Do you know what extends from the Bering Sea to the Strait of Magellan and helps to determine the flow of watersheds in North America? If you guessed the Continental Divide, often referred to as the Great Divide, then you are correct. This elevated terrain begins in Alaska and winds its way eastern through Canada before entering the United States in Montana, then zig zags southward to New Mexico. From there this divide enters Mexico and makes its way to the southern tip of South America, separating the water basins that flow into the Pacific Ocean from those that drain into the Atlantic Ocean.

At one point along the Great Divide, known at the Triple Divide Peak, located in Glacier National Park (Montana), two continental divides converge, and from this point, waters flow into three oceans – Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean via the Gulf of Mexico, and Arctic Ocean via the Hudson Bay – thus making it the only place in the world where from one location waters drain into three oceans.

There are several smaller divides in North America, one of which that follows the Appalachian Mountains and determines which watersheds drain directly into the Atlantic Ocean from those that exit via the Mississippi River. And you might have heard of the Saint Lawrence Seaway; well, it generally follows another smaller secondary divide. It is the Laurentian Divide that converges with the Continental Divide to create the Triple Divide Peak referenced above.      

Not only are the drainage of rivers and streams separated by the Great Divide, but we also live in a country, a world, that too is Greatly Divided. The events of yesterday, regardless of anyone’s political leaning, did nothing to lessen the divide. And I believe we will see unparalleled chaos these next seven months, which will likely widen the gap even more.

What if each of us made it our goal to be (or become) a bridge builder; someone who helps opposite sides cross a divide? What if the goal of every interaction, every dialogue, was to have a relationship with the other person, rather than prove a point, or to simply be right? What if we all, every single one of us, no matter age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social position, religious beliefs (or not), and yes, even political point of view, committed ourselves to doing our part to greatly unite that which if greatly divided. Unity does not have to be uniformity. We can have differences and still be united.

What if we, those of us who call ourselves Jesus followers committed ourselves to being attentive listeners, prayerful, loving, evangelistically bold, and heralders of truth. And if you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, being a peacemaker also comes as part of the deal. In His most famous teaching, the Beatitudes, one of the things Jesus said was – “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Mattthew 5:9). The apostle Paul says this, found in Romans 14:19 – “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” There is a real connection that occurs between people when peace is pursued. The psalmist writes this – “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other” (Psalm 85:10).

So, my challenge to all of us – in this great divide of a culture in which we live, what can each of us do to build a bridge, to join that which has been separated by some great divide? To turn greatly divided into greatly united!    

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Are you a person who has lots of friends or only a few friends? And by that I do not simply mean the people you share space with – neighbors, co-workers, classmates, etc., or the “friends or followers” you’ve accumulated on social media. Instead, I am asking whether or not you have people you have grown to love and respect, people you have real intimacy with.

My wife and I have a group of college friends with whom we’ve shared life with for almost five decades. We’ve been there for each other through the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the twists and turns. Our friendships even survived years of camping trips in ninety-degree heat and torrential downpours. Our kids grew up together, and to this day, many of them still call me Uncle Fly. (Why Fly, you ask? That’s a story for a different day.) We don’t get together quite as often as we once did, but when we do, we simply pick up where we left off. It is a beautiful thing!

This group, they are true and special friends, people I would fight for and who can count on me to “always” be there for them. But if truth be told, I am sure that I’ve disappointed them more than once, in more ways than I would like to admit. That’s just the reality of my sinful nature. Before you judge me too harshly, remember you too have that same sinful nature (Isaiah 53:6, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:23).   

We are not meant to walk through life all alone. We are made by God to be relational people. That was God’s plan from the beginning. After forming Adam from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), we read this in v.18 – “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” And from the rib of Adam, God made Eve – “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (v.22).

It is interesting to note that two similar but different root words are used: in v.7 God “formed” man (Hebrew: yatsar – to form as a potter, take an existing substance and mold it into shape) while in v.22, the text tells us He “made” the woman (Hebrew: banah – to build, a sense of adding what was not there before). Notice there is not a hint of the woman being inferior or limited in capacity!

I cherish the fact that other people call me their friend. As sweet as that is, Jesus also calls me His friend. That’s right, the Son of God, the One who sits at the right hand of the Father, calls me friend. After the Last Supper with His disciples, in what is called the Farewell Discourse (John chapters 15-17), Jesus prepares his disciples for his departure from them. In Chp.15, Jesus positions Himself as the source of life for the world and builds the model for real and true relationship, first with Him, and then secondly, with one another. He goes on to say that the marker, that which differentiates His followers from the world, is love, being modeled in and through real relationships, again, first with God, and then with others.

It is in that context that Jesus calls those who are committed to Him, friend, yes, His friend! In John 15:14-15 we see these words – “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

So, today, as you look over your own life and count up your friends, do you consider Jesus to be your friend? He is the one friend who will never let you down, never turn His back on you, never put own His interests before yours. He is your one True Friend, the One you can always count on, no matter what!

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There is just something about the ocean that is calming and peaceful, especially under a beautiful moonlit night sky. The quietness, the gentle breezes blowing through the sea grasses, the moon shining down upon the ocean’s water, the sound of the tides washing upon the beach.

But, if you have ever been to the ocean then you also know that it can be unpredictable, and often dangerous. The tide comes in and then it back goes out; it ebbs and flows. One minute the water is not even up to your knees and then all of a sudden it is over your head, you almost drown. One wave gently tosses you around and you are having fun. But the next wave, it is a really big one, and the force of the water flips you upside down, pounds you into the ocean floor and you come up wondering what just happened. You need to re-adjust your swimsuit; it is in places it shouldn’t be and not places it should be. That evening, as you shower, there is so much sand that you wonder if you have brought the beach with you. You’ve been there, right? I know I have.

Life is the same way. One minute things are calm and peaceful and then without notice a big wave or two or three or four comes and turns you upside down. You lose your breath and find yourself disoriented from all the pounding you are taking. You just hope that you can find your way back to the shore.

The Bible tells us that when, from our vantage point, things seem out of control that God has things under control, and He can calm the waves in our lives. Psalm 89:9 tells us this, “You rule over the surging sea; when the waves mount up, you still them.”

We see a similar message in Psalm 107:29, “He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.”

The gospels of Matthew and Mark both tell the story of Jesus calming the seas. Here is what we read in Matthew’s telling of the story, “Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm” (8:26b). Click on the links to read both versions, each with slightly different language – Matthew 8:23-27 and Mark 4:35-41.

In offering hopeful words about God rejoicing over his saved people, the prophet Zephaniah says this, “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (3:17). 

So, when you find yourself in turbulent waters, whether knee deep or in over your head, you can rest assured that sometimes God calms the waters while other times He calms you amid those dangerous waters. Either way, you can always trust that God is not far away.   

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An old Chinese proverb goes like this – “To know the road ahead, ask those who are coming back.”

There are any number of roads we can take through life. We can follow in someone’s footsteps, going where they have gone. Maybe instead, watch where others have walked, learn from them where the landmines are, and take a slightly different path. There are times when we just wander, taking path after path, looking for the right road to take. I have a t-shirt that reads, “All who are wander are not lost.” 

Or, maybe, we see the masses going on the wrong path, so we go against the flow and take a completely different, sometimes lonely, path. Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken, begins with the words, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both,” and ends with this, “I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages hence and hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

Every day we stand at one crossroad or another. Sometimes the choice is nothing more than a fork in the road, and the decision is simply choosing between going left or going right. While other times, it might be a freeway junction, one with many connecting roadways, and the decision is not quite so simple.  

There is another option when choosing which path to take – “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it and find rest for your souls’” (Jeremiah 6:16a).

The context is the Israelites were being judged for their straying from the ways of the patriarchs into the ways of idolatry, i.e., they “lost their way.” They stood at a crossroads; the moment called for a clear decision. The “ancient paths” literally means “the good way.” Sadly, the end of that verse says this- “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it'” (6:16b).

Read the rest of that passage (vv.17-21). The nation rejected the ancient paths, even as prophets were sent as watchmen to warn them of impending danger.

Now that you know the context, and remembering that no biblical text can mean more to us than it meant to the original readers, how can we apply the words of 6:16 to us today – in this time of so much unrest and uncertainty, in this time when rest for our souls seems like wishful thinking, in this time when for most of us, daily rhythms are anything but rhythmic, in this time when there are potentially so many roads we can take as the world around us spins faster and faster.

Here is my stab at an answer – Every day we stand at one crossroad or another. Will we take the way of obedience or the path of selfishness (disobedience)? In His grace and through His mercy, God warns us of pending doom, pending struggle, pending frustration, by taking the wrong path. This appeal to seek the ancient paths points us to the path commanded by God, known ever since He revealed himself and his ways in the covenant at Sinai (Exodus 19-24). The ancient path is the path of obedience. The path leading to life. In Deuteronomy 30:15-16, the Lord, through Moses, set a choice before his people, prosperity or disaster. That same appeal is given to us today.

Through this meditation, I hear God saying to me, I have a choice. I can choose the ancient paths, and in doing so, not only do I find life, but also peace and rest for my soul. Or I can choose any other path.

What might Jeremiah 6:16 be saying to you?

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Life is full of things we don’t have and dreams unfulfilled. But life is also full of things we can be thankful for. How we look at life can often be summed up by “is it half-full or half-empty?”  

Most catchphrases or sayings we use have stories behind them. We use them in everyday life but rarely know their origin. Here is the story behind one saying that near and dear to my heart. During one pre-season football camp at Millersville State College back in the 1970s as the team left the campus in the wee hours of the morning on the way to the Marine Corps Base at Quantico to “toughen the boys up,” the bus drove past a large cemetery, and as the head coach pointed to the rows and rows of tombstones that looked somewhat eerie though the early morning haze, he looked back at a bus full of “happy campers” and said, “Men, it really is a great day to be alive.” The response, somewhat sarcastically, “Okay, whatever you say Coach.”

Every season after that year during the hot and tiring days of pre-season football camp, Coach Carp as we affectionately called him, would walk through the dorms at five o’clock in the morning blowing his whistle and yelling to us, “Men, it’s a great day to be alive.” With sore and tired muscles, and the thought of another full day of practice during the dog days of August, it really didn’t seem like a morning to be thankful. “Okay, whatever you say Coach.”

Let’s look at Psalm 100.   

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who has made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”

No matter what you are experiencing in today: whether it be the dread of another day of practicing in full football pads in 90 degree weather or the joy of being on a sunny beach with nothing to do except sit under your umbrella and read your favorite book, whether you face another day at a job you do not like or you begin a new job, your dream job, whether you face more chemo treatments or you just got a clean bill of health from your doctor, I want to encourage you to take time be thankful and to praise God, even if you are not in a thankful or praising mood.

Knowing that some of you reading this are facing real life challenges, and I am not minimizing those issues, I pray for a touch from God, a word from God, the presence of God, so you can say “It’s a great day to be alive!” And remember this, even if your glass if half-empty, it is also half-full! It is a matter of perspective.

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Are you sometimes confused by sayings that seem to contradict themselves? As a figure of speech, this combination of contradictory words is called an oxymoron (compressed paradox). The word oxymoron comes from two Greek words – “oxys” (sharp/keen) and “moros” (foolish). These contrasting words can be a powerful part of speech by making each one stand out more, just as contrasting colors side by side often do the same thing.  

Sometimes, however, they are just downright confusing. Have you ever been asked to send an “original copy?” These days everyone seems to have an “unbiased opinion.” Maybe after having a disagreement with someone, you have said this: I was “clearly misunderstood.” A “deafening silence” fell over the room as she announced her resignation. A friend cuts a muffin in half so you both can enjoy a piece, only to have you say: I am watching my weight, so you take the “larger half.” Literature is not exempt from these seemingly contradictory statements. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as she stands on the balcony, Juliet says to Romeo, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”     

We see one of those seemingly contradictory statements in the Bible as well. In 2 Corinthians 12:10 we read these words – “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

How can that be? Either you are weak or you are strong, but surely not both at the same time. Let’s look at that verse again in context. Back up a few verses and in v.5 the apostle Paul tells us that he has some weakness, some affliction. The precise nature of his affliction is not known, but in v.7 Paul says this – “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.”

Whatever this thorn was, Paul wanted it gone. Beginning in v.8 – “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

So, just what is sufficient grace in this context? God provides His divine grace, saving us from eternal death. That unmerited favor affords us joy and delight. God’s divine influence is at work daily, transforming our weaknesses from within, so that our faith grows. That divine influence is also at work in our external weakness, so that those circumstances improve. God provides grace and influence that is enough (sufficient) to meet all that is needed when it is needed.       

We see from these verses that while the “thorn” remained, God promised that His grace is all that Paul needed, and that the best solution to removing the thorn is God’s power showing up in the midst of Paul’s weakness. What Paul is saying is that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness, and the more we acknowledge our weakness, the more evident and enabling is God’s strength in us and through us. In Ephesians 3:16 Paul prays – “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.”

So, while you might find it hard to boast about your weakness, your thorn, you can rest assured that in your weakness God’s power is at its strongest. And right now, if you are “clearly confused” by being simultaneously weak and strong, ask God to demonstrate His strength amid your weakness.

“For when I am weak, then I am strong!”

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