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Life is so fragile. Every once in a while we get a reminder. Having spent 5 days with my dad in the hospital, I once again received that not so gentle reminder of just how fragile life truly is. No guarantee. No advance notice. At the drop of a dime, life changes. While at the hospital, through a string of divine appointments, once again the Lord showed me that He is the One, the ONLY One, in charge of all our days. He gives life. He takes life away. All of our days are ordained by Him -Â what happens in the course of a day and exactly how many days will be ours to claim. This has so got me thinking these last few days about something….
In the Gospel of John, we read that so many were offended by the teachings of Jesus. Many found His teachings to be hard, difficult to accept & live by. Probably because the teachings were different than anything they had been taught previously. Many of His disciples were grumbling about it (John 6:61). Many turned back & in fact, no longer even followed Him (v. 66).
Christ turns to His Twelve & asks a very poignant question…
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” (v. 67).Â
I love that it is Peter that answers the question out of the 12. Although he would later deny the Lord, Peter responds,
“Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know that you are the Holy One of God.” (v. 68, 69).
There we have it! He is the ONLY One we can go to. He is the ONLY One that would even be able to supply an answer, fill a need, satisfy us, give us hope, give us peace. He is it.
No one else can do it for us.
I love that Peter knew this. And Scripture allows us to see this in Peter PRIOR to his denying Christ. Peter, ever eager to supply the answer, ever eager to get the answer correct. I am so glad that we see that Peter “believed” & “knew”. He had already fixed in his heart & mind, settled it indeed, Who Christ was. Sure, he later denies him, but it was having Christ settled in his heart & mind that brings him restoration to his Lord later on.
I may stumble in my life. Let me rephrase that 🙂 I have stumbled & will continue to stumble. Probably more times in any given week than I would like. But I have it fixed in my heart & mind that there is no one else that I can turn to. Only HE has the words of eternal life. Only He has the words I need today.
Today I dedicate this post to the family of my divine appointments these last 5 days. May God bring you the peace & comfort you need today & in the days ahead as you grieve your loss. Know that you have impacted my life.