Plant a tree, watch it grow...

Brothers,

May you enjoy this beautiful day and the rest to come... I was so amazed at our study last night. The examples of strength were paramount and the dedication, tenacity, vigor, and passion these men of Christ exhibited made me wonder about myself in the face of adversity.
It also made me wonder how God felt when He created that seed, the one He would have planted and nurtured to maturity. From sprout to sapling to a full bodied tree with long branches and a solid trunk. The one that would be cut down, honed, milled, and fashioned into something so dreadful but also so miraculous. It was bulky and heavy, the worlds filth on it, the pain and sorrow of humanity stinging a scourged back, beaten, battered, and bruised flesh for the burden to rest on.
The long journey with this ending to face. And all the while, He saw hope! He saw it in the face of the woman with two copper coins who gave not out of her wealth, but gave out of her poverty. He saw it in the face of a whore, in a Samaritan woman at a well and offering her a different brand of water. He saw it in the girl who along the way sopped the blood dripping from His face with a clean cloth. He saw all of those things and He even saw it in men that formed a vine of thorns into a circle and pulled it down embedding the thorns in His skull. He saw it in a man that washed his hands of Him, the man holding the hammer, the one's with the whips, the one with the spear, and the thief that hung to His right, and you and me...

"Father forgive them for they know not what they do!"

Know Him,

Michael.......