Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it was written, ‘Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt,’” John 12: 14, 15 (NIV)
He was a friend close enough to know I cared, and in that friendship, trusting enough to allow me to ask a revealing question when I saw him approaching our group not too long ago with an obvious limp in his otherwise fluid gate.
“Why are you limping?” I inquired as he stopped to join in our conversation.
“I’m not,” he defended, “I’m just dragging my leg.”
Things aren’t always what they appear to be.
The other night my younger Granddaughter, Ellie Kate, peaked my interest in a movie she announced she had watched the day before, and so while traveling with Lynda the other day, I watched Ellie Kate’s recommended movie “Bolt”. It is the animated tale of an endearing puppy that discovered that—in real-life—he really wasn’t the super-hero dog he portrayed for the television cameras each week, who was stronger than a locomotive, could run faster than a speeding bullet, and leap tall buildings with single bound.
Things aren’t always what they appear to be, he learned in some of the most difficult circumstances, when he finally left the television production set after a number of years of series broadcasts.
As I sit here with a panoramic view through the open doors to the balcony of our room across the vast expanse of ocean in the distance—all seems calm and serene as the sunlight glistens on the quiet surface broken occasionally by the blow of a visiting whale. But I suspect beneath that peaceful appearance there is a world below teeming with activity.
Things aren’t always what they appear to be.
In just a few days, millions around the world will pause to recognize Palm Sunday, that day years ago when the King of Kings made His triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem. Those who greeted him lined the streets waving palm branches and laying them on the road on which He was to travel into the city. He was to become their ruler—the long-awaited-Messiah—in the days ahead, and all would then be well in their lives.
Things aren’t always what they appear to be.
Life wasn’t meant to be that shallow. Life wasn’t meant to be that short or viewed with such a narrow perspective. We can thank our Creator for that. Look deeper at the things that appear to be simply what they appear to be, and when you do you’ll find a man “dragging his leg” from an injury, with a heart that wouldn’t allow him point to it as an excuse to be less than he was meant to be. You’ll find a little puppy who realized that life wasn’t about fanfare and fans, but about his relationship with a little girl who loved him—not because of the way the television cameras portrayed him—but because he was hers and she was his. And look underneath the surface of a peaceful ocean scene and you’ll find the hand of the Creator in a watery world which covers over three quarters of the world around us.
And finally, looking deeper beyond a man on a donkey colt and you’ll find a Savior Who came to take upon His life our imperfections and our sinful natures which separate us from Him, not so He could rule for a few years in the world, but so that He could rule forever in our hearts.
Look deeper at all that is around you. Look deeper at the sacred trusts of loved ones close at hand. Look deeper at the legacy you are leaving with the life you were given. Is it marked by the shallow and temporal things of the world, or is it marked by the deeper and eternal things of the One approaching Jerusalem on a young donkey.
Things aren’t always what they appear to be.
You and I can thank God for that. Look deeper into the way things really are and, more importantly, at the way they ought to be. Start by looking into a relationship with the long-awaited Messiah, and deepening that relationship for the rest of your life.
Things aren’t always what they appear to be.
And we can be thankful for that for the rest of our days and throughout eternity.
In His Name—Scott
