She captivated me.Her smile spread wide contagious. Personality bubbled happy like the hot pink blouse she wore.
Hope seeped from every pore. Though she spoke no english,
I felt her joy.
I felt her gratitude to have a job in an emerging country, but a country where the employable still outnumber the available employment.
She and her fellow workers possessed a deft skill that made them exceptional, the ability to take a random length of cloth and fashion it into something beautiful. They soared amazing even with an ancient sewing machine from a different century, a machine that would sing under their flying fingers.
An implement we would never consider using, only a novelty consigned to corner or an attic or a museum or gasp…a junk pile.
Our society lives forever on the hunt.
The hunt for the new, the better, the best.
Discontent and envy forever pounding at the door.
The latest computers, cell phones, cars, clothes etc…etc… etc…
More-Better IS the American way.
The Preacher is a rarity. He cares not one whit for the bigger and better. When we moved into a different house with a different living room arrangement, which forced the sofa a long way from our small TV, he had no interest in a bigger one. Our son had to convince him that he wasn’t going to be able to see his beloved St. Louis Cardinals from such a distance without getting a larger screen. Cardinal baseball was the magic word in that exchange.
Sadly, our discontent won over The Preacher’s good sense.
Even with religion, there are so many choices. So many opinions, so many new-age ways that look little like the pattern laid out centuries ago.
We already received all that we needed.
The perfect words, the perfect book, for an imperfect people.
There is no improvement possible on the flawless and pure.
It is impossible for God to make a mistake.
So if we have no trust in his book, we have no true faith in God.
In Jesus time the biblical scrolls were cherished and rare. The priest would carefully unroll them and read the ancient words to crowds of rapt participants.
They revered the old and trusted the words as true.
Funny how the perfect, instead of intimidating and destroying, can offer hope to the flawed like me.
The words could have dangled an unreachable, unattainable dream.
Instead they unveil a roadmap cushioned with hope, sacrificial love and forgiveness.
So shake off the lure of the new by:
1. Embracing scripture with a wholehearted trust.
2. Reading it daily.
3. Watching your discontent dissolve and hope revive.
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2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
-What are you dissatisfied with? What makes you yearn for the new?
-Determine to read at least one verse daily to change your life forever.