Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. [Psalm 139:16 (NIV)]
By living in Florida, we’ve escaped the polar vortex and winter’s ice and snow. Regardless of where we live, however, there’s no escaping the winter of our lives. When we roll out of bed with assorted aches, need our cheater specs to read the paper, become intimate friends with ibuprofen, know the day of the week from our pill boxes, and nervously compare our ages with those on the obituary page, it becomes painfully obvious that, while able to flee from winter’s frigid weather, there’s no dodging the winter season of life.
In spite of a few complaints, I’m reasonably content with my winter. I’d never want to give up the confidence, wisdom, peace and perspective that come in this end season of life. Nevertheless, I’m sorry to say farewell to the vitality, enthusiasm and freshness of spring; the beauty, growth and intensity of summer; and the productivity, abundance, and fulfillment of autumn. As rewarding as it is to see my children and grands develop and mature, it saddens me to see the toll those same years have taken on other people I know and love. Winter has been downright cruel to many of them. Sadly, some of those I loved didn’t even make it to this season of appreciated blessings. They never had the opportunity to sit quietly and read to a grand or grow old with the one they loved. There are gaps in my heart where they lived and my memories of them will never quite fill those holes. Nevertheless, I feel blessed to have made it this far.
We thank you, God, for the seasons of life. Help us recognize the beauty and joy of each one. Give us the wisdom and serenity to accept that time passes, changes take place, seasons are unpredictable, heartbreak happens, health is precarious, and farewells are unavoidable. Reconcile us to the transformations that occur in each of life’s seasons. May we always remember that, while everything has a season, there is no one season in which we’ll have everything.
Summer ends, and autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night. [Hal Borland]
With John’s purchase of his sporty new car, I thought I was done writing about Lynn Johnston’s comic strip For Better or For Worse and temptation. I’d forgotten all about Ted, John’s friend, who suggested a “spicy dish” and some “after hours recreation.” Shocked, John had said, “Your wife wouldn’t put up with you messing around!” Ted smugly replied, “Oh she suspects…The trick is—never let them know for sure!!” Six weeks after appearing in that comic, Ted reappeared in another one. When Ted grumpily refused a ride in John’s new car, John wondered if he’d gotten out of the wrong side of the bed. No longer smug, Ted dejectedly responded, “Doesn’t matter what side of the bed I get out on anymore…My wife left me.” I didn’t see that coming and, apparently, neither did Ted!
Living in a nation where we worship freely and can both possess and read the Bible, we can easily get complacent and forget that Satan is trying to defeat the spread of the gospel message. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, those Gideon Bibles we find in our hotel rooms are becoming an endangered species. In this era of political correctness and inclusiveness, hotels want to avoid offending people of other faiths or no faith at all. Two years ago, for example, citing “diversity” reasons, the Travelodge chain in the United Kingdom removed Bibles from all of its rooms. Last year, the Freedom from Religion Foundation asked fifteen major hotel companies to keep Bibles out of hotel rooms. With threats of lawsuits, they succeeded in convincing hotels operated by some state universities in Arizona, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa to do just that. The FFRF has also printed a sticker reading, “Warning: Literal belief in this book may endanger your health and life.” They encourage their supporters to place the stickers on any hotel room Bible they find.
Filled with law, wisdom, history, prophecy, poetry, gospel, and letters, the Bible is the basis of our faith. None of us, however, were alive in 1400 BC when Genesis was written or at the end of the 1st Century when Revelation was penned. We’re neither Jews in Judah, Egypt, Israel, or Babylon nor 1st Century Jewish or Gentile converts in Rome or Greece and we have little in common with the Bible’s original audience. Although Scripture is timeless, that difference in time and culture makes us think of Scripture as impersonal and its words as general instructions dedicated to the community of faith at large. There is, however, nothing impersonal about God’s message to us and we are not faceless nameless members of His family. Scripture penned thousands of years ago was written specifically for you and me today. There is a personal relevant message for each one of us every time we read its words.
Devotions of the Heart 