My friend, may I ask you a question? If we ever lose sight of what God has in store for us, like a butterfly, the struggle to emerge from this earthly body that imprisons the beauty of a child redeemed and beautiful in the eyes of God, will it give us cause to cross many an ocean of pain, struggle and danger?
My friend, life’s a story, welcome to This Passing Day. I’m M. Clifford Brunner.
One of the more enduring memories I have of childhood is the time I stumbled upon a Monarch Butterfly chrysalis that by chance had just begun to open. I remember watching as the butterfly pushed and struggled to escape its shell. It didn’t happen in a moment. I sat watching the struggle for well over an hour. Finally, exhausted, the wet and tired butterfly emerged, crawled over the now empty shell and clung to the bottom of the branch anchoring its little prison. But what beauty resulted from that struggle. That little butterfly had a vision. It needed to get from one small, cramped and confining world to another where it could fly instead of crawl. Had it given up on that vision, a confined world would be all it ever knew and flight would never have been an option.
Here’s a story: About 350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway? Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision. With a clear vision of what we can become in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries. (Lynn Anderson.)
Don’t ever lose sight of what God has in store for you. Like that butterfly, the struggle to emerge from this earthly body that imprisons the beauty of a child redeemed and beautiful in the eyes of God, will give us cause to cross many an ocean of pain, struggle and danger. But as long as we never lose sight of what God has in store for each of us, in the end, the pain will be well worth it. Keeping a vision of flight in view, can give you the wings to do it.
We pray. Heavenly Father, O Lord, life is full of so much pain. There is the pain of separation; the pain of loss, the pain of physical suffering, the pain of embarrassment, the pain of defeat. If we add up all the pain in our lives, we would amass a large inventory of moments and passages of time when we felt alone, perhaps abandoned, even without hope. Forgive us Lord when we forget that You often use these times to make us grow, move forward, giving us purpose and opportunity to grow in grace and become the man or woman in Christ You designed us to be. Thank You Father and praise Your holy name that You love us so much You take the time to give us opportunity to know the pain, no matter the inconvenience or the hurt. In Jesus name we pray. Amen!
Therefore my friend, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry for itself; each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matt 6:34) This Passing Day. May this passing day honor our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and be a blessing to you and everyone you meet. Find a stranger and say hello. Don't let another day pass without your day blessing someone else.
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<thispassingday@gmail.com> From Beech Springs, God bless you for Jesus sake.