Tuesday, May 13, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Trails
Those who had been scattered by the persecution that arose because of Stephen went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch.
At Bullock State Museum a new display celebrates “Acts of Faith” in the American West. It came to Austin from New York, and in September perhaps it will follow a trail further west, opening the eyes of more of our American hearts.
Cypriots and Cyrenians were among them, and they came to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks and the Jews, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
In 1830 Congress and President Andrew Jackson approved the forced removal of five Indian tribes (often referred to as the “Five Civilized Tribes”) to areas west of the Mississippi in modern-day Oklahoma. The native Americans were moved along by US Army forces, on what came to be known as the “Trail of Tears.” Thousands died, many of them in southern Illinois during December 1838.
The news about those preaching and teaching reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to go to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart, for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. And large numbers of people were added to the Lord.
Sequoyah, a Cherokee savant who invented written language for the Cherokees, had moved west earlier and worked to inspire both spiritual and social unity within the families of his migrant  Cherokee brothers and sisters. When I think of Barnabas in Turkey and Greece, I also think of Sequoyah. Both men cared more about their friends and new neighbors than they did about themselves. In that way, both men followed the teaching of Jesus on both their good days and their bad days.
My sheep hear my voice, Jesus said. I know them, and they follow me.
Not everyone wanted to be led by these men, of course. But everyone wanted to be loved. That is just as true today as it ever was, in the first century or the nineteenth or the twenty-first. The words of Jesus have followed us down the centuries, and on some of the bad days they have resulted in bloodshed and anger between men and women. But the love of Jeus for all of us makes a much deeper track along the years.
All of us, in one way or another, walk along the pilgrim’s way that Jesus burned into the soil of the earth. His love, however we understand it, feels right and good underneath our feet.
All you nations, praise the Lord. The Lord loves his foundation upon the holy mountains. He leads us to the gates of Zion. Let us say glorious things of our Lord God Jehovah.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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