Monday, May 11, 2020
From of Old
From of Now
From of Then
Psalms 44:2
We have heard with our ears, O God, our ancestors have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old.
Luke 10:39
She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.
Words of Grace For Today
We have received great gifts from God … many through other faithful people.
We have received the ability:
To listen …
To learn …
To listen to Jesus …
To listen to our ancestors …
What would happen if we could listen to the generations yet to come?
God has performed many great deeds, that we remember, that we can listen to as others tell the stories handed down for generations.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, … God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good….”
“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there …. When the Egyptians treated us harshly … we cried to the Lord…. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey….”
“In the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and gave thanks …”
God has preformed many great deeds even in our time that we can share with each other and give time to listen to and learn from.
An elderly woman’s car would not start in the grocery store parking lot. Covid 19 limited the interactions others could have with her … still a man noticed her distress, walked over and offered to help. Diagnosing it as a battery too drained to start her car, he offered and then insisted that he would run home, grab some jumper cables and set it right. She suggested instead that she could call AMA. He said it was not necessary. Within minutes her car started and he advised her to take a drive to recharge the battery. It worked.
A long term care facility was, like all others, cut off from everyone except the workers coming and going. A staff person volunteered her iPhone to allow video calls to family and the staff started collecting contact numbers for each resident. Even though many suffer dementia they are afraid and lonely. Now they are connected again regularly with family.
With the increased danger of wild fires, a resident of a spread out rural community started noticing almost no one had ‘fire safe’ areas around their properties or homes. He organized a list of the elderly who needed the help first, a list of the properties that needed and wanted help fire-safe-ing, and a list of equipment available. Coordinating it all, with safe physical distances maintained, he organized equipment, people and locations to do the minimum fire-safe work. Almost done, he’s starting a list of more thorough fire-safe-ing and wide fire break paths to stop a wildfire from spreading over more than a quarter section. Of course that is getting organized as well. Everyone contributes. Everyone is safer. There is less risk that a wildfire will necessitate an evacuation, or if it does that any property will be damaged by anything other than smoke.
What stories of God’s great deeds can you share? What stories of God’s great deeds have you listened to and learned from?
What if we could also listen to those from future generations, looking back at our time, so that we could listen, learn, and live more responsibly.
Are we listening?
Are we learning?
