by Rev Robert A Wendel
The final stop for many visitors to the Billy Graham Library, Museum and Grounds in Charlotte, NC is often the prayer garden where Dr. Graham’s wife of sixty years, Ruth Bell Graham, daughter of medical missionaries to China, was laid to rest below a grave marker engraved with the Chinese character for ‘righteousness’ and English sentences, “End of construction. Thank you for your patience.”
Isn’t that really what our earthly life is really all about? The Lord, in his patience and grace, is working on us all, through the experiences and events of our lives., until bringing us to an end which only he himself knows. You and I can be far too quick to judge someone else’s spiritual progress, while forgetting to realize just have much patience our heavenly Father has showered upon us during our earthly sojourn.
The older we get in our walk, the more we should admit that perfection for we mere mortals is impossible. Every follower of Christ should have confidence that God’s love and faithfulness will carry us through all the high’s and low’s that spiritual character building may require.
“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless, before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, now and forever” (Jude 1:24-25, Adapted),
While God is shaping and reshaping us, making you and me ready for heaven, may we thank those whom we may have ‘rubbed the wrong way,’ insulted or overlooked, extending grace filled understanding to us. This may be the best New Year’s resolution we make for 2017!
Gentlemen, please remember to join our church friends and our guests from the Fellowship House for our January 2017 ABC Men’s Breakfast on the Second Saturday of the New Year. Everyone resolve your blessings with others in the days and weeks ahead.