Hebrews 12:1 - "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."
Hunh! "So great a cloud." In today's tech world, the great cloud is where all your data gets stored safely.
But for those who hunger for peace and heaven and enduring life, the greatest cloud always was, is, and will be where people are witnessing to the greatness of God, which is perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ.
That's what St. Patrick did, always yearning to be an overflowing vessel to others by keeping his eyes on Jesus Christ as testified in his breastplate prayer, which has always meant so much to me and is as follows: Christ be with me, Christ within me. Christ behind me, Christ before me. Christ beside me, Christ to win me. Christ to comfort me and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me. Christ in quiet, Christ in danger. Christ in hearts of all that love me. Christ in mouth of friend or stranger.
Wow! Eyes on Jesus that then focus on spreading the love to others!
Each day, it is so easy for us to get caught up in the stuff that needs to get done. And don't get me wrong, it is important for us to tend to our daily responsibilities, just like the man and woman had to tend to the garden way back before sin entered the world in order that the garden would bear fruit. However, if you remember, it was when the desire to be surrounded by a cloud of stuff became greater than the desire to be surrounded by a cloud of witnesses that things went wrong for the first man and woman.
Not long ago, I was at a viewing and funeral, there were two emphatically consistent themes that came out:
1) The deceased worked extremely hard, faithfully tending to his daily responsibilities, but as he did, he always took time for the people that surrounded him, which were not just clients but also his family, and
2) A lot of visitors to the family worked extremely hard to both do their responsibilities and also to say to the family, "We remember you and pray for you," using both the cloud of technology like Facebook, texts, and email and also more old-fashioned means like sending flowers or calling or driving long distances.
It was a foretaste of heaven.
So each day life goes on. And there are responsibilities to tend to. But life is so much better when we notice, acknowledge, and remember the God and the people, who surround us like a cloud, even as we with love surround them too.
Thank you all! I praise God for you!
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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