The One Determinative Thing
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Can We See What’s Coming
Psalm 51:12
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
1 Timothy 1:5
But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.
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Words of Grace For Today
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A personal ran in the newspaper, back when there were such things, that read: Lost, missing for hours or days, it’s hard to tell, last presence evidenced by a note to myself last week. Reward unknown. Oh, lost is my mind. Call me if you find it.
The next ad read: oh, forgot my number, too.
Two days later another personal ran: Found one loose and lost mind, wandering about the back avenues of 3rd and Park, near the Bowling Alley. Call 412-384-9012 if you know of it’s owner.
Three days after that an article on page three ran a story about the happy ending of an old man in his early 90s reunited with his mind that had wandered off during a boring TV program on shellfish, and the young mother of three who had found it engaging her oldest boy over the fence to the alley behind their house.
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Sometimes, all too often really, it seems we get separated from the one thing that makes such a determinative difference in our lives, the joy of our salvation, namely being found and saved by Jesus. Our stories make about as much sense as the ads and story in that newspaper that summer in New York when it was hot and smoggy and crime was at its worst.
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So, even when we are not so lost in a fantasy world of liars posing as politicians and people hoping for the impossible (which will lead to the loss of many things basic to democracy and human rights), we too pray,
restore to us the joy of your salvation Lord. For this is the one thing that does not change or get taken from us.
Help us to love You, our neighbour as ourselves, and even our enemies … and all creation (we have to add, since it’s been on the endangered list now for oh too long.)