Shade Tree Wisdom 1/5/11

Rained during the night, so the air was washed and pleasant for the walk this morning. By the way, a new study shows that walking benefits waistline and memory, because it increases blood flow to the brain, which means important nutrients are distributed to it. Lead author of the study, Pittsburgh U professor Kirk Erikson, said “any amount you do will help”.

The year’s beginning usually brings with it resolutions for change. One BLOG correspondent suggests that we take this by small steps, set easily managed goals, instead of trying to do everything at once. He’s right, of course.

There is this standing in the way, and it is always there. After the flood, God sent the rainbow as a sign there would never again be such a worldwide flood. But God also said of man, that “every imagination of a man’s heart is only evil continually” Genesis 8,21. The prophet Jeremiah repeated that when he said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? Jeremiah 17,9.

St. Paul speaks of this condition and the reason for it. He writes, “In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, which is the image of God, would shine upon them”. 2 Corinthians 4,4.

Jeremiah expresses a sense of amazement at this as something one can hardly understand. Not just that some of us have a problem of being honest with themselves, it is that every person is in that condition.

New Year’s Eve revelers were enjoying midnight fireworks when they noticed something else than sparks raining down. Thousands of red-winged blackbirds fell on the town of 5,000 northeast of Little Rock. Scientists are seeking answers for these deaths.
So, how can this bedraggled person, this lost person, this sinner, find a way out?

Is it by deciding to start being a better person, each day adding a bit to his niceness? That might be helpful in getting along with others, but it is not enough before God “Who sees us”.

Before God we stand condemned, but Jeremiah also says, “I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind”. This God who knows us offers us a way out. Because His Son, Jesus Christ, came in human flesh and took our sins on Himself, he now tells us, “I will remember your sin no more.” For “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103,21.

In short, God forgives us and declares us righteous and holy because Jesus died for us. That is the good news I remember when my own resolves fall flat. Thank his Holy Name.

GPD 1/5/11