I’d been watching the progress of the building each week. It stood across the field from our church, so watching the huge home being built became a Sunday morning distraction as I pulled into the parking lot. Last Sunday I noticed there was a large orange tarp draped over the north side. They’re probably working on the exterior finishing, I thought, as I entered the church to prepare for my Sunday school class.

There’s a little boy who lives across the other field. He’s a watcher too. As soon as he sees a vehicle arrive at the church he knows the doors will be open and over he runs. When he arrived this past Sunday, he had a question.

“Where’s all that smoke coming from?” 

When we think of Thanksgiving, we think of the pilgrims, their meal with the Indians, and a gathering of our family, with a great meal to come. We never think of 'death'....but it's there. Death is 'just around the bend' for each of us - death is sure, unless God calls us in the rapture before our earthly death. But we don't think that it will happen 'today' precisely. That's why each of us should be ready, whatever the hour or the day.....HE comes for us when our time is HIS TIME.

The week of Thanksgiving, on Tuesday, we had buried my best friend's Mother. She was a wonderful, loved, Christian lady, ready to meet the Lord and get her new, non-suffering body. She had been sick for so long, and she had a massive stroke a week or so before, and the Doctors said she'd never be any better- that she would remain in the coma she was in, if she lived or died. But God had other plans; she woke up on . . .

As might be suggested by the title, I am a young woman who has been reading Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. Over breakfast, the best meal of the day, I have just read the key to my last failed relationship.

I'm going to start off with some advice first though. Men, don't take your question to Eve. She will not thank you for it, and you will not find your answer. Let me explain.

 

G. Campbell Morgan once said, ?A man's concept of God creates his attitude toward the hour in which he lives.? It's like the story of the bible college students who were taking apples from the cafeteria to their rooms. Someone put up a sign, ?Please take only one apple, God is watching you.? Someone else scribbled a note on the bottom of it saying, 'take all the cookies you want, God is watching the apples.? Your concept of God will shape your attitude toward the hour in which you live and the great need of this hour is for a people who truly know God by something more than just hearsay. Perhaps this is why we are seeing epic films like 'the Chronicles of Narnia? come into being, they call our attention and through obvious allegory invite us to increase our concept of God. They point past the world of material reality, past the tumult of war, past the place of the cloaks of resigned unbelief hung as an intimidating wall within a wardrobe. Such stories seek to remind us of a greater reality that stretches our concept of God and His kingdom to such an extent that we no longer live for heaven, we begin to live for Thy Kingdom Come. Turn with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 9, as we read verses 6 and 7.

I. Almighty God Kneels Down To Pick Us Up... The Incarnation.

How often have you done this very thing with your own children, how many pictures do you have of dad crawling around with his two year old or of mom kneeling down to tie that . . .