God's promise

2:11 p.m. Today's project was to get to church on time, after a long and fabulous day of fellowship Saturday and then staying up reading too late--AGAIN! This time it was a Ruth Rendell mystery; last week it was Karen Kingsbury Christian fiction; before that, it was a long string of Amish inspirationals. I guess devouring novels is a tough habit to break when your degree is in English and Spanish literature.

For one class during my freshman year at UCLA, I had to read a book a day! One really builds up speed and "key information skimming" over the decades, making book buying an expensive habit, just to stay stocked up on bedtime reading!

When the alarm went off at 6:50, Steve and I were in denial until 7 and then had to get up. We could have dozed off again until 8 and then gone to 11:30 service, but with Home Fellowship at 5:30, and a 20 minute drive to get there, our afternoon time together would have been severely compressed.

As is often the case when you're tired and lazy, things were out of order. I hadn't made the coffee the night before as usual, so to comfort myself I thought, "Well, it will be fresher this way!" While Steve took his shower, I emptied the diswasher and realized that I'd have to make up our scrambled eggs, not having any ready to go. (I mix up two days' worth of a tasty mix of eggs and all kinds of add-ins, and scramble them very soft--the leftovers microwave beautifully the next day when we might have to go out in the morning). I don't like to have him eat cereal and toast on Sunday morning because he becomes too drowsy; protein holds him much better.

I didn't even have any boiled eggs, which would have tided me over, so I put two eggs on to boil, got my coffee with tons of creamer in a giant Starbucks Hawaii mug and went into the office to have devotions.

When I came back to the kitchen to post today's daily scripture, Psalm 32:23-24, on Facebook, I saw an amazing sight. It was raining while the sun was shining! Always handy with my camera, I filmed it out of our sliding glass door. For narration, I quoted my late mother: "When it rains while the sun's shining, the devil's beating his wife!" My younger sister and I would say, "Mommy, the devil doesn't have a wife!" I have no idea how we knew that, but Jesus did say in Mark 12:25 that angels don't marry, which would include evil angels, I'd say. Mommy would answer, "That's just an old Southern superstition!"

Steve had come downstairs in time to see the strange sight, and then went ahead and let the dogs out while I posted the video on my FB profile page. When he went out front to get the paper, there was a rainbow! Another dash for the camera. "The early bird gets the worm," (or footage), another old adage says, because I got a pretty good picture of the rainbow from our front porch. All of this took place before 8 a.m.

I cooked our eggs, we ate, I read the funnies, and had to step on it to get ready for church. Amazingly, we got there early, despite all the self-generated setbacks and antics I had participated in this morning--God is so merciful!

In Genesis 9:8-17, God established a covenant with Noah after the flood, setting His rainbow in the clouds. vv. 14-15 say, "And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh."

But do not get too comfortable, if you don't know the Lord! There won't be a flood--it's fire next time! 2 Peter 3:10 promises, "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are in it will be burned up."

And here is the apostle's question that every person must answer for themselves: "Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking forward and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?"

I have an answer--confess your sins and accept Christ as your Savior today. There is no reason to wait, and definitely no time to lose! Please let me know if you want to make this decision.

Believers count on God's promises for so much of our daily lives. But here's the great promise our portion of 2 Peter closes with, after the most dire of warnings:

"Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. "

Even so, come Lord Jesus!