It is 17 degrees this April morning and snowing. The wind chill is below zero. The sun is a puny eye trying to bat itself awake among the heavy clouds.



The radio plays something about the love of God .. . I did not sleep last night, and I have just read of Pastor Warren’s son’s suicide. I am looking through my own puny eye trying to wake in a cold, cloudy world. Trying to bat away a sea that spills down my face .. . the loss of a child . . .  How easily I ask,

Has Jesus really risen? Is He here with us---or not?

The two men on the road to Emmaus did not even ask that question. They knew their Rescuer was dead and buried, and their hopes along with him. Hearing their disconsolation, a stranger joined them, and walked the way with them, explaining about the one they were mourning. At the end of the road, they sat for a meal, the three of them. The stranger split  the bread, gave thanks, “then their eyes were opened and they recognized him-----and he disappeared from their sight.”

The moment they finally know it is Jesus----------he is gone.

So like our experience. The moment we glimpse him, our hearts explode. We see Him truly for an instant. We see ourselves for the beggars we are. We are found. And then he is gone.

But I keep looking. I have looked again and again for Him outside my windows, in all the places I travel---Because of Psalm 33:

“The LORD loves righteousness and justice;
    the earth is full of his unfailing love.”

“The earth is full of his unfailing love.”

Is this true? What have I seen of Him in "the earth" this year?  What do you see here?


















































How do I read the text of this world? How do I read "His unfailing love" in ice, storm, spider, death . . . ?  

It is far easier to recognize Him in abundance, beauty, lushness,
 yet He is present in both, in all:  

"He is before all things,
and in Him, all things hold together. . .  
All things were created for him, 
by Him, 
and through Him ... ." 

When the news and my own troubles darken my windows, showing me only storm, garbage and spider,  when I cannot read his face and presence here, in the text of the world-----I am using the wrong eyes. 

When I am not first reading Him in the text of His word, 
I am blind to His presence in the world. 

The two men on the road that day could not see Jesus, though he walked beside them. They had to see Him again in the Scriptures. They had to be told that a hideous death was part of the story. Only then did their eyes open to recognize Him, alive, beside them.


I see him here, in Psalm 33:  

For the word of the Lord is right and true;
    he is faithful in all he does.
 The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
    the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Do you see it?

"The earth is full of His unfailing love."

I see it. There. All around. 
Yes.



I wrap my winter coat around me this April and say Yes,
 Still, love.




(And still praying for the Warren family ....)