THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER

You might still remember the story I shared with you a few weeks ago about our grandson’s way of describing his love toward me.  Whenever Santy asks him, how much he loves me, his answer is always, “Five hundred days!”  What I haven’t told you is what his answer is whenever Santy asks him, how much he loves her.  He always answers, “Six days.”  After much persuasion, he has finally increased it to “Ten days.”  O how insensitive this little man is!

Whenever I hear his answer, I naturally chuckle, but deep down inside, I say, “It’s unfair.”  You see, it is Santy who always prepares and brings food to him.  And, it is Santy who spends the most time babysitting him.  But somehow the credits go to me.  It is unfair but Santy has never complained about it.  She just laughs and enjoys every second of it. She does not mind being underrated and she does not demand that we switch places.  She is happily content.

In his book, Yesus Kristus: Juruselamat Dunia, (Jesus Christ: The Savior of the World), Pastor Stephen Tong introduces the term, “falling upward.” In Isaiah 14:12-15 we can read the origin of Satan.  He is God’s former chief angel who once said, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne . . . . I will make myself like the Most High.”  Not only did he wish to be God’s equal, he also desired to be “above the stars of God.”  In Pastor Tong’s words, instead of falling downward, Satan fell upward.  When he’s not satisfied with the status God had assigned him, he climbed upward . . . and fell.

This pandemic has brought some of us down; we suffered losses.  Consequently, we are tempted to climb up—to switch places with those above us. Be careful, lest we fall upward.  The best attitude is simply to accept the lot God has given us today.  Ten days.

Pastor Paul