Tuesday, July 5, 2022
           (click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Bombs bursting in air
Idols … they have mouths but speak not. They have eyes but see not. They have ears but hear not.
Not just the idols, how about us?
They have hands but feel not; they have feet but walk not. Their makers shall be like them when they trust in them. When they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind.
In Lincoln we filled twelve more boxes of books to sift through, or take straight to Good Will. I saw pictures of myself as a baby. Even as a baby I had a mouth (oh boy, did I!), I had eyes, I had ears. And I had hands and feet. What is the deal? All of that came from God, and I’m just one of a gazillion in the eternal family of God’s kids. So it’s reasonable that I use it all in ways that are fruitful to their maker, honoring his generosity and creativity as well as I can.
My hands installed a new air conditioner; thank you, Lord. I watched and listened to our nephew Christian rock out in the Vineyard Worship Band; thank you, Lord. We visited our friend Marlene in Waynesville, and felt at home like we’d never left. Thank you, Lord.
All afternoon we shared great conversation and stories about London, Paris, Tanzania and Kenya, while Aly and Jack showed us their family’s slides. We ate perfectly grilled pork chops, corn on the cob, rice crispy treats and ripe watermelon.
Margaret and I drove home through a land full of fireworks, flooding the skies of four counties. And then at the University of Illinois campus, we found a great spot to watch the climax of Champaign’s great fireworks show, surrounded by hundreds of others doing the same thing. And all of this with every sense and finger and toe at our disposal, given to us by God our Father.
Not that our founding fathers got carried away with their declaration of independence. They acknowledged that it all ultimately came from God. But so many were left behind, including the dogs, as Sunday’s “The Duplex” cartoon reminded me: 13 dogs and more on the way, with the leader shouting,“Then it’s agreed. We declare INDEPENDENCE from our rulers, who terrorize us each year with loud fireworks!”
It got to be a little later than usual before I could finish this devotion. And today is packed to the gills with meetings and physical therapy and preparing for weddings (four of them) at Danville Correctional Center on Wednesday. When do I get to go swimming! When do I stop, just to pray, and pray, and pray again?
Jesus made do with whatever time he had. He slept, awakened, ate, used whatever they called the bathroom. He found time to lay hands on a little girl and bring her back from the dead, and then a dirty demoniac who lived in the cemetery, and release him from the devil.
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.
He knew they needed so much more than he could give. He asked his disciples to pray to their Father for help. But I never get the sense that Jesus was in any kind of hurry. He has forsaken every idol, and prays only to his Father. His Father isn’t going anywhere, as eternity stretches out before them (and us) in all its glory.
T. S. Eliot had his Prufrock ask, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” Prufrock seemed to look everywhere except into the eyes of God. “In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions, which a minute will reverse … and in short, I was afraid. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
There is no fear in love. There is no fear in Jesus. And therefore, there need be no fear in me.
(Hosea 8, Psalm 115, John 10, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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