9-23-2014

  Good Morning All,

         Isaiah 40:22; “ It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in”

      I remember reading a “Beetle Bailey” cartoon once that had the characters Plato (the smart one) and Zero (the not so smart one) watching an ant colony.  Zero commented on how they worked together so well.  Plato went into this long drawn out discussion of how they were not as advanced as humans; they had no laws or justice system, they had no military or method of exploration.  About the time he got to this part of his speech, a plume of smoke, in the shape of a mushroom cloud erupted from one of the ant hills.

    Some people took offense at this comic.  They thought that the cartoonist was making a political statement about the use of nuclear weapons and that he was somehow implying that the people who were responsible for them were about as bright as ants.  Others thought he was saying that humans thinking that they could control atomic weapons weren’t any brighter than ants.  Either way, the assumption is always that humans are the highest level of intelligence.

    Yet it is this line of thinking that gets us into the most trouble.  We think that we are far smarter than we ever are.  So we think that we have a better thought or plan than God does and every single time; we are wrong.  That is the very crux of our problem and our sinful nature; we think we are smarter than God.  We have moved away from that original purpose of existence.  We were designed to live in God’s holy presence, worshipping and praising him and living a life completely dependent upon his grace because it was sufficient for us.

    So instead of trusting God to have our best interest in heart and mind, we set off on our own.  We soon become so buried in the mud and mire of selfishness and mistrust that we completely lose our bearing and our focus; we stop trusting God and we trust our own nature which caused us to be lost in the first place.  So Scriptures keeps calling us back to recognize that God’s way is the best way for us.  Even when we are not sure, we need faith to trust God.  We need to hold onto his loving embrace.

   God, in his mercy, reaches down to us and picks us up like a hurt child and holds us close to his heart and whispers in our ear words of comfort.  Faith is hugging God back.  It is recognizing that God’s ways are far superior to our ways and through everything that this life pours out upon us God’s love is for us.  He is faithful to all his promises and he is faithful to the ones he made to you.

Father of all mercies, we stand before you in awe of your great love.  Move us by your Spirit to trust in your loving arms to hold us close and to protect us from all the harm the devil throws.  Be with those who are especially feeling the pain of this world.  Bring them comfort and give them your peace.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret