You’ve gotta have a plan for everything.

July 9, 2023
 
Reflections From the Heart of Allan Redenius
The quiet gentle morning breeze sweeps across the wide open prairie.  Amber waves of grain swaying to and fro.  The sun pierces the morning sky and light, like a blanket, covers the land.  All is calm.  All is at peace.
 
A little boy stands on the porch of the rustic one room cabin in which he lives.  Living a life of innocence, not knowing of the treacherous ways of a broken world.  Off in the distance, a cloud of dust could be seen.  Soon the softness of the morning gives way to the thunder of trampling hooves.
 
In an instant, all the boy knew—love, safety, comfort, security, home—was stolen away.   Gone forever was family—and innocence.  All of those things, now a distant memory.
 
No one to turn to, no where to run to, as if frozen in time, the boy watches in horror as what he once knew is now turned to smoke and ashes.  Death surrounds him, yet by some miracle, it does not ensnare him.  As if overlooked, he survives the onslaught.
 
There in the ashes lies a book.  As the wind turns each page, it bursts into flame.  The boy, recognizing this family heirloom, reaches into the hot cinders and rescues what his mother read to him each evening at bedtime.  Not a book of fables and fairy tales, a book by which to live.  Glancing down at the open book to the charred page to which it was open, the boy read these words.  “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
 
As it probably happened to He Who said these words, so a tear also fell from the eye of the boy.  As sin had stolen the innocence of Jesus, so sin stole it from this youngster.  Everything the boy knew was gone.  Now all alone, he could feel vengeance rise up within him.  He looked again at the phrase once printed on that page. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  Vengeance was squashed, the storm passed, the boy went on to witness to the glory of Jesus.
 
How would any one of us react to this experience?  Let the rolling thunder steal your eternal joy, or scream into the storm, “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.”
 
You’ve gotta have a plan for everything.  In the morning, everything might be fine.  By nightfall, everything unexpected has happened.
 
Make certain your plan is eternal life with Jesus Christ….
 
Pastor Allan
 
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