This past week has been one of those weeks where I found myself in a very unusual situation. I flew up to Kenai, Alaska to meet my brothers, all four of them, two whom I had never met before. I was adopted to a “white” family when I was a baby and then twenty years ago I met my “blood” family” thru my blood mother, Nancy. Needless to say, I was a little bewildered. Never have I felt my heartstrings sing as they did for that one-week, but sing they did. Sometimes it was stories that sang of “harder times” by my forefathers, other times it was about whatever is going on right now. What was unusual in the midst of it all, good, bad, or indifferent, it is where the Lord placed me.
I was blessed to stand out in all the snow (some areas were 10-12 feet deep) and yet to FEEL and KNOW my home! I was blessed to feel what 12 degrees feels like without any breeze at all. At 0430hrs in the morning I would stand and watch the fog rise over Cook Inlet and then watch as it disappeared with the sun. I would scoop up a handful of snow and what I saw was my hand was rain from the Lord. I saw my Lord in all the beauty of the landscape and in the quiet hours.
As others slept I could almost hear my ancestors sing songs. Even more important to me, I could hear the voice of my Lord and Savior, clearer than at any other time. I felt my heart become quiet as my Lord spoke to me, and in all things HE is always there! There is no way and there is no place that I could ever go where my Lord and Savior would not be able to find me. HE clothed me in HIS choice of clothes, snow so pure and so white and I felt so very blessed to belong to such an awesome Lord!!
What struck me was something so simple. Our Lord covers us in HIS very best, the purest and clean snow, and then with our wonderful machines it is pushed aside so the snow is mixed with dirt. We turn what was given so freely to us, so beautiful and pure into something dirty and unwanted; I was saddened by this and how close this process is to how we are in our every day lives, yet then we think our intelligence holds us up to a higher level. How insignificant we truly are, how ignorant and spiteful we have become and how arrogant we are…to the only One…that can save us!
“Well, we need to move the snow aside to allow the progression of the day! We must be able to move about and work, no work no food, no food to eat and we die.”
Oh wow, we can’t have that!
Is what we say is so, important? We must have such a great work ethic, we have the finest work attitude, and we must be the most educated. We build our days in front of the altar of money. Yet if we read our Bibles about the Israelites in the wilderness we find that they received the food of angels, manna from heaven! So they weren’t starving and yet in the space of a few days that was not enough for them, they wanted meat! God provided them with pheasant. Each and every time the Lord provided whatever was needed where was the gratitude, the thanks for all of that?
Are we better than they? The answer is an unequivocal, NO! After more than 2000 years we still have learned so very little. Our Lord continues on a daily basis to GIVE the desires of our heart. Where is the praise, where is the thankfulness to the ONE that always makes the difference for us, without fail?
I have never met a single person that has ever created a cow and yet YOU have your steak! We can go on right down the row of things that the Lord gives us everyday and yet the arrogance to the Lord for all of this is palpable. Have you forget what your knees are for?
When I was flying back home from Alaska I dropped my small case with my medicine in it and everything went everywhere. As embarrassed as I was, a young girl using crutches minus one entire leg dropped down and helped me. She did so with a smile! I thanked her so much and I truly appreciated her smile and warmth and I was so humbled by her. Six feet away stood six physicians watching. I was so embarrassed for them. A one-legged young girl made them look so small in front of hundreds of people. The “pillars” of our community in their Italian shoes and finely pressed clothes were just shamed by a young girl with one leg! Their arrogance is beyond comprehension! I pray they read this!
I’m an old man now and yet with all the people I have helped throughout my years, how many go on to help someone else? Simple manners are forgotten. Why? Too, busy? YOU are just too important, too educated. “That’s not my problem,” so many say. How many people have helped them get to where they are today? While I was in Alaska everyone called me “sir” and were very careful to let me move before them. I was and still am an “elder.” Something I had never known in all my years here in the lower 48 states. Is this a sad thing? That’s for you to answer. Maybe it would help you in your every day activities. What does it cost you to be kind, to be respectful of your elders, respectful of everyone around you? I believe this is a “gift” from the Lord to humble oneself, to help another, remember?
So where do YOU stand with the Lord? Are you a humble assistant to others? Do you humble your heart and help others─truthfully─as unto the Lord? Does your heart desire the things of the Lord? Do you see the “gifts” the Lord gives us every day and are you thankful with all you heart? Where does all of this begin and where does it end? We must inspect our hearts as unto the Lord and we must ask the Lord to show us the SIN in our lives and continually ask for HIS forgiveness. It is then, in that time, when you are communicating with the Lord that you will find that the Lord is humble of heart, a willing and single-minded heart for righteousness. Are we walking with the Lord? Or are we demanding things that we have no right to ask for? Have we expected things without seeing they have already been freely given to us by our Lord simply because HE loves us? We have so much for which to be thankful.
This past week I have been so humbled by my Lord, by my wonderful brothers, my ancestors and everyone I have met. I am so very thankful for each of them stepping into my life, for a day, for a moment. I praise my Lord and Savior!
My Lord is everything!