There's a Bright Golden Haze on the Meadow
by
Pastor Jack Hayford
The peaceful setting of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
great musical Oklahoma! comes to mind this morning. I feel
absolutely euphoric with a sense of marvelous confidence concerning
God’s dealings in my life, home, and church. Having just returned
from Japan, one might more expect me to be singing excerpts from
Madame Butterfly ... but “O What a Beautiful Morning”
is on my lips instead.
Now, understand, I’m not without pressures trying my faith.
I’m not without personal sense of current “growing pains,”
which any healthy believer experiences sporadically. To the contrary,
and quite frankly, I’m right on the edge of one of the greatest
challenges of my life.
But it’s a good day.
It’s a good day because I’m in touch with Jesus.
Personal touch. Simple touch. Not see-and-feel touch, but genuine
walk-talk-and-trust touch.
I am becoming more and more impressed with the summons to simplicity
that Jesus issues: “Follow Me ... trust Me ... learn of Me
....” He makes no grand promises of a rose-strewn pathway.
He doesn’t roll out a blueprint of predictable details forecasting
our tomorrows, nor does He guarantee that we will ever arrive at
some comfortable stat of perfected accomplishment. Rather, He says,
“In the world you will have tribulation.” He asserts,
“Satan will desire to sift you as wheat,” and He disciples
with the commission, “Take up My cross.”
He’s constantly stretching me. You too?
Of course. You too. And it’s enough to make you sometimes
wonder what kind of a bargain you got when you gave over to this
Man. He is so convinced of His capacity to make us people of large
purpose, genuine significance, and high destiny that He keeps on
leading us forward.
E.M. Bounds had words for it when he often used the expression,
“We must always be on stretch for God.” It’s not
a rack of torture, but it certainly is a path of growth.
But best of all, He’s always there. That’s what makes
any season of trail, any call to faith, any burden of responsibility
a glory-time. Jesus is there. Not a memory of some past experience.
No. Just Him. Jesus, my living Lord—here in the present tense.
So in whatever I face, there's rejoicing.
In whatever the “stretch,” there’s resiliency.
In whatever the demand there are resources. Because He is here.
Right now. It's the simplest and the most profound truth I know:
“Lo, I am with you always.”
When this sheep named Jack is accompanied by his Great Shepherd
named Jesus, the whole meadow lights up. Tried? Yes. Stretched?
Yes. Problemed? Yes. But Jesus is here, and because of that, “I’ve
got a beautiful feeling—everything’s going my way.” |
Jack
Hayford Ministries
14800 Sherman Way, Van Nuys, CA 91405-2233