Last summer we went on a cruise to Alaska where it was basically the same trip up as it was back down to Vancouver, BC. Both ways we pulled our big Holland American ship up to the Hubbard Glacier and took all sorts of pictures. Although our journey took us to the same glacier twice, the trips were in no wise similar. On the way up it was raining and just flat cold. I stood out there for almost two hours trying to get good pictures with my Canon Rebel XT. But every picture turned out rather gloomy because of the weather and the overall atmosphere of cold and missery. Our journey to the glacier on the way back was another thing altogether... it was sunny and much warmer and every picture just jumped out of my camera with vivid color and life. There were even seals and several UGE chunks of glacier falling off the main body of ice, that I managed to rip off several pictures in sequence as they fell. Many beautiful blue turquiose iceburgs were floating and spinning as the moved past us almost in slow motion.
I was at what seemed to be the same spot, and yet everthing was so remarkably different. I have found that to be so true of life... life is wonderful and vivid in its incredible spectrum of color and expereince. Everything was just as beautiful the first time round, the only thing that was different was the light... the sun. How true is it of much of life's faith journey... there is so much we miss when we do not have the light of Christ shining on our circumstances and faith walk. When we live in doubt, fear and the missery of the shadow of failed dreams, we miss the beauty of the journey, the blessings that come our way. One man put it this way:
"I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not fear. Fear is NOT my native land; faith is! I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath these are NOT my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breath freely-these are my native air."
The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 2:20;
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live , but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. NIV
My prayer... "Father help me to walk by faith and not by sight. I choose this day to walk in your light, with the wind of the Holy Spirit empowering my flight and Christ and His word illuminating my course. Let not the sands of doubt bring gloom to my mind and prick my heart to sadness. Let the joy of the intimacy of relationship with Jesus overflow. Let all who encounter me this day, know that it is for you that I live, and for you that I die to self and lifeless gain! AMEN!"
Pastor T
