Grace Awakening

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

James 4:14

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Look at the night skies: Who do you think made all this? Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name—so magnificent! so powerful!—and never overlooks a single one?

 Isaiah 40:26 (The Message) 

Do you realize that when you look up into the night sky on a clear night and see the glittering stars that you are only viewing a fraction of the stars of heaven?  There are billions of stars in the universe – some of them are massively bigger than our tiny earth.  There are billions of nebulae scattered across the galaxy in brilliant displays of color and shapes.  There are billions of galaxies with billions of stars.  God told Abraham in Genesis 15:5 that his descendants would be like the stars of heaven – innumerable.  Through the Psalmist David He said in Psalm 19:1 that “the heavens declare the glory of God.”

We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.

Isaiah 53:6 (The Message) 

He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. 

Luke 15:20 (The Message)  

Have you ever decided to take a route that you have never taken before and wound up not having a clue as to where you were?  Perhaps you have taken one of those short cuts that was supposed to save time and, in the end, cost you a lot more than time.

There are those in our Christian circles that know only of condemnation.

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Just north of Harbor Springs, Michigan there is a crossroad that was once thought to be the crossroad where three townships met.  It is called Maple Tree Corners and the maple tree there is called the Witness Tree. It is a place where Cetas Road runs into Palmer Road - a cross road.  While that particular cross road does not truly mark the place where the three townships meet it does mark the corner of one of the fields my grandfather used to farm and pasture his cows.  While the cross road may not be of much significance to many it matters to me because there is a heritage that is represented there.

However, the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing " So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. 

Jim Elliot  (More)

Strength is gone.  Hope seems to have vanished.  All that is left is a deep and abiding darkness that settles coldly across the aching heart and constricts what life is left to ebb from the wounded heart.  Often times, the wounds are self inflicted, caused by some sinful act or proud thought.  In the agony of distress the wounded, battered soul will cry out to the only One who can help.  How is it that we can only look to God in the darkest moments of our lives?  Still, there is something to learn from the crushing darkness – a truth that is just as precious in the light.  In spite of all our failings and wanderings God is faithful.  God will never abandon those promises that He made to us.  We see this truth ever so clearly in the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah.  So great was the agony of his soul that he described it as being pierced through with arrows, having his teeth broken by gravel, and being thrown to the dust of the ground.  He states, “My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness.  So I say, ‘My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the LORD’.”  (Lam 3:17 - 18, NAS).

I was out walking the other night on what is called the Rail Trail.  It is a former rail line that has been asphalted over to make a nice place for people to walk, run, bike, rollerblade, and any other form of non – motorized transportation.  It is a beautiful place to walk with all the trees and wooded land that it runs through.  For me, it is becoming a place to go and let out the hurt and pain of this world.  It is becoming a place for me to walk with God.

There are two major factors in the creation of a bog.  The first is the lack of a moving source of water.  The other is having someplace for the water that does accumulate through run off and rain to go.  In a word or two a bog has poor drainage.  Couple that with the sphagnum moss sponge that floats on top of the bog and you have yourself one beautiful bog.

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