Seeing Red This Morning

   A preacher came to our church in Knoxville one day and gave an illustration that I recall as I sit to write this morning. He said that as we live there might be something like a tape recorder in our brain that is recording all we say and do, our thoughts and what we hear.

   I thought of that this morning, because of all the music that seems to be in my mind as I wake up on a lot of days. Sometimes the melodies and the lyrics are secular, but most are religious, and I not only hear them as I get up, but they continue with me on my walk. Often I write about them as I feel that the words and meaning are what God is trying to impress on my heart and mind on that particular morning.

   Oft times it is the sweetness of the melody and the words that come through as I walk and as I look at the pinks and the blues of the sky as the sun gets ready to come over the eastern horizon. It is easy to sit and write of the beauty of nature and the implications of a new day. Uplifting phrases and verses from the Psalms come to mind as I write, and, I think, that perhaps someone might get the same feelings as they read.

   The words of an old William Cowper hymn came to my mind earlier today, as I woke:

"There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains."

   I realized that these were for me on this day, but how was I supposed to process them and then write about what they said?

   Then the sunrise filled the eastern sky, not with the pastels of some mornings, but with the deep rich colors of orange and red, like this:

   God seemed to be saying, "Write about the Blood of Jesus Christ. He is the One that has given you eternal life and the platform to speak about things that matter most."

   So I do, with the knowledge that the redemptive work of God in the life of a person comes through the shed blood of Jesus on that cross, so many years ago. He alone made the sacrifice that allows me to claim a relationship with God the Father.

   It seems so easy to write about the "good things" of God in nature, but harder to get into the real nitty-gritty things of the Gospel. But they are there, and they are good also, even blood and death and sacrifice.

   These words are in the Gospel of Mark:

"For if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

   I am not ashamed to be a follower of Christ.