Remembering David

Remembering David by Gavin Duerson, May 17, 2023

This past week our simple church lost someone special.  David was our next-door neighbor and a faithful pillar in our simple church family.  Loving and being loved by Dave has been one of the biggest blessings of hosting simple church on our street.  Simple/house church creates family and as we grieve the loss of Dave, I realize how true this is.

I was honored to facilitate Dave’s “Celebration of Life Service” this past Saturday.  It was a true joy to hear others tell stories about Dave.  His hilarious personality, love for others, and desire to always help people were common themes.  The stories of the jokes and laughs Dave and I shared could fill up pages.  We experienced Dave’s love in so many wonderful ways.  He already is so greatly missed.

I wanted to share a part of the message I passed on to friends and family.  I’m grateful for being able to see God work in Dave’s life through the interactions and relationships that developed in our simple church.

Today, this is called a “Celebration of Life Service.”  But it doesn’t feel like a celebration, does it?  If Dave were here with us wearing some goofy shirt or costume and we were having a party, good food, and good Dave stories, it would seem much more like a celebration.  But that cannot happen.  Last Sunday at our house church meeting this passage was brought up.

“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

The Scriptures teach that there is something really healthy and good about seasons of life like this – as painful as they may be.  As I got to know David after Debbie (Dave’s wife) passed, he would often say that as painful as losing Carrie (Dave’s daughter) was, losing Debbie was worse because he was now alone.  He no longer had a partner to help him deal with his grief.  His honesty was a real gift to others because it gave those who knew him a window into God’s work in Dave’s life.  In our church, Dave didn’t try to just move on or forget about his losses or pretend to be okay.  I saw him lean into his grief and “take it to heart,” as this Scripture mentions.

We have and will continue to speak a lot of Dave and all the amazing things about him – and rightly so.  But he wasn’t a perfect person.  He had faults as we all do.  When he started meeting with our church family, he would often say things like, “I just don’t know if God can forgive me.”  He voiced doubt about his standing with God.  But two weeks ago, when Dave was on his way to a follow-up appointment with a doctor, I had a conversation with Dave that I’d like to share.

Dave told me they were going to run some tests and that everything would be fine, but that if it wasn’t fine and for some reason he didn’t make it, he wanted me to tell everyone that he knew that Jesus Christ lived in his heart, that he was going to Heaven, and that he was 0% afraid of death.  I told him that I didn’t anticipate having to have those conversations any time soon and that I expected him to have many more years ahead of him and to that he said, “Well, it’s true.  I’m not afraid of dying and I’m ready.  I have had an amazing life.”  

How does someone move from wondering if God can forgive them to making such a bold and confident statement like that?  How might we arrive at a similar place through our grief?

First and foremost, it begins by leaning into our pain and grief – running to God and not from Him.  That’s what Dave did.  I think he would encourage everyone here today to do likewise as they deal with their grief today and in the days to come.

Secondly, it does involve getting to know what Jesus is really like.  My wife shared that Dave reminded her of Jesus.  In the Bible, in the book of 1 John, the author, reflecting on Jesus, states that the Christians loved Jesus because He (Jesus) first loved them.  My wife mentioned that we wouldn’t have picked David to become what has amounted to an adopted member of our family.  We wouldn’t have done that, but we grew to love Dave because from the moment we moved across the street, he loved us first.  He showered us with his love as he has many of you here today.

Over the past seven years, we have spent a great amount of time together with Dave discussing and experiencing the amazing and unconditional love of God.  During this time, our family welcomed Wylie, who was not expected to live beyond a few days, and Dave really loved her.  He would always call her “Ms. Wylie.”  Not only has Ms. Wylie played a big role in us all understanding God’s love better, but also the multiple conversations around the person of Jesus we often shared did, too.

It is so easy for us to fall into this religious trap that says we try hard to love God and if we do it good enough God will love us back.  While this is what a lot of people believe Christianity is about, it’s the opposite of what Jesus is about.  It is as backwards as thinking that if my daughter Wylie loves me good enough then I will love her in return.  This lie is so easy to creep into our minds.  When we get to know Jesus, we realize that He came to flip this whole idea of God’s love being based on our performance on its head.  He came to show us all that He loved us first and his love is perfect and powerful enough to take care of all our mistakes.  When we encounter His love, then we can truly love God.  We love because He first loved us!

I want to conclude by sharing this passage in its context with you all because I think it beautifully explains the truths that David was able to absorb and ultimately led him to a place where he was able to express the things he expressed to me on his way to the doctor appointment a few days ago.

1 John 4:4-19 [NIV]
⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.
_______________________________

David loved his family.  Cars.  Music.  Food.  Making people laugh.  He loved greatly, and in the end, Dave was confident about his transition to the next life because He learned most of all that God is love, and that he was loved by God despite his mistakes.  He embraced what Jesus did for him when He absorbed all his sin when He died on the cross.  I’m confident that if Dave could speak to us today from where he sits, he would long for us to lean into our grief and get to know the real Jesus as well.

Gavin Duerson, Simple Church Alliance

Jesus Is Lord In Brooklyn – Wordless Wednesday

Remember Lot’s Wife – A Warning for Christ’s Disciples

“Remember Lot’s wife!” Luke 17:32
(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+17%3A22-37%29&version=ESV)

For those of you who hold to religious beliefs, this blog is specifically for Christ-followers who do not depend on religion, but on the relationship that we can have with The Uncreated One, the One True God, who has revealed Himself in Jesus, through whom we anticipate eternal life.

Luke 17 is an interesting place for Jesus to give this warning.  Note, it is not to those who do not know the Scriptures (granting that those hearing this word of caution only had the Old Testament), but to those who were scholars of the Hebrew revelations of YHWH, The God Who Is.  Furthermore, this ALERT is given to his followers in the middle of His explanation of what it will be like in the Last Days. 
“Remember Lot’s wife!”

In Genesis 19 the story is told of how God’s angels were sent to the Twin Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Forced homosexuality was common; in fact, Lot offered his two daughters to try to appease a mob (not a very virtuous dad!), but this only enraged the mob more.  Such was the lifestyle and violence of these cities that people could do whatever they wanted as long as they had the power to do so.  Worship of pagan gods often involved sexual perversions and human sacrifice, especially of children.  Anything that was pleasurable was allowed; if it feels good, just do it.  They lived in a fertile valley with comforts and ease with little to disturb their “peace,” such as it was if you were among the powerful. 
“Remember Lot’s wife!”

Anyone could have escaped with Lot if they had been willing, but Lot could not even persuade his future sons-in-law to run from the coming calamity. 

Finally, the angels literally dragged Lot and his wife and daughters out of the city with the warning, “Escape for your life.  Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley.  Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”  As Lot fled the metropolis, The God Who Is sent fiery hail onto Sodom and Gomorrah, (possibly a serious meteor shower and/or an earthquake along the East African Geological Rift that would have released petroleum and gases) so terrible that the cities and the populace were suddenly and totally destroyed . . . but as they ran from the destruction, Lot’s wife looked back . . . and became a pillar of salt! 
“Remember Lot’s wife!”

Why would Lot’s wife have looked back?  Think about it.  Their family had a nice house, lots of meat, fruit and vegetables, deep wells with plenty of water, a comfortable climate, luxurious clothes and rich temples; her husband was a big shot in the city gate and she had siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins in town.  What did it matter if they had to tolerate some abortions, some child sacrifices, occasional murders, a little thievery, lying judges, adulterous neighbors and temple prostitution?  It was a good life and now they were moving to a “little city,” without all those comforts.  Zoar was not an attractive tourist destination!  So she looked back with longing for the things of the old life.  “Remember Lot’s wife!”

In Luke 17 Jesus begins by telling His disciples of the deceptions that will come, but warns that His coming will be like lightning flashing: instantaneous and clearly evident.  He then reminds His disciples of the good life Lot and his family had found in Sodom; “just as it was in the days of Lot — they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.”  Then He sounds an ALARM!  “Remember Lot’s wife!”

God’s call to us at the end of time or at our deaths is not in and of itself salvific, just as the angels’ care for Lot and his family was not enough to save them if they still longed for the old life!

“Clearly that call is not going to produce a miraculous last-minute change in us out of all relation to our previous walk with the Lord.  No, in that moment we shall discover our heart’s real treasure.  If it is the Lord Himself, then there will be no backward look.  A backward glance decides everything.  It is so easy to become more attached to the gifts of God than to the Giver – and even, I should add to the work of God than to God Himself!”  Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life

What might tempt you to look back at that last minute, when you are about to take your last breath on earth or at that moment when Jesus parts the clouds and returns to catch away those who love Him?  What is your heart’s real treasure!?

Would you look back and wish for another day or two in your house?  Perhaps your desire would be for one more time in a position of power or recognition for your accomplishments.  Maybe your last thought will be about that one who offended you in some way; maybe you could get even if you had just a moment more on earth.  Would you want to stay just a little longer here in order to finish a task, watch another movie, relax in an easy chair or on a beach, eat another meal, see a son or daughter graduate, go on one more trip, work little more on your “bucket list?”
“Remember Lot’s wife!”

“Prosperity knits a man to the World.  He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it’, while really it is finding its place in him.  His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home on earth.”  C.S. Lewis

My hope for all of you who have received this in your email or on your WordPress Reader, and for the many of you who will read this when I email you, is that you will look forward to meeting Jesus face to face and “love His appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:8)

“Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.  I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed.  One will be taken and the other left.” (Luke 17:33-34)
“Remember Lot’s wife!”

Two Destinations – An Almost Wordless Wednesday

“For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”  Jesus

Swimmers in the Sky

Angels from the Throne in Glory
Come to earth to tell a story
Of One who came to testify
We can live even when we die.

The realms of Heaven and earth collide
Leaving us with no place to hide.
All is clear to Him on the Throne,
He sees both worlds; they are both His own.

But with love He looks on what He has formed
And bids us each to be reborn;
To accept His life coming from On High
And join the swimmers in the sky.

(Thanx to Ariela for challenging me to write a poem on the Swimmers in the Sky.)

The Two Greatest Fears

It seems like a terrifying time to be alive.  Fear and depression stats are off the charts as government officials warn to leave masks alone for health-care workers, then warn that if you do not wear a mask, you are committing a crime against your community.  Then you don’t need a mask anymore, then you must wear one.  And don’t even get me started on the politicization of gene therapy that has been misnamed “vaccines.”  When Michael Crichton wrote The State of Fear, I wonder how fully he realized how accurate he was.
Fear controls.  Fear restricts.  Fear dominates.  Fear enslaves.  Fear manipulates.
Laura Dodsworth, a British photo-journalist used a similar title for one of her books, A State of Fear and spoke to Epoch Times about it on American Thought Leaders.

Curiously, the most common first words out of angels’ mouths when they showed up in the Bible were, “Fear not.”  Unlike the nice little girls in a church Christmas pageant, they must be pretty scary when they materialize!

Scripture teaches there are two great fears every person has, and the first and foremost is fear of death.  There is a mystery in Hamlet’s “undiscovered country” that makes us willing to suffer all kinds of burdens because we do not know what lies beyond since no one has come back to tell us . . . except Jesus 😉.  And for those who have accepted His salvation, we can say with Paul, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:54-56)

Yet, even knowing what will happen AFTER I die does not completely remove the fear of this final baptism into the unknown.  Of course, there are matters of pain, disease, or injury that are frightening, but when you read of martyrs who gave up their lives rather than renounce faith in Jesus, one cannot help but be moved by the lack of fear!  Yet that hesitant fear remains.

It reminds me of my first time on a three-meter diving board.  I had fallen from higher limbs out of trees onto leafy ground.  The gym teacher had effectively taught me how to swim and I had even been in the “deep end” when swimming lengths of the pool.  The week before, everyone in the class had jumped or dived off the low board.  But as I climbed the 10 foot ladder to the platform my knees trembled and I was scared.  One after another, classmates before me walked up (in what seemed to me overconfidence or bravado) and just casually walked to the boundary of common sense and suddenly they were GONE!

The splash that followed 1.42 seconds later did not give me any more confidence.  I was going to leap to my death!!  But I knew the line behind me would want me to get over the brink as quickly as possible so they could jump, so steeling my spirit and mind against the despondence of my doom, I also walked up and off the edge!  The comfort of feeling the water enclose around me removed all my fear.  So I expect it will be something like this when I “cross the Jordan.”  Like the old hymn sang, “I won’t have to cross Jordan alone.”

But most of the people in the world do not have this comfort.  For them, the fear of death is paramount in their minds.  Everything they do (with the exception of adrenaline junkies) is to try to stay alive.  And even adrenaline junkies take precautions and plan their escapades in expectation that they will survive.  R.J. Corman reportedly offered $1,000,000 to his doctors for every year he lived after a cancer diagnosis in 2001.  Many octogenarians and older still look for organ transplants and medical ‘miracles’ that will keep them alive “just little longer.”  Without Jesus, death is the most fearsome adversary mankind faces.  Even though everyone will die at some point, many often go to extremes to put off this inevitable contest with an opponent who is destined to win.  Some even freeze their bodies in hopes that before frostbite sets in someone will come up with a cure for whatever is killing them!

The second greatest fear most people experience is, “What will the neighbors think!?”  Okay, maybe not neighbors, but someone else.  Fear of what other people think runs a very close second to the fear of death.  Some people even risk death to avoid being thought foolish or vain or somehow less than what they wish they were.  We joke in Kentucky, Bubba’s most common last words are, “Hey, ever-body, watch THIIIS!”

I recall when Nokia cell phones first came out, a man entering an elevator continued talking about his financial wizardry as we ascended 15 stories in the building.  What he did not notice was the light on the face of his phone had gone out, indicating he had lost the connection in the lift! 🙄  But rather than admit to us strangers that he was not as savvy as wanted us to think, he kept up the charade.

Jesus warned specifically not to fear what people may think of you.  “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves,… have no fear of them,… do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (Matthew 10:16-28)  However, some authorities in Israel did not get the memo: “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in Him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” (John 12:42-43)  Sooo sad.

For the Christ-follower, this is an ongoing battle with the flesh, to be humble and obedient and not worry about what people think.  Some of us struggle with this more than others, but we are on the right path when we say with the author of Hebrews, ^“So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?'” (Hebrews 13:6)

In Jesus discourse the night before His crucifixion He told His disciples, and by them tells us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.“ (John 14:27)

“Oh, the worst of all tragedies is not to die young, but to live until seventy-five and yet not ever truly to have lived.”   Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated at age 39

Guest Blog by Thompson Lengels

Personal Meditation on Death and Dying
by ThompsonLengels / March 19, 2022
(with minor edits for spelling, syntax and references)

Satan has a season when he loves to prick the saint’s conscience — their dying day!  Alas, he comes with all those failing spots to which the saint has succumbed! (Psalm 90:7-8)

When he comes, we may as well say to him:  It is true, Satan. I have failed often, more so, broken asunder to despair and despondency.  But also, listen.  Christ accepted me in my wicked state; died for me while a whore, a swearer, a guiler, an idolater, adulterer, a fornicator, and all the filthy exercises about which you think.  I say Christ died for me in all this mud of sin (Romans 5:8).  All that is good in me is but by His unmerited grace, undeserved mercy.

Death, to a Christian, is a doorway to glory.  To live in Christ is to keep in step with Christ.  So also, he that would die well must never put off the inevitability of death — he must live as a dying man.  The Christian’s death is the ending of his troubling sins, an entrance to a land where sin and sorrow are no more.  We must look at death as a thing we must meet, and look upon ourselves as a thing with which we must part.

It is never too soon to make friendship with death.  We never get what we think we want because God always gives us what we need.  One day our need will be death.

Death is gain; freedom from doubt and unbelief.  In Heaven our faith will be turned into sight.  Here the best are liable to doubt about their personal piety, and often experience many an anxious hour in reference to this point.  In Heaven doubt will be known no more.

Death is the grave of all temptations.  A Christian’s death delivers them from the second death.  Put another way, a Christian dies natural to live eternal.  In Heaven there are no graves, but eternal grace.

After our death, we will be met by our believing loved ones who went ahead of us to be with Christ.  O beloved Christian, why fear death?  It is natural to fear death, but we may meet it with faith in Christ.

When death knocks at your door, don’t murmur and grumble about it.  Rejoice, you are going Home at last!  Does the prisoner, long confined in a dungeon, dread the hour which is to open his prison, and permit him to return to his family and friends?  Does the man in a foreign land, long an exile, dread the hour when he shall embark on the ocean [or the sky] to be conveyed to where he may embrace the friends of his youth?  Does the sick man dread the hour which restores him to health; the afflicted, the hour of comfort?  The wanderer at night, the cheering light of returning day?

And why, then, should the Christian dread the hour which will restore him to immortal vigor?  Which shall remove all his sorrows?  Which shall introduce him to everlasting day?  Smile at death when your time draws nigh.

Death is an awful reality to men who have made this world their only home and the things of this world their only possessions.  Do not waste any unnecessary time below here.  Let us live as diligent laborers in a field full of harvest, harvesting men to Christ Jesus.

Live as men who appreciate the world, but let us live like men who are more in love with the world to come, the world of Christ Jesus.  To die and be with Christ is the final pilgrimage of the wounded saint.  The saint finally meets with Eternal Rest and Blessed Felicity.

The door of death is inscribed thus: “Prepare to meet your God!”  Christ is best!

Death is sleep. “The girl is not dead but sleeping.” (Luke 8:52)  The natural man is tempted to laugh.  You’re wise and know how to apply.  Death will very soon reveal the children of God and the devil.

We must have our heart and mind in Heaven if we are to look at death with courage in Christ.  “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2).  “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

Beware of head-knowledge in the face of death!  It will not comfort you.  How is your heart and way of life instructed by your accumulated knowledge on the things of God?  Do you know God, or things about God?  That’s the question!  Be honest with yourself!

I’ve observed humble men die well.  Improve life by dying daily to self and enrich the soul by being alive in Christ.  I am homesick for Heaven.

You’re not too young to die.  Make peace with God.  This old fellow knows his time is nigh.  Here today, gone tomorrow.  Make no permanent nest in this world.  Death is a golden carriage that lifts the soul to a golden city, a celestial city.  Fellow mortal, cease playing Immortal.

The whole world is a big cemetery of dead men walking.  Those that resolve to repent tomorrow intend to be wicked today.  A delay of repentance breastfeeds and strengthens our sin — and the wages of sin is death!  (Romans 6:23)

The conversion of the thief at the cross is not a canon that all of us are guaranteed conversion to Christ at our death-bed.

We read in the Holy Scriptures of men who were called at their infancy such as Jeremiah, Samuel and John the Baptist.  Some were chosen in their prime age of youth like the four Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel.  Others were called in their advanced adulthood such as the disciples, John, James, Peter, and Andrew.  Other were called while carrying out their business of the day as Matthew, the tax-collector and Luke, the physician.  Others were called while in their sin-business as the forgiven harlot and the woman at Jacob’s well.  Others while gazing at a fig tree or climbing a sycamore as Nathanael and Zacchaeus.  Still others were called in their old age as Joseph of Arimathea and the Jewish scholar, Nicodemus.  And last of all, at their death-bed — the thief at the cross!

There’s no such thing as purgatory and indulgences.  When you die, you are dead!  And all must die!  If not now, tomorrow.  If not tomorrow, the next day.  If not the next day, then, the following day.  If not the following day, … then the next!

We can only sing, “Death has lost its sting,” (Hosea 13:14; 1 Corinthians 15:55) if we truly understand what the cross of Christ accomplished for us.

Death laughs at bags of gold.  Death is a level ground where the rich and poor; proud and humble; high and low; prince and peasant, all lay and become wholesome meal for the worm. (Job 21:23-26)  A man’s life, however great it was, is always summarized by this little word — Death!

Jesus Christ not only died.  He conquered death by death itself!  Christ stung death to death!
He is our resurrection!

Snow Angels and Angles

Snow, being one of the most astounding miracles attesting to the existence of God, early January brought an amazing overnight and all day miracle to Lexington!  Three neighbor boys made snow angels.  The oldest and the youngest were done and gone before I could get my phone out, but the middle one stayed with it for the picture.

One Minute Past Midnight

There is something sobering about getting a couple phone call messages, texts and emails from your favorite doctor concerned with your latest lab results, especially on December 30, so close to the year’s end.  Sobering, but not frightening, as it may be for those who do not have hope in Jesus.  I know where I am going and I know the One who knows the way. (John 14:1-4)

All six of my strokes since 1999 have been ischemic (clot) strokes, meaning my body likes to throw coagulated blood at my brain.  But getting a lab result that suddenly and without warning shows one’s ‘blood-thinning’ medication makes you at significant risk of a hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke is cause for concern.  No changes in diet, no alterations in activities, no travels to strange lands (like Norway 😉), no deviations in sleep nor major stresses; so why the drastic change in medical results that two weeks ago were fine?

Suddenly my mortality faces me like an impressive off-season Halloween costume, trying to scare me by telling me I could have died this week if a significant blow had struck me, or I had fallen with just a simple trip on the sidewalk.  But the Spectre does not alarm me; death has lost its victory; the grave has lost its sting because my life is hidden in Jesus, the Christ, and nothing will happen to me that my loving Lord does not allow for my good, even it the event is to take me Home. (1 Corinthians 15:50-57)

So as 2021 comes to its finale, I consider the New Year’s Resolution I made in 1969 at 18 years old and have faithfully kept every New Year: “Resolved, I will never make another New Year’s Resolution!”

This is not to suggest that we should not look back at the fading year and evaluate what we could or should have done differently.  Nor does it mean that we should not plan some improvements and developments in the approaching New Year.  However, as noted on December 12, 2016, most resolutions do not make it to January 31!  And none of us has any guarantee of tomorrow, much less the whole year ahead.  Whether one runs like James Fixx or manages one’s food with self-control like Ang, there are no warranties we can claim any more than righteous Job.

Thus, I encourage you at this changing of the days to consider your life: its value, its impact on others, its final destination.  And walk in fear of The God Who Is, one who loves you more than we can grasp in this life, and who has revealed Himself most clearly in the God-Man, Jesus. (Hebrews 1:1-3)

Then you will not fear when the clock turns to midnight, just because one minute after midnight you could find yourself in His arms and in His kingdom in Heaven.

Happy New Year to all who are reading this, and with all my heart I hope to meet you someday around the Throne of God to praise Him together.

yours and His,
c.a.

___________________________________________________

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God; Psalm 90

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
³ You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of Adam!”
⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past,
    or as a watch in the night.
⁵ You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
    like grass that is renewed in the morning:
⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
⁷ For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.
⁸ You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
⁹ For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
¹⁰ The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
¹¹ Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?
¹² So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
¹³ Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.
¹⁶ Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us;
    yes, establish the work of our hands!

Peak Foliage In Lexington, Kentucky – Wordless Wednesday