[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Thursday, August 8, 2013

[Paul]

Hello and good day to all my fellow saints of the Most High God, no matter where in this world you happen to reside.  I hope that your day is going well or, if it is Friday morning where you are, that your day is about to begin and you're ready to face whatever God has in store for you.

This is a story that our Aussie members will probably appreciate more than the rest of us.  This article was written by Jean Grant, a writer in California, and is entitled "Did You Miss Something?" which is rendered as follows:

All eyes were on Ayers Rock, the spectacle we had gathered from all over the world to see at sunset.  There were a thousand or more of us, crowded beside our tour buses and rental cars.  Hushed.  Waiting.

The monolith rose solitary on the barren red desert of the Australian Outback.  A few scrubby shrubs managed to survive on the rare and unreliable rainfall.  The heat was oppressive, well over 100 degrees even as the day slowly drew to a close.

Pools lingered, hidden within the lower folds of the rock, long after rainwater had vanished from the rest of the desert.  A myriad of creatures--blue tongued lizards, flightless emus, and an occasional dingo--might find shelter in the weathered coves near the base of the monument.

Uluru, the Aborigines call it.  A sacred place, like no other on earth.  We watched, waiting for the promised spectacle.

We were not disappointed.  As the sun sank behind us, the rock began to glow.  Burnt orange turned to scarlet.  Vermillion, claret, and cherry touched the shadows.  Moment by moment, the awesome vision changed, as carmine, crimson and ruby played one color against the other on the table-topped mountain.

No one saw anything else; what more could we hope for? But for some reason, I turned around.  Only then did I discover that an even grander canvas had been painted on the sky behind the crowd!

Was it a reminder that God's majesty always exceeds our meager expectations? God's grace is not limited by our capacity to hope; God's beauty isn't one dimensional.  We're surrounded by God's glory.  All we have to do is look.

And there you have it for today.  There are, as far as I can determine, only three of you from Australia, but I hope that you got something out of this article, and that the rest of us can vicariously "travel" to Ayers Rock via Jean's words.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul