Praise the Lord for this Fantastic Friday. Summer has lingered here in central
New York for much of September. The temperatures have reached into the nineties
much of September so far. Alice and I have recently been on the move, visiting
our children and grandchildren. We spent a few days in Boston, visiting Janice
and Jeremy and their three children. We followed that up with a visit to
Washington, our Nation's Capital, awaiting the birth of our latest
granddaughter, Asha, whose name means hope. Asha is the daughter of Sunita and
Andy. She was born on the 1st of September, her parents' 8th wedding
anniversary. She is gorgeous and beautiful. On our way home we stopped over
in the Philadelphia area, where we spent some time with Rosalind and her
parents, Jessica and Tom. Rosalind is also beautiful, charming, and precious.
Sweet September
is one of the very auspicious months in our family tree. It was on September 5,
1974 that I arrived at JFK Airport as a young man. It was on the thirteenth of
September that our oldest daughter was born. It was in September that Sunita
and Andy were married. It was in September that dear little Asha was born. I
was born on September 17, in a small village in India. We have so much to
celebrate!
While we
were in Washington we had the added blessing of meeting with some of dear
friends and colleagues of Sunita, Andy, and Laureen, and fellow servants of
Jesus our Lord. We met up with Steve and Belinda. Steve is the President and
the CEO of World Relief, headquartered in Baltimore. Steve and Belinda shared
the plight of the refugees that are currently flooding Europe. They shared
that this is the worst refugee crisis, even worse than that which occurred
during World War II. The Lord has brought the need of the world in to the
doorsteps of the church. Somehow He is saying, "You feed them". My daughter
Sunita reminded me that all the refugees are dear to the heart of Jesus. Praise
the Lord that the Church is ministering to them. All the churches and church
agencies including our UMCOR, United Methodist Committee on Relief are
at work in feeding and sheltering in the name
of Jesus.
Today is the
14th anniversary of 9/11. Somehow the world changed that day. When we serve
Jesus Christ, we serve under His Lordship. He never changes. He is the same
yesterday, today, and forever.
We see the
seasons gradually changing, ushering in the Autumn season. Students, faculties,
and staff are back in school and in colleges. We see the gradual change all
around us. One amazing thing about the change of our seasons is that we can not
stop it or reverse them. Once God puts nature into motion a great symphony
erupts all around us. Every living creature is busy in preparation for the
changes to come. From the smallest insect to the largest mammal every single
living thing is suddenly aware that we are in for dramatic changes in how we go
about our daily lives. The same thing happens when we fully trust Jesus to
change us from a lost sinner to a saved saint. Dramatic changes take place.
Some of us not really prepared for all that is involved. Our lives in Christ
are filled with all kinds of activity and change. Jesus is alive in us,
changing us from season to season. Jesus is in the process of getting us ready
for things that we cannot see. It is Jesus who helps us to discover that the
useless things we carry from one season of life into another can be discarded
once and for all. .
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2
George Eliot once wrote of the beauty of the
Fall season. “Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I
love - that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about
their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of
decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb
the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect
anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to
it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive
autumns." I think it is a fascinating thing it is that such a melancholy season
could be encased in such soaring colors of scarlet, saffron, and orange. The
nature of natural light changes from a harsh shine to a radiant amber glow. At
the same time as much of the natural world is dying and going underground, Fall
is also a time of abundance and harvest. There is a concept in Japanese culture
that describes the beauty of “the withered, weathered, tarnished, scarred,
intimate, coarse, earthly, evanescent, tentative, ephemeral.” Autumn calls us
to remember our own fragility and cherish this beauty.
Praise the Lord
for Sunday. Plan to be in the Lord's house wherever you might be. We will meet
for Sunday School at 10 AM and for worship at 11:00 AM. We are excited about
Sunday. When the saints gather the sing and shout, Satan flees.
In Christ the Lord
of all seasons.
Brown
