Connection

Around 7:30 one morning, I walked outside my house and paused a moment on the driveway before beginning my daily walk. Like the doe I wrote about in the previous blog post, I needed to make sure no danger was lurking nearby.  

Much to my surprise, when I looked to my right, I saw the right rear flank of a deer, but the rest of its body was hidden by scuppernong vines. I readied my cell phone camera and then coughed softly, hoping the slight noise would startle the deer just enough to cause it to reposition itself but not enough to make it bolt. My tactic worked.

The deer backed up a bit in order to see the source and location of the noise.                                                                                                                    

I gasped with delight, not fear, when I saw a young buck. He stood stone still while I snapped a couple of photos. After I lowered my phone, we continued to make eye contact with each other for several seconds before he fled toward his home in the woods.

As I began my walk, I continued to feel the joy of that momentary connection. I thanked God for it—and the photos! I remembered that God wants all His creation to live in harmony. But since sin entered the world ages and ages ago and disrupted the peace and harmony and replaced it with antagonism, the creatures experience only rare and fleeting moments of connectedness (and trust!) that God desires to be the norm.

Innumerable reversals will occur one future day when God sets all things right. The prophet Isaiah mentioned many of them, including these:

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

The leopard shall die down with the young goat,

The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them….

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD

As the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:6-9, NKJV

 

It’s hard to imagine such peace and harmony, such absence of fear and danger and aggression, isn’t it?

But all those miracles, and countless others, will happen when God says the time is right. Until then, I relish even brief moments of connection.

Floating Along?

By being stricter with yourself, you will begin to live life more deliberately, on your own terms rather than simply reacting to life the way a leaf floating in a stream drifts according to the flow of the current on a particular day.
~Robin Sharma (Who Will Cry When You Die? p.9)

Pray Earnestly!

Today is the National Day of Prayer, which has been observed annually since 1952. Even those of us who could not attend one of the many public observances throughout our country can still join with our fellow citizens in asking God to do a mighty work in America. 

Prayer is definitely a privilege, as well as a powerful way to positively impact the future of America. For example, the Bible says, "The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much [i.e., produces wonderful results] (James 5:16, NLT).

The writer of Psalm 33 points out, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance" (v. 12, NKJV).

The Bible also assures us time and again that God does hear and answer prayers whether they're offered by individuals or by groups of people. One of my favorite assurances is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14, NKJV, where God says, "If my people, who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

Let's pray earnestly and fervently--today and every day--for America to become the kind of nation God will choose to bless. Let's implore God to help us--individually and as a nation--to honor Him as our God and to seek to do whatever pleases Him.