[Faith-talk] Good Night Message for Thursday, February 28, 2013

[Paul]

Well folks, here in the Americas it's almost the end of February, whereas for you in other parts of the world, your March has already begun.  I hope and pray that, by God's matchless grace and His providential care, that your day is going well or went well.

Scott McLaughlin is pastor of Vision of Glory Lutheran Church in Plymouth MN and he has our article for today.  Entitled "Lent:  The Vision of God's Love," it is rendered as follows:

A "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip some years ago had Calvin (the young boy whose stuffed tiger, Hobbes, comes alive in his imagination) reflecting on how life is like topography:  there are summits of success, plateaus of boring routine and valleys of failures and frustrations.  But Calvin declares that his life will be different.  It will be one of never ending ascension in which every minute will be better than the previous one.  His life, Calvin declares, will be like going from one peak to the next, skipping all valleys.

Wouldn't life be something if we could just go from peak to peak? Maybe some of us would even settle for a life with nothing but plateaus if we knew that there would be no valleys.

However, as the final frame of the comic strip shows, life has an uncanny way of bringing us back down to earth.  Sometimes life comes crashing down upon us and it seems that life is more like going from "valley to valley" rather than "peak to peak."

Holy Scripture doesn't promise us life without valleys.  But it does promise us over and over again that the Lord will come and minister to us in times of deep need, that He hears our cries.  I love what the Lord promises in Isaiah 42:16:  "I will turn the rough places into level ground." What a powerful picture of God's love!

The Good News is that there is no valley too deep or dark for the love of God to reach.  There's deliverance for every valley--even the last valley we all will go through, the valley of the shadow of death.  No wonder David praised God this way:  "For great is Your steadfast love toward me; You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol."  (Psalm 86:13)

This month the Christian Church around the world is in the midst of observing the 40 days of Lent.  It is a time to redirect our hearts in seeking anew the powerful picture of God's love as seen in the suffering and Cross of Jesus Christ.

Sometime ago I came across this story from the American South:

A bunch of hunting dogs were situated on a farm down in a hollow, where their owner had just begun scooping out their breakfast in their dishes.  Suddenly one of the dogs sees, at the crown of hill some distance away, the beautiful silhouette of a deer against the early morning sky.  The one who sees the deer immediately takes off to give chase.  The other dogs see him taking off and some (the ones who haven't had their noses in their food dishes) take off after him, even though they have not seen the deer because that's what hunting dogs do.  They continue running with him, but only for a time, because in due time the effort and struggle exhaust them.  So they give up the chase and turn back to their food dishes.  However, the dog that actually saw the deer continues chasing it.  He does not allow the effort or the struggle to hinder him from completing his chase.  He pays little attention to the stones and thorns that hurt him while running, nor does he allow the turning aside of the other dogs behind him to put him off.  For he had himself seen the vision of that beautiful deer.

Lent is the time when believers in Christ together refresh their vision of the glorious One, Jesus Christ, and His cross-bearing love.  The church is where the Holy Spirit imparts in our hearts the living Word, making this Word ours, and where the Holy Spirit fills the sails of our faith.  Life is hard enough to run the race on just hearsay.  Purposes based on hearsay are quickly exhausted.  But once you catch the vision of God's love for you, you are ready to risk anything, to sacrifice everything, even your life because you know Christ who is the life of the world.

And there you have Pastor McLaughlin's article for today.  I hope and pray that it ministered to you in some small way.

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