Friday, December 5, 2025
      (click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)Â
Foundation and future
When Jacob’s children see the work of God’s hands in their midst
 … those who err in spirit shall acquire understanding,
and those who find fault shall receive instruction.
I marched around the old barn singing with the others. We are climbing Jacob’s ladder, soldiers of the cross. I suppose we marched around the building seven times or so. Somewhere around the third time something happened inside me, and I began to believe what I was singing.
I saw the work of God’s hands in my midst. That’s what I felt then, that’s what I think now. I was the clay and God was the potter, and for once I wasn’t holding him back.
So forty-seven years later I celebrate Advent with all my might. The touching lasts but a moment, but the results remain for a lifetime.
I have heard many stories of this touch from others, too. One of my favorites comes from Emily Dickinson, who warns us of the power of spiritual storms …
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
God’s touch also comes to a farmer while he’s fixing fence. It comes to a young boy at church camp around a campfire. It comes, occasionally, even in church.
And the result, always, is humility. Rich Mullins’ words: We are not as strong as we think we are.
God does not take our personalities apart, nor does he whitewash the experiences of childhood, which continue to both bless and break us. What he does is set simultaneously our foundation, beyond who we are and how we’ve lived, and our future, with all its hope and beauty and love.
This touch tells me once, now and forever, that I am loved. And there is nothing I can do to change that.
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
every rung goes higher, higher.
Rise, shine, give God your glory.
Children, do you want your freedom?
Soldiers of the cross.
We will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
We can wait for the Lord. We can be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord.
(Isaiah 29, Psalm 27, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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