The Patriarches

Five weeks ago I started at the beginning.  Literally.  Genesis: the beginning.  I find it so interesting that when you dig into the Bible you find yourself addicted.  And what was once just a story is now a part of you, and the most familiar unfamiliar place you have ever been.  In five weeks I have managed to dig through thousands (and I mean thousands) of years of history.  I have encountered El Olam, the Everlasting God, Jehovah Jireh, God will provide, and Beer Lahai Roi, the God who sees.  And met with faithful, ordinary men and women.  People who met with God, who spoke to Him, made huge mistakes, and then humbled themselves in extraordinary ways.  I am utterly grateful for the things that I am understanding, but even more I am grateful for the things that I have not understood.  Those pages of God-breathed knowledge will ever hold mystery.  How awesome that our Lord is so big that even the most brilliant person in the world will still be baffled or awed by the greatness of God. 

Please allow me to encourage you:  get digging into the Word, it is time well spent, and He is waiting there for you.  

So GREAT a cloud of witnesses!!

Therefore, since we have so great a could of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on JESUS, the author  and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that YOU will not grow weary and lose heart.

Hebrews 12:1-3

This coming weekend, the Norridge Citadel Corps will celebrate 25 years at Foster and Cumberland.  Anniversaries really make you look backwards.  There is a program for the Youth on Friday night, and a program on Saturday night.  The band at one point is going to play Hymn to the Fallen.  It is simply beautiful.  (One of those pieces that sounds so simple, and yet if you play it you think you might die because you are sustaining notes so long.)  While we are playing it there is a slide show of all those who have gone on before us.  We watched the slide show last night, even now just talking about it I feel choked up.  How often in our journey we just keep moving without one thought to those around us, or before us.  How selfish of us to forget to remember that great cloud of witnesses!  I know that there were many faces in those pictures that I didn't know who they were, but on the other hand there were many that I did recognize.  And as we watched I was overcome with thankfulness for their witness, and the role that they played in our corps.  How awesome is our God!! Hallelujah! 

I am praying right now that you would be filled with thankfulness for the way God works, and the witnesses that have gone on before you, and the way they have impacted your life.