Daily Lesson for November 21, 2017

Today’s Daily Lesson is a personal reflection.

Yesterday I lost a young friend to a young and tragic death. My friend leaves behind a mother and father and other family members struggling and dismayed. We all wonder if we might could have done something more or different that he might still be with us. We grieve, and we mourn, and we wonder why we did not have the power to save him.  We wonder if even the faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain why our faith could not save this child from death.

The answer is that death and its power is mightier than 10,000 mountains. The stronghold of death is great and mighty and even demonic. No ordinary human power can break its grasp; and sometimes its grip is so great that neither can even our spiritual powers. Sometimes prayer, and faith, and even love just aren’t enough to save someone from their demons.

This is sobering, but true reality. And we remember the Gospel words which say that not even Jesus could perform the miracle in his own hometown and among his own people.

In times like these, we struggle and we mourn and we remind one another to trust in the goodness and mercy of God. We remind one another of God’s great strength, and we remember the promises that beyond this first, mortal death there remains a fountain from which flows the water of life — a water which is promises to heal us of all our darkness and have the power to spare us from death eternal.

I believe my friend is drinking from that fountain even now.

There is an old hymn I think of in times like these. It’s called “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” and I find great solace in its first stanza:

“There's a wideness in God's mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There's a kindness in God's justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven.
There is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.”

May you find now your healing, my friend. And may you drink forever from the font of God’s wide mercy and love.


Revelation 21:1-8;
Matthew 17:14-21