Tuesday, April 20, 2021
What Do We See?
The Disappearing Light and Danger of Darkness?
Cold Water Filled with Dangerous Ice?
…
OR
The Promise of a New Day Coming in the Light of the Morning, and
Clear Water of the Summer, (both months if we’re lucky :-)?
Genesis 9:9-10-11
As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
Colossians 1:21-2
You who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.
Words of Grace For Today
God’s great works are really two-fold. First God sets things right between us and God. Second God promises that the future is in God’s hands and God will not destroy us … at least not by flood waters.
If you have ever been in a flood, or threatened for months by continually rising waters cutting you off from the rest of the world, then you will know the fear that is inherent in even coming close to being in a flood. That fear does not go away with the receding waters. It remains, always. There are many other disasters that have the similar effect on our ability to live fear-free.
Fear paralyzes us, reduces us to instinctual beings without the ability to reason or think: we fight, freeze, or flee.
Living in constant fear, or in fear that recurs without warming constantly throughout our days, diminishes life, sometimes to a small sliver of life. Fear robs us of abundant life. Fear robs those around us of abundant life … as they deal with our fears.
The complete lack of fear, on the other hand, leaves us unmotivated to work hard, as if life will just unfold for us. The difference is the quantity and quality of fear. The first stymies us and reduces us. The second reminds us of reality and invigorates us. Where the first kind of fear leaves off and the other begins is not a constant. It varies according to our resilience.
There is one ‘disaster’ that all of us face, which nothing can take away from us: we will all die. This fear is a constant in all of us.
Knowing that God sets things right between us and God, and trusting the promises that God is with us and will not destroy us, gives us a resilience that is out-of-this-world solid … and living with which enables us to enjoy life abundant … through even the toughest times, including through Covid 19.