It’s the second day of 2011. It’s a Sunday. It’s time to gear up for another year of serving the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. How unworthy and yet how blessed we are. Thank you Jesus for coming and for taking away and forgiving all our sins.
We gave our little Sunday morning fellowship group the day off to enjoy their family and let them rest and reflect. We enjoyed a little extra time to sleep in. I shared a few minutes on the phone with my dad as he enters his 2nd week in a hospital. I’m not sure how he’s doing physically. It doesn’t sound too good from here. His heart is still weak, his breathing is still labored, and he is still in need of the oxygen mask. He is eating but can’t feed himself.
I hadn’t spoken to him since early in the week when I simply told him we were praying for him. He was too weak to handle more than a moment with a phone held to his ear. Today, I spoke to him and prayed with him. Mom told me afterward that the nurse was in the room and overheard the prayer and she thought that was good. I prayed for God to do whatever He wants in Dad’s body, whether to live longer or die sooner. I thanked Him that we have the assurance that in breathing our last breath here we’re granted entry into an eternity in His presence…sinless and walking beside Him and seeing Him face to face. It was a precious moment for me to pray with Dad.
Afterward, the ABCDs sat around the table and we read 1 Samuel 8. How fitting the reminder for a new year that Israel had God as their true King but wanted to have a man for a king instead. God exhorted Samuel, the prophet/judge, that the people weren’t rejecting Samuel, but rather God. I’m struck with a flash of fear just reading that. How foolish and awful to reject our King for an earthly, selfish solution. We talked about how God will allow us to make choices and to ask for and receive things we should have never asked for in the first place and should have never pushed to receive. But He will permit us to do so. Things or relationships that we may want and pursue to have, and just like Israel, we’ll live to regret ever possessing, instead of being content with our one true God and what He wants for us.
May 2011 be a year in which we only want and pursue our one true God…pursuing nothing and no one more or less than just God.
Happy New Year and should He bring us to our last breath on this earth in 2011, may we be ready to see our one true God face to face for eternity. I believe I’m ready. Are you?
Knowing Your ABCDs 