Rev. Ray and Pat Amos
James 2:23
And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.
“THE LORD JESUS, OUR FRIEND, EVERYWHERE”
I spoke with a friend from long ago the other day. Circumstances had brought her home where family and friends once greeted her days like the morning sun. Now, they were mostly gone, and a place that had been familiar ground seemed like foreign soil. She mentioned a song that says what the heart sometimes feels:
The Civil War was over, and soldiers were coming home. They would never be the same again, many communities were destroyed, and the haven of their memories was no more. Some soldiers returned to find family and friends gone, and strangers in their place.
It was such a setting that inspired an old song of the hills: “I wandered again to my home in the mountains, where in youth’s early dawn I was happy and free. I looked for my friends, but I never could find them. I found they were all rank strangers to me. Everybody I met seemed to be a rank stranger; no mother or dad not a friend could I see. They knew not my name and I knew not their faces. I found they were all rank strangers to me.”
There are few things that everyone can agree on, but I know one: times are changing. There is both good and bad in that truth. We can visit places that we have known and feel like strangers because loved ones have gone, and we know not the faces that have taken their place.
The young lady sat at a table and cried. The room was full of chattering people who were laughing and at home with one another. She was in a church fellowship hall, and a stranger in their ranks; and no one noticed.
The song says, “People need the Lord,” and it can be added, “People need one another.” The time is coming for all believers when we will be home where there are no rank strangers; but until then we must help each other along life’s way.
The old song of the hills continues: “They’ve all moved away said the voice of a stranger; to a beautiful home by the bright crystal sea. Some beautiful day I’ll meet them in Heaven, where no one will be a stranger to me.”
Grace and Peace, Rev Ray
“Link to YouTube Video – People Need the Lord
