Moments

The other day some firewood fell off the rack and cut me on the arm and one large piece landing on my foot. The top of the foot turned blue. While sitting in a chair my seven year old granddaughter brought an ice bag, put it on my foot and tied it down. I was warmed by that and told her so. She said, "Pop-Pop, I'm a Christian and Christians help people and I read my Bible too." That simple faith. That childlike faith. That is what Christians do. We help people. We bring a bag of cold water to a sore foot in His name. And, we read our Bible too.

Pruning one's life hurts. Sometimes it looks like the pruning has done us in. Wounds on our tree are everywhere. Nothing but the limbs that make us beautiful in God's eyes and grow remain. The wounds heal over. We do not die. We are only pruned to look more like Jesus. And, when our tree is pruned we can bear more fruit that before when our lives were burdened with cares of the world and our fleshly appetites. Yeah, I have been pruned. Haven't you? Didn't it hurt at first? Aren't we better off and growing more toward Jesus and bearing more fruit for the Kingdom because we have been Godly pruned.

We are recognized by our hope. We seemingly have hope in a hopeless world. Seeing this, the world wonders, "how can that be" Are these people insane? Haven't you heard the news? Only a fool would have hope in today's world." But today's world is not really different than yesterday's world. There were no "good old days." Even those from the supposedly "good old days" sinned and fell "short of the Glory of God." In our time and in the times before there is , and has not been, any hope in this world aside from Jesus Christ. Our "only Hope, God's only Son."

My granddaughter was playing on big pile of dirt, enjoying the simplicity of things that children seem so easily to enjoy. We were on my road that lead through the woods. I was there with her, dozing in my truck to protect and defend if necessary, or just to watch and care. We were safe here in this part of the world; this little island of security in an insecure and unsettled world. My eyes opened when I heard a voice. It was my granddaughter's voice; a quiet tone, singing I am going to my Father's house. There in the woods on this dirt pile, with her grandfather being near, she felt safety,security, and comfort in the midst of all that is wrong in the world. We are His children, and even in this place and time, our Father "neither slumbers or sleeps." He is watching over us as we play out our lives on our little hills of this world. We are HIs: "in this world but not of it" and our ultimate security is not our little islands in a forest but withi