I love that hymn by George Beverly Shea entitled ‘The Wonder of It All’. Bev Shea, who went to be with the Lord last year at the age of 104, was asked by a journalist what it was like for him seeing all those people responding to the Gospel invitation of Billy Graham, people streaming down the aisles to accept Jesus Christ into their lives. The question came to Bev Shea–what did it feel like to witness that? He responded by saying, ‘ah, the wonder of it all’. And that phrase gave him the idea for his hymn. I think Psalm 71 has that same flavor of excitement over what God has done and is doing. The Psalmist says in verse 16–‘I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone.’ Think about all the wonders of God’s creation, all the majesty of the hills and mountains, the beautiful flowers and trees, the moving rivers and streams. You can think forever of the wonders of God’s creation, His mighty acts. And, then, how right He is, how true and open and accessible is our God. The word used in the Bible is ‘righteous’. And so He is! Verse 15–‘My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long…’ Like falling in love thinking only about that other person. All you can talk about, all you imagine is that loved one. The Psalmist has committed himself to God–‘But as for me…’ (:14). He has made that decision, no waffling with him. He says ‘I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more…’ Nothing double-minded about this man. He’s committed…to the Lord. He’s all in, nothing held back. ‘But as for me…I will…I will.’ You can just feel his confidence in the Lord. He’s made the right decision in life. No doubt about it. None whatsoever. And I love that next phrase in verse 15–‘though I know not its measure.’ Even though he can’t figure it all out, can’t have all his questions answered to his complete satisfaction, though he sees through a glass darkly and may only have the faith of a tiny mustard seed; nevertheless, he’ll praised the Lord for all the righteousness of God and all the wonders of salvation given to us in Jesus Christ. I may not be the most articulate person around, I may not have a lot of answers, I may not be the sharpest knife in God’s drawer or the cleanest saint that’s ever lived, but what I do know is that the Lord alone is God, that He sent His only Son to die for us, to forgive us, to give us life eternal. That much I do know and that much I will gladly share with others. Tell others…tell as best you can and God will do the rest. ‘But as for me…I will…I will…!
WELCOME HOME! Psalm 69
After being away for over 3 months, we come home to lots and lots of sorting mail, unpacking luggage, doing laundry,making appointments,food shopping, seeing kids and grands– just plain feeling overwhelmed! You can imagine, and probably know the feeling. The price of time away. And the prices keep rising! Yesterday we awoke to a leaky toilet downstairs resulting in a costly visit from our plumber. Then we received in the mail a double order of our cable TV kit requiring yet another visit to the cable store in town. While trimming one of our hedges I discovered to my surprise and biting pain a hive of yellow jackets making me run for my life escaping with but one sting! Not too bad at all. But what of today? Maybe I’ll just stay in bed all day. Maybe draw all the blinds and drapes not answering the phone or the back door. Withdraw from this cold, cruel world! But then I read Psalm 69 in the Old Testament, especially verses 13 and 14. Take a moment to read these verses also. King David, who has had all kinds of difficulties and many of them of his own making, prays to his God as he says ‘in the time of your favor’. Think about that phrase for a moment. Think about it today. We who believe in Jesus Christ are ‘in the time of God’s favor’. That word ‘favor’ in the original Hebrew is rawtsone. It means delight and goodwill. God’s desire is for us and to us. We are His good pleasure. He accepts us, a favorable reception by God to those who worship Him. We are pleasing to God. He approves of us. He treats us favorably. Like it says in Psalm 147:11–‘the Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love’. Why does He favor us? Because He loves us so much. He’s just crazy about you and me! Today…this very moment we are ‘in the time of God’s favor’. That means that I’m in good hands right now. And so are you if you trust in Jesus. Good hands. I can trust Him no matter what. With those little things like leaky toilets and stinging bees and necessary or unnecessary busy-ness. I’m in good hands. And so are you. Today keep saying to yourself, ‘I’m in good hands’. When something unwelcome hits you, just remind yourself whose hands your in. ‘I’m in good hands.’ Not with car or home insurance like the ads say, but with eternal life assurance! As David says in Psalm 69–‘answer me with your sure salvation’. Not a hoped-for, wish-fulfillment, maybe it will or maybe it won’t salvation, but a sure one. A certain salvation. The Hebrew here for ‘salvation’ is yeshua which is the name of Jesus in the original language. Jesus, who died on the cross for us, who offers us His sure forgiveness, who rose from the dead to reign on high with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is our sure salvation. He is our favor and our hope. He is God’s great love for us. Remember today and every day, who has you in His strong and loving hands. I am in good hands!
BETTER THAN LIFE ITSELF Read Psalms 63 & 64
Psalms 63 and 64 are just packed with wisdom for daily living. So practical. So plain and simple, really. Cuts through all the so-called complexities of life. I would venture to say that these psalms would be good spiritual medicine for all believers at any time, at any stage of life. Are you ready for some good medicine without all those TV ads of medicines with multiple, horrific and sometimes fatal side-effects, and you don’t even need that spoon full of sugar? King David has written both psalms, so why not take a moment to read them right now. Good, aren’t they. Did you see the medicine? Psalm 63:3 says that ‘…your love is better than life’. We think that life itself is the most precious thing of all. But it isn’t. God’s love surpasses even our life itself. As the Southern Gospel song says, ‘They can kill the body, but they can’t kill the soul.’ When we believe in Jesus, receive Him into our hearts, He gives us the antidote to death itself, that is life eternal– the best medicine of all! God’s love will outlast everything, even and especially our very lives. And His love comes to us from His loving hands because Jesus gave His all for us as a gift, a promise, a commitment that no matter what, when we are His, He will be ours forever. He loves us that much and has given us His word on it. And He is as good as His word! Don’t take my word for it…take His. And when you do take Him at His Word, God opens up to us all the beauty of life in Him. That can be found in Psalm 64. Verse 1 offers us God’s caring ear to hear whatever is on our hearts. A life of prayer and relationship with our God. A lifeline of communication with God who loves us more than life itself. Verse 2 tells how He hides us from the threats of life. Think about all the times, even today, where God spared us, hid us, protected us. Then verse 9 says that from deep within us we will ‘proclaim the works of God’–we’ll thank Him for all He’s done and all He’s doing not just in our lives but in other’s as well. And then David says we’ll do more than proclaim God’s works as we’ll ponder them, meditate on them, think hard and long on the things of God and just on God Himself. Stop focusing just on this life and all it’s messes. Pondering not just His blessings. No, but who He is in Himself… in His character and being. The final verse tells us that all this will result in great praise from God’s people. From prayer…to protection….to proclamation…to ponder and then, like the great finale of July 4th fireworks shows, praise and praise and then even more praise to our Lord! That’s the life for me! And you too?
PREPARING FOR YOUR FINALS! Read Romans 7: 24-25
Traveling on the roads outside Branson, Missouri today, I noticed a church sign that said, “We Help You Prepare for Your Finals!” I just laughed out loud as I usually do at clever church signs and this was one of them. Obviously not referring to high school or college final exams. But to our final day in this crazy world. The longer I’m in this life , the more I long for the time- without- end,which is God’s Kingdom. You too? But what about those last months and weeks and days and hours of life…what will they be like? Not something we think much about, but a reality nevertheless. What will it be like? I remember in seminary at Princeton that a speaker we had was Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who had written a best-selling book entitled On Death and Dying. She created quite a stir with her 5 psychological steps involved in the grieving and dying process at the end of life. Dr. Kubler-Ross said that most people who do not die immediately go through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Five stages. Sometimes they are reversed, some people revisit stages before moving on to the next one. Her book really caught our attention. As I look back now on my youthful, pastoral enthusiasm trying to help people go through these critical stages, I realize that the most important stage of all is just plain not there, missing completely. And that is the rescue stage. Yes, where death doesn’t have the final word, where death loses its sting over us . As St. Paul wrote, ‘What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?'(Romans 7:4). He’s wondering where the rescue stage is? That which follows death, the end of my earthly breaths. Who will rescue me, he asks. And who will rescue me and you? Verse 25 trumpets the wonderful announcement of our Rescuer–‘Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ Say it again! I remember Dr. Kubler-Ross as a very soft-spoken, well-educated, articulate Swiss woman… who never mentioned God or any faith in Him. Nothing. Moving from denial to acceptance felt so empty without someone there to rescue us as if we were falling off a cliff never finding bottom except for a rather harsh landing indeed. Nothing. Empty. Unsatisfying. Not the whole story–the last chapter ripped out never knowing what might have happened, what could have happened…to us. Preparing for your finals? Don’t worry! Jesus has already taken the test for us. He has defeated death. He has died for us and all of our sins. All of them. Yes, every last one of them. Isn’t that just amazing? A rescue like we could never imagine at all. Jesus is our Rescuer, He took center stage on the cross to rescue us from death’s icy cold grip and to liberate us to enjoy ‘the glorious freedom of the children of God’ (Romans 8: 21). The finals? Jesus took them for us and Jesus never fails. Never! ‘Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7: 25).
COUNT YOURSELVES… Read Romans 6:11-14
Paul says in Romans 6 that we believers are to ‘count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus’. Another translation for the word ‘count’ would be ‘consider’. Now, we know that it is God through Jesus Christ that saves us, forgives us and gives us new life. Not anything we can achieve on our own. This aspect of salvation is truly a one-way street–from God who chooses us. As the apostle says in Ephesians 2:9–‘not by works, so that no one can boast’. Clear? Of course it is. But here in Romans 6 is something we can and must do if our Christian life is to have any joy in it at all. As the hymn says, ‘Victory in Jesus’. Isn’t that what we all want to experience on a daily basis. Paul says to ‘count yourselves…’, to consider, to contemplate what we know when we face the fears of the unknown in our lives. I was thinking of my father, gone many years ago now. He was a real good guy. People liked my Dad. I rarely ever heard him bad-mouth anyone. He was a hard-working house painter who carried ladders around on his own well into his late 60’s, fell off roofs into bushes breaking a leg or two, daily smoked a couple packs of Chesterfields at a time the doctors thought cigarette smoking would help his asthma, and lived with lots and lots of fears mixed with unfulfilled dreams. I heard about lots of his dreams when I was growing up, but rarely saw any fulfilled. He was just too afraid. Change came with just too much difficulty, emotionally. He liked his routines in spite of all the talk. Maybe the dreams were just enough for him. Maybe. I don’t know. But what about me? And you? What do we do with our fears? When God puts joy and hope and dreams in our hearts, often Satan, using our insecurities, just chokes out all those godly blessings in a spasm of fear and doubt. We face uncertainties every day, the unknown. But when I read this verse about ‘counting ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus’…I hear the Lord telling me (and us) to count on what we know to counter what we don’t know. We’re alive to God because of all that Jesus did for us. Alive! Not dead! Count and consider this. Meditate on that. You and I must focus on what we know from the Bible to counter all those fears and we don’t know. Zero in on our security in Christ and not on the insecurities of life. That takes a conscious decision. That’s what we can do. Paul says we can do it, otherwise he wouldn’t have said it. When the fears inevitably hit you today, consider what you know about the Lord. As the old hymn says ‘count your many blessings, name them one by one…and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.’ The more we count them, the more it won’t surprise us at all what the Lord wants to do for us today and in the future! Count yourselves…just do it!
MORE ON BEING FULL! Read Psalm 57: 1-3
When my wife finished reading the last ‘Reflections Out of Time’ Posting she wondered about that connection of being full with being in the shadow of God’s wings? She’s right. Where is the connection? I did say that more would come with this posting. Must admit that driving a good part of the day is tiring and then to write at the hotel we’re staying at is just not the best for me. But here goes…nothing? No way! You remember that in Psalm 57 young David was in a cave hiding out from King Saul pleading with God for protection and mercy. That’s when David prays that he will take cover in just the shadow of God’s wings. Just His shadow was enough for Him. Just knowing the Lord’s promises were good enough. Not seeing directly, not having all the answers but having a faith that sees and discerns will get us through whatever in life. Then he says in verse 2 that ‘I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me.’ My translation (the NIV) has brackets around ‘His purpose’, which is the way the translators tell us that the words inside the brackets are not in the original Hebrew (in this case) but are words that the translators feel make the most sense of the original language. Whenever I see those bracketed words, I invariably just remove them and read the sentence without them to sense extra meaning. Hear what David is saying then–‘I cry out to God…to God, who fulfills for me’. David is saying from the inside of a cave, a place of the dark unknown , of uncertainty and anxiety and claustrophobia and utter terror; that even there he is filled with God, with the Lord’s being right there with him, in the shadows of His shadow. When everything is gone, all taken away, even then we can feel full, filled with the Holy Spirit of God’s love and faithfulness. I’m not going to trust God only when He performs for me. I don’t love God because of all the goodies I get from Him. No, and I’m not hinging my faith on the uncertainties of life, but on His promises that will always be trustworthy. Nothing else. Nothing more or less. No one or no thing. Only Him. Only the Lord–for who needs more? What or who could be more, after all? His love and His faithfulness–‘…who fulfills for me’. And twice David uses the words ‘faithfulness’ in this Psalm (verses 3 and 10)–another ‘full’ feeling but not from food certainly. Full from His loyalty. Full of faith in Him. Not in me but in Jesus who will never let us down. The old saying “Jesus Never Fails” that was upfront in the Torrey-Gray Auditorium at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago when I was an undergraduate student is still true…then and now and for the future and for all eternity. Full in Him! Just the Shadow of His Wings! Who could ask for anything more?
COULD I HAVE EATEN TOO MUCH? Read Psalm 57
For those who know me rather well, please do not answer that question?! My wife Sue and I have been away from home since February 20th after retiring as pastor of the United Christian Church for almost 14 years. We’ve been away well over 3 months now, and it’s just plain time to head home. We are taking our sweet time driving at a leisurely pace, seeing small towns in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. We’re spending extra time in Kentucky as it’s such a beautiful state before we head to Branson, Missouri for lots of wonderful music productions. Then we drive way too far for a few days until home at last mighty exhausted and fatigued needing yet another break! But today we’re in Corbin, Kentucky, home of the very first restaurant owned and operated by Harlan Sanders. Yes, good old Colonel Sanders! His first place is still here with his home behind it– the current owner is the same one who bought it from the Colonel back in the early ’50’s. Quite fun place but I ate way too much, which probably comes as no surprise to those who know me! I feel quite full at the moment. Reading Psalm 57 today, I noticed that King David used the word ‘full’ in a couple of places, in different forms. David has fled from King Saul and is hiding in a cave. He pleads for God’s help, crying out for His mercy and for a place of refuge. He prays, ‘I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.’ Read that again and think of what David just said. His help will come not directly under God’s wings (figuratively speaking, as you know), but just under the ‘shadow’ of His wings. Just His shadow will give him the needed help. Just His shadow. Think about it a moment. Things just aren’t clear in life. We can’t make out the beginning and the end, the rhyme or reason for everything. We see through a glass darkly, St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13. Much of our life is just not easy to understand this side of heaven. It’s as if we’re wearing sunglasses in a darkened basement. We can’t see His wings but it will only take their shadow. Just the passing over of His presence is all we need. Just a smidgen of faith, a tiny mustard seed, a small amount of active yeast in all that flour. Just His shadow is all I need. Just to know that He’s always with me no matter what. I can’t see Him but His shadow is all around me every day. Can you sense His shadow? Just look and see and marvel at the Lord who loves you and will never leave you. Just takes a little faith to hold onto Him whose shadow can be felt through the eyes of faith. Whatever the ‘disaster’ of today, whatever the trouble we’re in, whatever the fears that clutch us, remember, ‘I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.’ Say it over and over when darkness comes, ‘Just His shadow’, ‘Just His shadow’, ‘Just His shadow’…It will help for He will help us. After all, we have His Word. More on this fullness next time.
WHAT A CONTRAST Read Psalm 52
The weather is quite a contrast this morning here on the New Jersey shore. Last night we have a ferocious thunder and lightning storm with a soaking downpour to boot. Didn’t get a lot of sleep, needless to say. And this morning, calm breezes, lots of sun and warming up nicely to the upper 70’s at least. The beach is calling out to us! Our last day here before taking a leisurely 2 week drive across the United States getting home who-knows-when. (Blogs for the next few weeks will be short and infrequent but we’ll get back on track by mid-June at the latest). Enough about the weather and travel plans! Read Psalm 52 for an amazing contrast of a godly life with one quite the contrary. King David paints a very vivid picture of 2 totally different people. Verse 1 describes the ungodly as a ‘mighty man’. But he’s mighty all in himself. He’s a boaster, a braggart, an image maker and spin doctor trying with all his evil might to come out on top no matter what, no matter who…gets in his way. His tongue can cut you to shreds. His deceit and lying know no ends. He’s in love with evil, anything false, saying whatever he can to hurt you and make you feel less of a person raising up himself in his own eyes and with others. David continues in this Psalm to say that this is by far the worst road to take in life. Don’t take it. It leads, he says in verse 5, to ruin and destruction…forever. He’ll be judged by God Almighty, torn from his home and security and just plain uprooted. He has made a fatal mistake–not making God his stronghold and foundation. No, he trusted in his wealth, as great as it was (verse 7). And he’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted out of life and if he had to destroy others in the process,well, so be it. Sounds like someone we’ve just read about in the newspaper this morning or on a TV news program, not just a politician either! David has spent 7 of the 9 verses in Psalm 52 describing the ungodly person, but only 2 verses for his contrast, the godly one. Maybe it’s because a sinful life is just so complicated and convoluted and twisted and messed-up; where for those who seek to follow the Lord, the way is quite a bit clearer, lighter, and lighted. David says the godly are like olive trees, so useful and productive and good for so many purposes for others. ‘Flourishing’–knowing that giving is always more rewarding than taking. And flourishing… in God’s house, a place of safety and security and purpose and variety and joy in the Lord. Nothing of the ungodly or their ways here. A place where you can trust in God’s love, a love that never runs out; the oil of His gladness never dries up, a love that never fails to fulfill. A place of praise for what the Lord has done, all that He’s doing and all that He will do. Nothing of the ungodly or their ways here. Praise…and hope because His name is Wonderful, His name is good, His name is Jesus, that name above all names. And I really like the very last phrase of this Psalm. We get to praise the Lord not in some isolation chamber or ward but ‘in the presence of your saints’. Being with God’s people, all who have bowed the knee to Him, all of us singing in unison making the most beautiful harmony ever heard, no debates or arguments or divisions over there. What a contrast indeed! Have you made that commitment to Jesus Christ, asked Him into your heart… simply asking Him– that you want your life with the ones who flourish and praise and hope all buoyed and fed by God’s love unfailing? Have you? What a contrast! Make the step of faith–you’ll never,ever be sorry!
SOMETHING YOU CAN TRUST IN Read 1 Samuel 3
Trust seems to be a rare commodity in our day and age. Who can you trust? When I was a college student, it was no one over the age of 30. Now, it’s just plain old no one. Presidents, Congress, judges, school teachers, pastors…all lower than low on the trust-scale. Maybe I’m just getting older ( who said ‘no maybe about it’?!), but didn’t used to be that way, not at all. I remember getting all excited about an autograph from the vice-president–no, not of the United States but of the New Jersey chapter of the Kiwanis Clubs! Ok, I was desperate! Have pity on me, already! I’m from New Jersey. But I thought he must be a special guy. My teachers, all of them, were worth respecting, they worked hard, taught well and I did not want any bad reports to come back to my parents from any of them. No way, Jose (I took Spanish too!) My pastors…in a league all their own in my estimation. Giants of the faith. The police? We didn’t call them ‘cops’ or worse, they were police officers, they were doing what was right for all of us. Judges were next to God in their way of dispensing justice in a fair and even-handed way looking to the Constitution for the common good.But today? We’re suspicious of all of them. Is my age catching up with me? Who said it IS my age and that I can’t even catch up with that! But all kidding aside, trust seems to be very rare commodity in our day and age. We’ve lost so much…decency, moral compass, kindness, focus on others, tolerance, (everyone is so offended by everything they don’t like), defending someone’s else’s right to disagree with me. Good old freedom of speech. Are you with me? I heard an ‘amen’! Here’s the place to read 1 Samuel chapter 3 in your Old Testament of the Bible. We’re in the period where everyone is doing exactly whatever they want or feel like doing. No restraints…feels right, do it. That’s where the Book of Judges ends. Now 1 Samuel begins with the story of another leader of the nation Israel, a judge and priest, and his name is Eli. Eli’s a godly man, a priest and judge for God’s people, who let his 2 sons,also priests, just run wild and crazy,totally out-of-control and completely out-of-sync with God and what matters to the Lord. They could care less, and Eli just kept his mouth shut. For there was a bigger problem lurking in the shadows…’in those days the word of the Lord was rare…’ (verse 1). Nobody was listening to God’s Word. It was rarer than penny candy today. Self moved to the head of the class while the Bible was sitting in a darkened corner wearing a dunce cap. When that happens, trust flies out the window. The moral barometer broken, the compass smashed; and all hell breaks loose in our lives, our families, our churches, countries, even the world. But there’s hope. Along comes a young boy named Samuel, of godly parents. Samuel serves alongside old Eli… and hears from the Lord. Verse 7 says that ‘…Samuel did not yet know the Lord. The Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.’ I guess, in a sense, Samuel had an excuse. Nothing had been revealed yet from the Lord. Maybe he had an excuse. But we don’t. I don’t. The Word of the Lord couldn’t be easier for us to find, discover and hear. Just pick up that Bible of yours,you can buy one for a dollar and find enough loose change out on the parking lot to repay yourself if needed; open it up, dive in and hear the Word of the Lord. Support mission groups that translate the Bible and get the Bible out to people that have never had one. Give money to evangelical, Christian groups sharing God’s Word with people in need of salvation and the truth of God. Pray for our leaders, people in authority that they too will hear and heed the Word of God. Trust won’t be far behind, then. The trust- temperature will be rising, certainly in the One who will never let us down, who will never lie to us, who keeps each and every one of His promises…just as His Bible says. And Samuel? Read verses 19-21. Especially verse 19: ‘The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he (Samuel) let none of His (God’s) words fall to the ground’. Not one of God’s Words did Samuel just drop to the dirt and sand. Each one he held onto, each one he palmed close to his heart with arms crossed over his chest. When you need it most, how handy to have your Bible close at hand and in your mind and heart, beating fresh life of trust in the Lord no matter what! Rare no more, not with us…but roaring with trust and hope and confidence in Jesus, the Lion of Judah!
SUCH A BIG DEAL! Read Psalm 50:14-15
Do you think that God just expects way too much of you? All those commandments, all the giving, all the do-this and do-that of the Christian life? It’s discouraging realizing just how many the expectations and how little our performance. Fall short all the time. I do. I don’t even come close. I’m actually more discouraged when I consider how little of the Lord I seem to mirror in my daily life even after 50 years being a believer in Jesus Christ. Know what I mean? Is anyone out there?! I was reading Psalm 50 today and 2 verses just grabbed my heart. Encouraging words…about a simple life of faith. A life where measuring our progress is less important than just being real and transparent and honest with ourselves and God , just being in relationship with the Lord. Verse 14 says to ‘sacrifice thank offerings to God…’ Saying thank you to God is not such a big deal, is it? Being grateful to Him. Being content with what we have and where we are with the people He has given us to love; the opportunities we have to serve Him sharing Him with those in need. Thanks to God…Thanksgiving Day not just one Thursday in November. Not anymore! Like eating 3 meals a day or breathing all the time totally unaware of it even happening ,or our beating hearts that can keep working and pumping without interruption for over 100 years. So much to be thankful for…such a big deal? I don’t think so, but you would think so if you could count up how many times I thank Him for this or that during my day. Not good enough. Could do better. Will do better, Lord willing. The next part of verse 14 says to ‘fulfill your vows to the Most High…’ In other words, just do it! Not just talk, but action. Feel like thanking the Lord today? Of course you do. Be specific. Be intentional. And then just do it! Throughout today…no matter what, sometimes in spite of the circumstances (as He says in verse 15–‘…call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me’). Thanking God …such a big deal? No, such a great joy! Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to share reflections out of time with my friend around the world, our church family and our family…with YOU!
Reflections out of time 