father.  He was mocked in a far deeper way that can ever be imagined, as He was taunted to come down from this place of humiliation and suffering to save Himself. This could have done in an instant, but a great unfathomable love restrained Him to remain on the cross to save the world (22:7-8). His physical pain, before and during the crucifixion is beyond description ( 22:12-18). 

     Why was his death carried out in this particular way?  He had to die. In His death, His place as the Son was severed and torn from Him, separated now from the Father as He bore our sins and the sins of the world.  None of the details of His death fell into place to amaze us with prophetic fulfillment but to travel the distance releasing in all ways ...from all our sins, pain, suffering, loneliness, and every other part of our human brokenness. Redeeming everything about the fallen world and everyone in it.  He completes that redemption and healing in an ultimate way by taking us remade by the Holy Spirit, into eternity where we will be with the Risen Lord forever (Hebrews 5:7-9). It is an amazing grace, that saves us.

“Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!” (Psalm 22:30-31, NLT)

Suggested Bible Reading … Psalm 22

  

This day ...

“This is the LORD’s doing, and it is wonderful to see. This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:23-24, NLT).

  As we begin our days, what aspects will determine our attitude for the day and either make this time period,  a good day or one that is simply tolerated? As we look ahead to the coming day, how do we approach it? Do we jump into the day with excitement or wish we go back around the corner because dread is draped across all facets of the day ahead.  If the morning breaks bright and sunny… one might proclaim, “It is going to be a great day.” If the sun is not shining and grayness seems to settle over all the start of the day with a impending heaviness … one might lament, “This is going to be a great day” in utter disgust and irony. It is easy on some days to be swallowed up by the anticipated pressures and problems we imagine looming in the hours before us and give up on the day before it has hardly begun.  Some people are just morning people and they bounce out of bed with optimism.  Other people take longer to get going and need a large cup of a certain dark aromatic beverage to even begin to contemplate their day.

     Sometimes a day which begun so full of promise, slowly descends into an endless array of negative adjectives such as lousy, awful, brutal, atrocious, horrid, ghastly and hideous. We might say, "It was just a bad day." Was it really?  Did we not have a day … a day of life?  We had a day of knowing God and His gifts, of family and friends, food and delights, sights and sounds, joy and laughter and countless new insights and experiences midst any and all of the negatives of that day. We cannot know the events of the day, nor the difficulties or whether the outcome will be better or less than expected.  We cannot control the number of our days nor can we know if we will even wake tomorrow to a new day but we have this day as a gift from God.

      In reality,  none of our days are really just our days.  Each day is a gift of grace from God.  We have been given a Savior and He redeems all of our days, if we let have our days.  Each day is a gift as it begins and it unfolds as a gift ever surprising with more understanding and love if we look to Him in every facet of the day.  Whether we are happy with the gift of each day reflects not on quality of the gift but simply on our gratitude in having another day of grace to live out and another day to share with others.

     His love covers the gift of each day and His grace is sufficient for every hour of everyday. Be filled with gratitude for each day you are given ... rejoice and be glad in it.

Suggested Bible Reading … Psalm 118

He alone is everlasting.

“Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.  Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.  But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31, NLT)

  Some passages in the Bible become token thoughts.  They are printed out on posters and plaques because people like the poetic sound of the words and they function as inspirational morale boosters.  Many times these same passages tend to be used as texts at funerals where we need encouraging thoughts and woven into songs to carry the thought even further into our daily living.  It is a good thing to be familiar with a passage of Scripture and it is even better when a verse becomes an inspiration to our living, yet in all of this we might miss the purpose of the thought in the first place.

     Such as passage is found in Isaiah as the great prophet proclaims the Lord alone is everlasting and He alone stands without getting weary,  giving strength for us to rise above the difficulties of any moment or season in time.  The verses plucked out of their context and used simply as a slogan of hope might negate the intensity of the great struggle of the prophet Isaiah was trying to address. The contrast he lays out offers an attempt through his words to address the vast void in our frailty as humans and the everlasting nature of God.  Innate in the human heart is our tendency to elevate our living and significance as something we have power and mastery over, envisioning our living as going on and on without end.  We also as human beings, tend to elevate our strengths as much more sufficient than they really are.  We tend to put our trust in the things we make and even the gods we worship. 

     Long after all that the craftsmen, artists and inventors have made has become obsolete, neglected, broken and has been cast aside as useless and after all our trusted securities are realized as illusions, the Everlasting God remains.  He alone cast the blankets of stars in the heavens and knows them by name and He alone does not lack in power to give, renew  and sustain.  All and everything that is seen by our eyes will wear out and become useless but He remains to come time and time again not only to bring  strength to us but to lift us up to soar with Him on His everlasting wings.  The reality of our Everlasting Lord caring for us in such a way, although captured a bit in tiny way in a familiar verse is really beyond our understanding.  Trust in the Lord to find everlasting strength and soar like an eagle on His wings.  May it never be just an expression. May our trust be only in the everlasting God and may His promises be ever realized and lived out … over and over again in all of our days.

Suggested Bible Reading … Isaiah 40

  

Shout!

Thanks be to God for His mercies. This is day 100.  One hundred devotions reflecting His grace.  I cannot believe it.  I could not have done this, without His mercy and grace.  Also I say ... Thanks to my readers from around the world! My prayer remains that I be faithful and useful ... encouraging us all in the mercies of God, in grace of Jesus our Lord and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

 ^"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23 KJV).

Shout!

"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs." (Psalm 100:1-2, NIV)

  You might hear shouting at sporting events.  You might hear shouting for one team and then the other.  The expressive voicing in their shouting may be in support or derision and it will make itself known in tone and words. You might hear shouting as intense anger and frustration spill out in relationship.  You might hear shouting at a political rally as the candidates excite the crowd with their promises, throwing out a short slogan that unifies the crowd to a plan of action.  You may hear shouting as people applaud a performer speaking or singing.  Shouting can even pour forth as people are brutalized by a mob.  Military leaders have rallied their armies to battle for centuries by their shouting and people have been directed countless times over countless years by people in authority as to a specific action to avoid an immediate danger just before them.

     So what is the Psalmist asking us to do, when he tells us to “shout with joy to the LORD?” Does our shouting offer up a type of applause to our God?  Does he want us to abandon all reservations rising up to an excited emotional state where exuberant shouting pour forth?  The shouting we are called to offer, does not come from some induced emotional feverish place or religious state but rather in deep expressive overpowering realizations of the mercies and blessing of the God we know and thus worship.  The Psalmist encourages us to worship fully with total abandonment.  This gratitude saturated worshipful shouting is evident as David’s came dancing unto the LORD as he entered Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:14-15). David’s shouting came from the deepest part of his soul and his exuberance could not be contained.  Are not the mercies and blessings upon us from the LORD are just as wonderful as they were for David … maybe it time for us to let out a couple of shouts of joy?   Sometime today ... go outside and without reservation, simply shout your praise and thanks to our God.  Be ever so grateful that you are His and so are all of your days.

“One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, "Praise God, I'm healed!"  He fell face down on the ground at Jesus' feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan” 

(Luke 17:15-16, NLT).

Suggested Bible Reading … Psalm 100 & Luke 17:15-16