God Still Gives Signs!

Last night, we watched our local evening news for an update to the status of the fires currently burning almost out of control here in southern California. We have been breathing all those smoke and ash particulates each time we step outside, so our activities have been somewhat limited. I think this is the first time we have actually driven around our city to have ash rain down on our cars like snowflakes falling.

The interesting thing about last nights newscast on channel 9, was they were telling about some of the good things that are happening despite all the devastation of our local forests continuing to burn. The newscaster as he was talking showed what appeared to be a ashy gray moon like surface with no green trees or anything remaining alive. This is now part of what used to be our forest. As the camera man pans to the right, he shows a home that survived completely intact as if someone had lifted it up and out of danger. It just didn't fit in this camera shot when you look at the surrounding background.

Then the camera pans over to the left and despite the blacken remains of what used to be pine trees stood a white cross. Nothing had come near and no fire had touched it. You could just sense this was something quite out of the ordinary considering that it, like the home, has just been completely protected while the fire consumed everything around it, but left the cross completely untouched.

I attempted to find this story this morning and after many attempts at Google, nothing came up. Even checking the local news stations video feeds providing nothing that we had saw on last nights broadcast.

I did locate quite a few interesting stories about cross in various fires that had survived devastating fires and come out quite unscathed.

Here is a link to one in Oregon.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19940829&id=r9ERAAAAIBAJ&sjid=huwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4552,6735822

There are plenty of other stories as well but I wanted to share that with you this morning. God still cares. He is still active in our lives. Nothing is impossible for him even though it may be for us. He delights in giving us hope in our day to day dealings if only we would look for them, and He is only a prayer away.

For me, this shows that God is still in control and is still in the business of giving us signs! We just need to look, have faith and call upon His name.

"Then everyone will stand in awe, proclaiming the mighty acts of God, realizing all the amazing things He does. " Psalms 64:9

Good Friday!

Today holds such significance! I woke up this morning to the most amazing thought and I wanted to share it with you. I get emails from Max Lucado, one of my most favorite authors and wanted to share with you, his meaning of why as Christians the cross remains our symbol for Christ. The article begins by analyzing why as Christians would we take the cross as a symbol of our Savior's torture device. 

Why would we want to remember that? Take any symbol and make it mean something. A mini electric chair, a guillotine, an ax? Basically we are taking something, like a cross, and using it to signify our religion and our beliefs. Many don't see that way. Crosses are everywhere, they are on the top of churches, engraved on tombstones, hung on our walls in our homes, and even worn as jewelry around the neck. Yet besides the significance that the cross did not kill our Savior, we choose to hold it as a way to remember. A way to remember the ultimate sacrifice that was paid for everyone of us that has lived, so that we can share in the abundance of life everlasting, provided to us by Jesus Christ and our belief in Him. 

How sad to think how many people go through life without true faith and hope in something better than this life. My heart goes out to people lost in this world, bound by their own self inadequacies, faults, mistakes that they have made or currently making, and living a shell of existence as they go through life each day. How different is the life of a believer especially this weekend! We have hope, joy, peace, love and all the gifts of the spirit. We also have the added benefit of knowing that this life is temporary, our suffering in it, is nothing compared the suffering Jesus Christ took upon His perfect body and soul for us! 

We should be happy even in the midst of crisis because we didn't have to endure what Christ did for us. I believe today is a time to reflect on that day. To review and read the gospels stories of Jesus' final days. It's a time to realize that our bad days are nothing compared to the days Jesus faced in his final hours. It's time to remember that this life is temporary and we are just visitors in the place, designed to make sure we add to the very population of our eternal home, by taking as many believers with us as possible. Heaven has no capacity limits, and then again neither does hell. 

However, I would rather spread the news about hope and joy, than eternal damnation and suffering that nothing here on earth, could ever imagine. This Easter, it's about life! Eternal life! Just those two words are enough for me! Now here is what Max had to say about what he believes the cross truly means. Love his definition! "Why is the cross the symbol of our faith? To find the answer look no farther than the cross itself. Its design couldn't be simpler. One beam horizontal--the other vertical. One reaches out--like God's love. The other reaches up--as does God's holiness. One represents the width of his love; the other reflects the height of his holiness. The cross is the intersection. The cross is where God forgave his children without lowering his standards." May you all have a truly wonderful and blessed Easter!