Up From the Ashes
Good Morning,
One of the beautiful things about the bible is that it involves real people, living real lives, facing real challenges, needing real redemption. From beginning to end we see how ordinary people encounter victories, defeats, and bumps in the road. We see how they both thrive and mess up.
Biblical figures we learn from and celebrate often aren’t much different than us. David, Moses, Peter, Gideon, Abraham, and even the Apostle Paul all had ups and downs. Here is something we all need to remember: The story of the bible is not a story just for the bible. It is our story as well. God restores and redeems yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
As a former home builder who also did some remodeling, I often said the fun in remodeling came from taking a home that had fallen in disrepair or that no longer served people like needed and transforming it to something new, beautiful, and useful. There was an undeniable difference between the before and after.
Friends, let me assure you this morning that God is the greatest remodeler and reclamator of all time. No one comes remotely close. He takes wreckage and makes it new. He takes people who are feel useless and makes them useful. He plants seeds of redemption and grows them into trees that flourish. And He does this when all the odds say it isn’t possible. In fact, when we see impossible God sees divine opportunity.
The picture above shows hundreds of new green trees growing. Yet these trees are growing in soil that 21 years ago was ravaged by one of the largest wildfires in Colorado history. The ground got so hot that scientists said it would be sterile. But today you can walk or ride a horse through a living testament to the restorative power of God. From scorched earth and ashes beauty is springing forth. Where man said it can’t be done, God said yes it can, I will show you. Nothing is impossible for Him.
This month as we look at some stories of redemption, I hope you are encouraged by them and remind yourself that nothing you can do will ever make God forget why He made you. Nothing.
Questions to Ponder this Week:
1. Have I let hardship or mistakes begin to define me?
2. How can the picture of the green trees begin to give me new hope?
Live on purpose,
Ron Klopfenstein, CPLC