Category: posts

Follow the Leader

~ Barbara ~ 2 Comments

Did you play Follow the Leader as a kid? Everyone lined up behind the leader and mimicked the series of antics he performed. One by one, each child floundered until only one follower remained and became the next leader.

I just read the Exodus account of the Israelites following Moses through the Red Sea. Although familiar, the story still amazed me. What an awe-inspiring demonstration of God’s power and dramatic escape across a dry riverbed! I loved their bold faith when they safely stood on the shore of the river and, as their leader, Moses led them in a song of worship that praised God’s spectacular capabilities:

  • The Lord is highly exalted.
  • He is my strength and my song, my salvation.
  • The Lord is a warrior who drowned our enemies.
  • His right hand is majestic in power.
  • His love is unfailing.
  • Nations will tremble before Him.

These proclamations reflected Moses’ faith, the very thing that made him a good leader, then and during the forty years they wandered in the wilderness. Moses knew who God was and exalted Him above the frightening situations before them. Unfortunately, the Israelites fell out of line, floundering like the children in the game. But one followed closely and became the next leader, Joshua.

A good leader doesn’t waver when circumstances are adverse, but points to the truth that is higher than the challenge: who God is, how He acts, and what He says.

I am dismayed by the poor leadership I see, elected officials who rant and rage but do not honor God with their words. Do we follow leaders with the loudest voices and highest emotional charge? Or those who trust God to be God?

I want to follow leaders who honor God, whether in government, in church, in medicine, or in personal relationships.

Let’s follow the leader who believes God and knows that anything is possible with Him.

Better yet, you be the leader who proclaims God’s power, wisdom, and sovereignty over all things. Lead others to a higher level.

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Ascension Day: Moving Up

~ Barbara ~ Leave a comment

Have you done your Ascension Day shopping? Bought a new outfit? Purchased gifts or planned a special dinner? Me either. But when I grasped the door handle of a restaurant in Lancaster last week I stilled, surprised and pleased to see the day being honored.

 In all my many years, I can’t recall seeing a sign announcing Ascension Day, let alone closing a business to celebrate it. I do remember going to church as a child but, sadly, today it is seldom mentioned, let alone honored.

We celebrate Christmas and Easter for their life-changing significance but, Ascension Day? We let it slip by even though it points to the most profound, life-changing event we will ever experience.

On that day in history, Jesus’ ascension fulfilled prophesy, but it  also pointed to the future. Those watching Jesus ascend heard these words of promise in Acts 1:

“This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven,
will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”

The Messiah was born. The Messiah was crucified. The Messiah will come back—the same way He left, on the clouds. Ascension Day commemorates Jesus’ return to His Father and His rightful place on His throne, but it is more than that it. Ascension Day celebrates the promise, the assurance, the certainty of His return. It points to our ascension, when we will join Him in the sky and He will bring us home.

The Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout,
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God…
We who are still alive… will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Then we will be with the Lord forever. 

So encourage each other with these words.
I Thessalonians 4:16-18 NLT

Happy Ascension Day!

Graduation: Moving Up

~ Barbara ~ 4 Comments

We just returned from Tennessee for our grandson’s high school graduation. I was surprisingly stirred on several levels.

Graduation, from a school (or a feat of any kind), speaks of leaving the past and moving forward to something more, something better. The satisfaction of accomplishment collides with expectation and hope. I find it all quite emotional, beginning with the processional.

“Pomp and Circumstance” always moves me, and I must not be alone because it’s been played at graduations since 1905. The music is celebratory and triumphant. Like every grandparent in the arena, my eyes sought only one graduate in the processional.

The students’ addresses in Tennessee, 2025, echoed other graduation speeches I’ve heard, sprinkled with teen emotion. When they speak of the challenges they’ve survived, the lows and hard times, I kind of cringe. They have no idea! I don’t downplay the angst of the teen years, but I’m well aware that the hardships they’ll likely face as adults will be far heavier. But I digress, back to the second-best part of the graduation—the tassels!

I love the move of the tassel from the right to the left. I can’t even describe why. I just know it touches me. And then the tossing of the hats—the pure, uninhibited joy of it!

When I reflected on the ceremony and the emotion of it, I thought about the graduation in my future.

  • I thought about triumphant music accompanying Christ’s return.
  • I savored the realization that I was leaving behind all hardship and pain.
  • I imagined moving a metaphorical tassel to indicate absolute separation from my old life and entrance to my new life.
  • I saw hosts of “graduates” throwing down their crowns before the Lord of Lords.

The celebration of any graduation—high school, college, or beyond—is a mild foretaste of the joy that awaits us. (Even as I wrote this post, I couldn’t help smiling.)

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise… to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 
Therefore encourage one another with these words.
I Thessalonians 4:16-18

Image by Gillian Callison from Pixabay