September 2018

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. . . God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 2:11


Grateful

I spotted a red sweet gum leaf on a campus sidewalk this week, and stopped to pick it up. The color was a deep, rich red and the leaf's five-pointed star was intact, its surface unmarred. A perfect specimen. I admired this first fall leaf so much that I carried it upstairs to my office and pressed it in a book of nature poems where it seemed to belong. I've been opening the book and taking the leaf out to admire it all week. Maybe "admire" isn't quite the right word. Maybe appreciate is a better word. Maybe "feel grateful for" is a better way still to describe it. Gratefulness creates more gratefulness, for blessings and beauties both large and small. I've come to realize this recently.

 Recently, God miraculously preserved the life of our son who was in a horrible head-on collision on a busy two-lane highway. And walked away. Walked away after another car travelling toward him suddenly and unexpectedly shot directly into his lane. Walked away from a crash that deployed his airbags and activated every single one of his car's emergency systems. Walked away from a crash that spun his car in circles and left it sitting a totaled, cockeyed mess in the middle of the highway. Walked away from that mangled mass of metal and back into the arms of all who love him: his wife and seven-month-old son, his siblings and in-laws, his many nieces and nephews, and of course, our arms, those of his grateful-beyond-words parents.

 Praise God! Praise God! Praise God!

 For our Friday night Bible study group, we read according to the schedule in The One Year Bible. The day after our son's accident, our scheduled reading took us to the book of Job. The timing was not lost on us. Job, that man of sorrows, that poor beleaguered man of ancient times who, though blessed with abundance in the end, at one point in his life lost everything including all his earthly wealth, his health, and worst of all, I'm sure, his children, all of them in one day. What was Job's response?

Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground in worship.

(NLT, Job 1:20)

I cannot imagine Job's grief, and yet, what was his response? Worship. Praise.

[Job] said, "I came naked from my mother's womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!" (NLT, Job 1:21-22)

Would my response have been worship and praise if our son's accident had turned out differently? Thank God, I didn't have to find out! To read Job's tragic story the day after our son's life was preserved, was to know gratefulness beyond measure.

Why does God preserve one life, but not another? That is a mystery beyond finding out. One thing we know, it's not because one person or family is more deserving of God's grace and favor than another. Never! The definition of grace is unmerited favor. There's not a thing any of us can do to earn or deserve God's grace. The only answer to this "why" seems to me to be, because God is God and we are not.

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine." (NLT, Isaiah 55: 8)

And actually, this is the conclusion to which the story of Job leads. God is God and we are not. God is high above us, but not distant. God is greater than us in every way, but not indifferent to our suffering. God's ways and thoughts are far above ours, but He is not unmindful of us and our needs. He is worthy of all praise, but not demanding of it. God is God and we are not. He will be what He will be. It is our honor and privilege to have breath to praise the One of whom it is written:

If God were to take back his spirit and withdraw his breath, all life would cease, and humanity would turn again to dust. (NLT, Job 34:14-15)

After I posted praise on social media for God's protection of our son, many, many friends responded with praise. Picturing all of those praises reaching heaven in one beautiful barrage, brought me to tears of joy. Praise God, Praise God, Praise God!

. . . God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end. (NLT, Ecclesiastes 2:11)

God is God and we are not. Gratefulness creates more gratefulness. Praise, more praise. May we become ever more mindful of the blessings around us, blessings both large and small. A precious life preserved. A perfect leaf on the sidewalk. Family and friends who listen and commiserate on the days when everyday frustrations blind us momentarily to the bigger picture. And speaking of pictures, the photo that accompanies this month's devotional was taken the morning after the accident. That morning, I was able to see that even the muddy puddle in the drive reflects the sunrise.


Daye Phillippo

September 2018