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
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/yE6VZRAtI2E
