Daily Lesson for July 27, 2017

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 5 verses 1 through 13:

They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ 8For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’9Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ 10He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.

The resilience of people holding on  and holding out against so much in life amazes me. 

Right now -- any right now -- I have so many friends fighting so hard just to stay alive. Alone, locked away inside themselves, they are barely hanging on. They are beset by what they say feels like and may even be legions of demons. Yet, they're holding on. They're holding out. They're still surviving.

There are enough demons in the possessed man to kill a whole herd of swine, and maybe more. Yet, they didn't kill him. They weren't enough to kill him. He held on. He endured. He survived. It was not pretty. It was not well. But he survived. He stayed alive. He endured. 

Then one day, a single wave washed ashore and with it came a boat.  And the boat's name was Hope, and inside it was salvation.