Good morning…
Through one intimate image our God speaks volumes. What did each of us need to hear from this captivating picture shared in yesterday’s post?
- “In this picture Jesus is barefoot, coming to me. His hand slices through the transparent barrier between heaven and earth. He sees me in my drowning state and has the strength and compassion to pull me up. The light of God is above him, and with this Creator-Christ-Spirit I am never alone. I hear God whisper, ‘Together, we can work through everything, every day.'”
- “Love the image and your thought-provoking messages,” she wrote. “Thank you!”
- “Jesus says, ‘Let go of the worldly gods weighing you down and grab hold of me. Stay bonded with me. Together we can grow a life you will eventually love.”
- “I think of all those people who drown in the boat fire off the California coast, all who have committed suicide, all who lost their lives in mass shootings, all of those who died in Hurricane Dorian. Might this have been the last image each of them saw before their earthly life ended? ‘I’ve got you. Come with me. We will live forever.’ Maybe this is what Jesus is saying.
- “Jesus say to me, ‘Say no to the burdens someone else is equipped to carry and say yes to the things I made you for.'”
- “Hi Sue,” she wrote, “What a beautiful image of Jesus reaching into the water for us. For me, the best sentence in your message today is: The Lord our God will save me even and especially when I fail. He is so good! He wants me to know this because He knows I fail a lot in my faith. And, He is there anyway, waiting and hoping for me. I love this image of Jesus reaching down into the water to lift me up. Since we can’t breathe in the water, to me this means I’m not allowing my heart and soul to breathe properly when I’m without Him. I think He is patiently waiting and hoping to pull me out of my inward thinking, into the light and air of belief. Thank you for sending this today. I’m about to travel out of the country for two weeks. Not sure I’ll be able to read your messages until I get home, so this is giving me much to ponder.”
- “Jesus is saying to me: ‘I see you drowning in your own man-made “stuff”. Take my hand and I will lift you up.'”
- “Stunning Sue,” she wrote, “Jan Johnson’s book is one of my favorites. I look at this beautiful, loving image and think of my favorite verse, Micah 6:8 and what the Lord, not the world, says is required of us. And I think of Lisa Beamer who lost her husband on 9/11 and her commencement address words of wisdom in response to the seniors concern about whether their lives will be ‘significant.’ She encourages all of us to ask these key questions.”
- “Who is becoming whole again on your watch?”
- “What is being healed through your influence?”
- “How is God redeeming His creation by way of your life?”
- “Your good answers are surely a mark of significance even in an ordinary life.”
- “Hey Sue,” she wrote, “this picture of Jesus says it all – He IS ABLE to pull us out of the whirling tidal wave, current, rip tide that is pulling us down to the depths of darkness!!! My daughter called me today from college to share with me that a friend had the courage to call her mother and step dad Saturday to come get her because she was drowning in her misery. She’s going to take the semester off. Please help me with some words of wisdom to which I can pass onto my daughter so she can continue to minister to her friend. My heart is broken for this struggling girl but there is HOPE in Jesus. I’m going to send my daughter this post. I’m so thankful once again our paths have crossed.”
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8, NIV).
Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God. These are our simple tasks, day after day. With the help of God’s Holy Spirit empowering us from within, we act, we love, and we walk with God.
…Sue…
