Monday, September 11, 2023
For more than
two decades today’s date on the calendar brings remembrances of the coordinated
attacks on American soil in 2001. It also
recalls other times when the sovereignty of our nation was tested. By the late 1950’s Baby Boomers were losing
sight of what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Memories fade as generations age-out. However, as the 2nd-Century church
father, Tertullian, wrote of the church being persecuted by Roman emperors: We multiply whenever we are
mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed.
This strong
belief spawned the ideas of freedom, which produced this nation, birthed in the
blood struggle of revolution. Renewed
times of sacrifice are the hallmark of any nation committed to living
free. We enjoy freedom, but the cost is
anything but cheap.
The same can
be said about the freedom of a human soul.
Such freedom is not from tyrants of flesh-and-blood. Rather it is the enslavement of human will,
chains that restrain us from living as intended by our Creator.
Genesis
records that when God made Adam and Eve, He blessed them. It was that first blessing which instilled in
humankind the desire for freedom. That
remains our heritage and future…freedom in Christ.
Today’s text
views how God intended for that to work.
When we feel small, weak, or threatened, we look for help. The mountains are symbols of great strength
and endurance. The Psalmist asks: will help come from what I can see…those
mountains which are forever? The
question is rhetorical, and implies the answer with the absurdity of piles of
dirt, rocks, and trees providing help.
Those hills are beautiful, but impersonal; they are impassable
hinderances to travelers, or beautiful reminders of home and majesty, but help
is something that comes from the Lord who watches over us.
So, it is
folly to look to mountains for help.
Rather it is Scripture’s intent to remind us to look past the gift of
such majestic beauty like mountains, or freedom. Look past the gift…all the way to the Giver,
He who created, and gifted those mountains to the likes of us. Governments and their programs are gifts to
us of order, controlling what might be the mayhem of evil. Other humans are capable of both good to
help, and evil to harm. Your own
strength is a gift, and God expects you to use it for his divine and benevolent
purposes. But ultimately, you can depend
on nothing more (or less) than the divine, loving heart of God, filled with
compassion and love for you.
For You Today
It is right
for us to honor the lives lost on September 11th. And all lives taken too soon by wars and all
sorts of evil. It is a Godly thing to
remember, and bless that memory.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky
Road; have a blessed day!
There are about 2,600 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.
Title Images: Pixabay.com Images without citation are in public domain. Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT©
