Brown's Daily Word 3-3-09

Good evening,
The Lord gave us a very bright and beautiful day today. I stopped by to see a friend of ours. She indicated that she had been about to read this morning the morning devotions from me, but there was none. She said, "I was worried about you." I got side-tracked this morning. Thus, I did not get to write the morning devotion. I am gathering my wandering thoughts this evening.
I was on my way to Robert Packer Hospital this noon, and saw a sly red fox walking carefree and a flock of wild turkeys grazing unhurriedly. The man I went to see, Steve, had undergone a 10 hour surgery last week. He is making a speedy recovery, and is expected to be going home this Friday. He is praising the Lord. Dave is going in for surgery tomorrow. Please pray for him. Sandy went through her surgery today in Pittsburgh. Her family is with her. Millie had fallen several times resulting in several fractured ribs, and so she is hospitalized. These are servants of Jesus. Please intercede for them.
A college Chaplain was told that he had cancer. He resolved to read and think about one psalm each day, as a way of keeping track of the days and numbering them, and also as a way to read through the psalms in the hope of deriving strength from them in a time of need. He wrote that Psalm 103 is one of the splendid ones. Psalm 103 is a psalm of thankfulness. It thanks God for healing, for forgiveness of sin, for justice and for compassion in the world. It acknowledges that human beings are mortal, while God's love is everlasting. These themes both comfort and challenge us in almost all situations. If there is any one psalm that the heart can return to time and again, it is this one. Let me simply identify two or three parts of the psalm that have been especially meaningful to me and that may be to you.
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all God's benefits - who forgives all your sin, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit ..." It is impossible to know the power of these words if you have never known forgiveness; and it is impossible to know forgiveness if you have never known what it is to sin. It is also impossible to know the power of these words if you have never known healing, and it is impossible to know healing if you have never known illness. It is impossible to know the power of these words if you have never known what it is to stare into the bottomless pit of despair, and it is impossible to stare into the pit if you are constantly distracted with illusions.
Many people are haunted by guilt; others are not. Some of you perhaps have been very ill, or have had loved ones who have been very ill, and some of you perhaps have not. The experience of illness is, or will be, universal. Healing is a mercy that comes to us as commonly as day-break. We take it for granted, until it seems that the sun will not rise, that we will not see it again. In those extreme situations, some of us die, and others are given new life. In such a time, we know that healing comes to us as a gift - and sometimes death does too. When we are healed, we can only be thankful. If we are not healed, or if we die, we face the third peril - staring into the Pit - the abyss of nothingness.
Mortality and eternal life, sin and forgiveness, sickness and healing are always profound themes for us to think about, especially in Lent. I do not know how often you think about them. It is easy, if we are great achievers, if we are busy, healthy, active, wealthy, and beautiful, not to think about these great themes. But we can not always avoid them. When we do focus on them, our hearts cry out for strength.
I think of Leo Tolstoy, who, in his short book called, "A Confession", recounted various things that occupied him and gave his life unsatisfactory meaning in his youth. He showed how he came to see that faith is necessary for life. We cannot live, he says, without faith. Faith is what enables us to live, even if we are not especially aware of it. While people of wealth in the world can rely upon their wealth, beauty, or power to give them meaning for a while, Tolstoy learned from Russian peasants that a simple faith in God was what sustained their lives. He closed the book by talking about a dream, a nightmare really, that he had. In it he felt himself suspended over a bottomless pit, in a hammock that was not firmly supported, that could fall into the pit any moment. He awoke to find that being suspended over the pit was a metaphor for life, and that only faith, in the end, holds us up.
May our faith grow and become strong. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God's holy name". Amen.
In Christ,
Brown