Daily Lesson for April 21, 2017

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John 16 verses  1 through 7 and 12 through 15:

16‘I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. 3And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. 4But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?”6But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. 7Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate* will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you . . . 12 I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

We each have our own lonesome valley to walk, a journey not revealed until its own time comes.  

We wonder if we have the courage to walk the path which leads into the valley of shadows. We do not. Not yet, anyway. Courage is a grace and like our daily bread  it comes only just when we need and not before, lest we should learn to trust in our own strength and not God's. 

Our time is not yet here; but our time is coming. And then the Spirit  of truth shall come to be our guide through falsehood and shadow and the way of death and into the meadow of the Everlasting. Then and only then.

Tomorrow will have its own worries and there is no need to borrow from them. As for today, we wait, and we trust, and we delight in the singing of birds and the smell of honeysuckle blooming and we trust that tomorrow will have its own worries and there is no need to borrow from them. For God will take care of us also.