Sweet Dreams.

     Greetings in the name of our precious Savior Jesus Christ.  It has been a busy week.  I woke up to a phone call Wednesday morning that my senior pastor was not well.  He ended up going to the hospital for a kidney stone.  So I had to very quickly cover everything Wednesday as well as start writing a sermon for this weekend.  He is out of the hospital now and doing better, but will still need to take it easy for awhile.  I do have give credit to Ruth who taught confirmation so that I could cover a few other things.  It definitely changed the course of my week in a hurry, but thanks be to God we managed and he is doing better.
    I am writing my sermon on the Old Testament text from Amos and am noticing how easy it is to go into a doom and gloom, fire and brimstone mode from the text.  I had to laugh as I was typing and starting noticing my tendency to go that way.  I am trying to stay more positive and Gospel driven, but it is scary as you begin to compare modern day America with the times of Amos.
    My devotion a few days ago, included Psalm 126 which begins with, "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream."  This is from book four of the psalms, which is usually attributed to the return of Israel back from the exile.  So, the psalmist is saying when the Lord brought Israel back together as a people again and ended the exile from Babylon, it was like they were dreaming.
   The Lord's restoring their fortune was so unreal, so amazing awesome, they felt like they were dreaming.  I love this way of putting it.  I love it, because every time I try to imagine Jesus' second coming, I can't picture it as reality.  Even in my dreams of His second coming, it feels like I am dreaming.  We will have to pinch ourselves it will be so awesome, so beautiful, it won't feel real.  However, it won't be a dream.  When we pinch ourselves, we will know we are awake and that Christ has come again.  This simple line used by the psalmist reminds us of the hope and the excitement we have in Christ's promise to come again.  How awesome is our God.