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Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Brown's Daily Word 10/15/14

    Praise the Lord for this wonderful Wednesday.  It is still like summer.. warm and bright.  Once again praise the Lord for the way He decorates the earth with so much beauty that is endless and extravagant.  We will meet for our Wednesday Evening gathering this evening at 6 PM.  I will be away for the next few days in Washington, DC, attending a prayer conference.  I will be spending some time with our daughter Laureen and many of our dear friends in  Washington.  During our days in Texas, in the mid-seventies, I had heard about a woman named Judith MacNutt.  She will be one of the leaders in this prayer conference. 

    This coming Friday at 7 PM pray for our weekly television ministry on Time Warner Cable channel 4.  I will be preaching this coming Sunday from 1 Thessalonian 1:1-10.  Dr James Geer, PH. D will be presenting "Martin Luther' this coming Sunday at 7 PM. 

    Praise the Lord.  He is indeed our peace.  He is indeed our joy.  He is indeed our Life.  He is indeed the Way and the Truth.

    We have two friends from India visiting us .   They are spell bound by  the Autumn colors the Lord is displaying with so much love all around us.  The Autumn colors look much brighter and more brilliant this year and the colors seem more lingering.  Indeed, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". 

    Several years ago a news report detailed the story of an adult man who received his sight back through the wonders of modern medicine.  An interviewer asked the man, "What's life like now?  Tell us what does it mean to after all these years suddenly be able to see?"  And the man initially said what you would expect—things like colors are amazing and it's a wonderful gift to be able to see the faces of those that he loved.  But the interviewer expected him to say those things.  He wanted the man to say something extraordinary, something totally unexpected about how his life had changed since getting his sight back.  So he asked him, "What's the most unexpected thing?"  Now if you were asked that question how do you think you would respond?  Perhaps you might talk about a sunset, the corner of a child's lips when he smiles, the beautiful hues of the Grand Canyon yawning at dawn.  The formerly blind man didn't mention anything like that. Instead, he said that the most incredible thing was watching the leaves falling every autumn.  He said, "I know that leaves fall.  I know that people rake them and put them in piles and burn them or throw them away.  But I'd always imagined that the leaves would come down just like a blanket.  I didn't know that when leaves fall that they pitch and glide and turn in the wind as they come down to the ground.  It's beautiful."

    I remember that story not because of the artistry of his expression, but because of the irony of what he said.  The greatest beauty he saw was in dying things.  The leaves are dying.  That's why they fall to the ground.  That's what he identified as the most beautiful thing about getting his sight back.  Our Lord, who is the Resurrection and life, did some thing magnificent and brilliant at the grave side of Lazarus.  The Lord of life and the giver of life abundant and eternal did something magnificent at the Cross and at the Grave.  Jesus declared, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world". 

    I was talking to one of dear and faithful servants of Jesus our Lord.  He discovered recently that He is battling with a very deadly health concern.  The doctors have given him a prognosis of a few months.  This dear brother is blessed with a heart for Jesus.  He and his wife are married for 50 years.  He has been a very faithful, devoted part of our church family.  He has worked as an engineer, praising and glorifying the Lord at his work place.  He has lived well.  When he heard the grave news from the doctors he did not get panicked.  He began to praise the Lord for His faithfulness to himself and to his dear family.  He shared about the great promises we have from Jesus.  One time he shared about the great piece by Bach, "Come Sweet Death".  John Wesley said " Our people die well".  Jesus brings the greatest beauty out of dying things.  Blessed be His name.

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." T. S. Eliot
In Christ,
 Brown
http://youtu.be/yE6VZRAtI2E

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