About beacons, lighthouses and bridges! About Forgiveness and Love!

Years ago, back in the eighties, while undergoing missionary training with “Youth with a Mission”, we were told about how, sometimes, we must die to ourselves, as a wheat seed, so we can revive again, or other times, serve as the breeding ground for something bigger than what we could, in our own, be.

We also read how a rural pastor, who never traveled far enough, sometimes wondered why he never had audiences to listen to his preaching, with the exception of just a few. Among these few he barely noticed a young boy who seemed to pay attention but it also seemed not a very bright candidate for limelight or success.

Years later, this rural boy became one of the main revival preachers of his time. How could have the pastor have visualized that he was going to be such a humble but fundamental factor, by default, of these revivals?

He was just a light in the reigning darkness of a rural spiritual environment!

A light, that in worldly eyes just faded and flickered!

These remembrances brought the additional ones about the teachings on finding who you are in God and what is your place in The Kingdom.

This time I will refer myself to the concept of determining what your place is, and what role you have been chosen to play, in the expansion of the Kingdom. Having in mind that the Kingdom of God is God´s business, not ours!

Some of the most prominent teachings were those about the piers that send people on their journey over unknown waters. About how God decides the shapes and natures of every one of them, and which one He wants us to be.

Just some planks or pilots in an unfinished pier that apparently leads to nowhere!

Or a precariously holding bridge forcedly used by people without any other recourse to cross over the gaps of life.

Or rural bridges, or a hanging one over forested abysses.

As human beings we naturally nurture a desire to stamp our presence in monumental works to serve as magnificent even if silent witness to our personal grandeur.

Bridges and lighthouses are prime examples of this. Bridges have been present from the most remote times

Many of them are monuments to the daring and audacity of mankind

But without regard to the magnificence or humbleness that could become the signature of our presence on this earth, let us never forget that human history has been, and more ominously than any time before, plagued by injury and pain, by abuse or lack of love.

Let´s remember that besides loving and forgiving, there, remains the harder task of restoring, more than retribution, and healing, more, much more, than just appeasement or revenge.

Let us decide to be the beacon lights on this world of darkness!

And the bridges even if they seem to disappear into the vastness of misunderstanding and despair!

Let´s start loving and forgiving! So can we make ourselves ready for restoration and healing! And may God strengthen our hearts and spirits to undertake what it takes to do it!