A story is told of a young boy who loved to sail.  He learned to sail from his father.  He tells the story that at times he would be allowed to go out on the sailboat without his father as long as he took a friend with him.  But there was always a certain care that had to be taken because he was in charge of the boat, and — in some real ways — in charge of the life of his friend.  His greatest times sailing, he recalls, were the times when his father would go out on the water with him.  It seems that his father was no stranger to sailing.  His father had managed to sail across the Atlantic, spend 5 days sailing in the midst of hurricane force winds and survived.  He explains that when he was on the boat with his father, he had complete confidence in him and any trouble that would arise on Lake Michigan, his father could handle.

           When we are placed in a position to place our complete trust in God, all of our worries about how things will turn out seem to go away.  It’s because, like the young boy on the boat with his father, we know that God is able to handle any difficulty that comes up in our lives.  We can rest assured that our lives are in good hands, and so we don’t have to fear when tribulation comes.  We don’t have to become anxious when storm clouds like sea billows roll.  And when life throws its worst situations at us, we know that our confidence in God is enough to get us through.

         There is a real blessing when we can put our trust in the Lord, counting on our God to save us from the perils of this life.  And if we have to suffer, we acknowledge that because of our relationship to God through Jesus Christ and our confidence in him, we are more than conquerors through him who loves us.  Our safety and security rests in the One who controls earth and sky, land and sea, and offers the gift of salvation to those whose cries reach God’s listening ears.

• Is there a time in your life when your confidence and trust in God allowed you to dismiss all of your worries about what you were going through?
• What does that kind of freedom from worry or anxiety mean for your faith life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, when I’m caught up in the storms of life, let my confidence and trust be that with you, nothing can overwhelm me. You are the anchor of my salvation that brings me peace of mind, heart, soul, and spirit.

         Today is the day when those of us who acknowledge Christ as Messiah recognize and memorialize his last supper with the disciples and those who have come to believe in him.  We call it Maundy Thursday and Holy Thursday.  Paul has fashioned his comments subsequent to Jesus’ meal with the disciples and after his resurrection as a call to remembrance.  He was not there.  But his faith in Christ has caused him to remember the meal that he has come to receive with great reverence, devotion and emotion.  But it is more.  It is a call to remember that while Christ is not physically present as we partake of the sacramental elements, he is spiritually present in the remembrance of it, inviting us to remember his life, his grace, his mercy, his love for us all and the broadening sense of community of those who will one day sit and be challenged to remember who he was and what he did to win our salvation.  As each of us sits at table with Christ, we will no doubt remember his time with the disciples, but we will also be compelled to remember Jesus’ importance to us.  We cannot faithfully proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes short of us believing that he was crucified, dead, and buried and on the third day he arose from the dead, and will come again to receive those who have, by faith, believed in the saving power of his blood.  It is truly in this act of receiving the Holy Sacraments that we proclaim him as our Lord and Savior.

• What is your most important reason for celebrating Maundy Thursday?
• How does remembering Jesus’ last meal with his disciples affect the significance of you taking the meal?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, always keep me aware that as I come to Your table to symbolically eat Your broken body and drink Your blood of the new covenant, that You endured the next 3 days that I might be saved.

         While we might remember the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we don’t always connect the dots to the fact that the prodigal is the one who considered his father dead when he asked for his share of the inheritance.  It’s a devastating thought for us to believe that someone could actually feel such disdain for a person that they would wish that person was dead.  The thought that anyone could think something so dreadful as to cause our names to fill their minds with such hatred that our death would be pleasing to them is unbelievable.  And yet, that is the depth to which the human heart can sink when it is filled with enough poison that is refuses to consider the value of another person’s life.  Nor do we consider the depravity of the human mind that believes that when people are whispering, their whispering is filled with plots and schemes for their destruction.

         There is a sickness of the spirit on both sides of that relationship.  On one side, the sickness leads to a depravity that devalues life — the same depravity that allowed Cain to kill Abel.  On the other side is the sickness that allows someone to believe that each conversation held below an audible level of sound is filled with plots and schemes for one’s human ruin.

         Yet there is another side that functions on the side of the Spirit.  That side is filled with mercy and grace.  That side is filled with forgiveness and truth.  That side seeks to save those who are lost, hurting, threatened, grieving, sick with worry, fear, and anguish.  That side seeks to rescue people from their hatred and instead, infuse them with a Spirit of Love and acceptance.  That side is the side where God stands offering to save those who call out to him in anguish.  It is the broken spirit that God seeks, remembering David’s truth

         18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted

                and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

And that is no April Fool's joke.

• Have you ever been so tormented and crushed spiritually that you believed people only wanted the worst for you?
• Did you understand (and if not you, the person experiencing such torment) that God was close to you and willing to save you from your tormented condition?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Searching and loving God, be my Savior and saving grace when those around me count me as one of their mortal enemies and wish only the worst for me.