Monday, July 21, 2014
July 22 2014
July 22 2014
Greetings My Friend,
I’ve drank my two cups of coffee for the day. Now my thoughts turn to plans for the day. I find myself mulling over Scripture and they mingle in with the “to do” list that is swirling around my brain.
Often times I bounce around in my thoughts and as I think of Scripture I find I bounce around with these thoughts as well. Often times I start off with King David, probably my favorite Bible person that I relate to.
Next I think about Ruth who cares for her mother-in-law and won’t leave her even when she leaves to go back to her people. About now I start thinking about Jesus’ lineage which always amazes me. Ruth was a foreigner yet she is the great grandmother to King David. There is Tamara also. In those days if a son dies the next son steps in and helps produce a son for the husband that died. Perez Tamara’s father-in-law lost two sons and would not give the third son to Tamara. Tamara poses as a prostitute to Perez when he is in the area and she becomes pregnant.
There is Rahab the prostitute that hides the Israelite spies. Her family was saved because she saved the spies and her lineage is part of Jesus’ earthly heritage. Some of those Kings were also a part of Jesus’ line….some good and some bad.
Jesus’ family line is not unlike our own family line. Skeletons were in His closet just as they are in ours. My family loved our skeletons so much that we did everything to keep them tucked in the darkness as we could. Me of course did not understand why we needed to keep them but to be honest I tried to the best I knew how.
As I think about Jesus I marvel that He came into our world like we do. He was a baby born of a woman. That is the way we start our life, born of our mother. That means Jesus had to learn how to feed Himself, to walk, to learn life’s mundane lessons. He had the same feeling we have. He truly understands our earthly struggle.
As I understand Jesus’ very human experience I start to see Him as my brother. The most comforting moment in Jesus’ life for me is when He is in the garden praying. He is sweating drops of blood. As he talks to the disciples he is fussy. He is going to be crucified and knows the horror of it all before he faces it thus in my thinking he is anxious. I see the very human fear we all deal with in Jesus at this moment.
As I continue on with this thought I hear Him pray “Father take the cup of suffering from me, not my will but Your will.” I sense Jesus would rather not and He truly wants to do God’s will at the same time but….and I feel that big but. The third time He prays this Father God sends angels to comfort Jesus. I believe He was comforted because He does not run off into the night but stays until the soldiers come to arrest Him starting the chain of events that ultimately lead to His death.
I now see the confusion of the disciples, the fear. They saw Jesus in action and He died? This did not make sense even though Jesus told them He was going to die and rise from the dead. I understand how they could not “hear”. It was not how they wanted His Kingdom to begin. They had their own thoughts and this did not fit in with them. We do that now, have our own thoughts about things. We don’t study to find out what was really said.
Just as Jesus told them though, He rose from the dead and some two thousand years later we all know that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Pretty amazing. If it were made up in my mind the myth would have died out centuries ago. Then when I began an earnest faith journey and somehow I know that I know that Jesus is “the way the truth and the light.”
So each January I start reading the Bible in a year again. For many years I read the Chronological Bible. Then I retired and now I tend to prefer to read the Bible online. As I read chapter after chapter I find that I look forward to the next passage, the next chapter. I long to meet King David again. I marvel that Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born. Isaac had two sons and I wonder how in the world will this line be as numerous as the stars when Jacob arrives on the scene and has 12 sons…..then they go to Egypt all of 70 strong.
Estimates are that 400 years later when God brings the Israelites out of Egypt the people number near a million. As I study these events another year I see my life unfold before me. I felt alone and lost and at my lowest I decided to ask Jesus into my heart fully. As family and friends chose sides in my divorce I felt more and more alone. Today though I see what I do have. I have my son in my life. I have a niece who lets me rely on her from time to time. Her husband is a gem and has ministered to me many times as well.
We have a church family that includes us in the circle of friendship. The son Amazing Grace often rings in my thoughts. “I once was lost but now am found. I was blind and now I see.” So each day I get up re commit my life to Jesus and each night I fall asleep in God’s great warmth.
That is how I can face life these days.
May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you.
Love
Janet
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