JANUARY 7, 2020

Oh, Elizabeth, did you know?

"To show mercy toward our fathers,

And to remember His holy covenant,

The oath which He swore to Abraham our father,

To grant us that we, being delivered

 from the hand of our enemies,

Might serve Him without fear,

In holiness and righteousness before Him

all our days.

And you child (John the Baptist),

will be called the prophet of the Most High;

For you will go before the Lord 

To prepare His ways;

To give to His people the knowledge of salvation

By the forgiveness of their sins,

Because of the tender mercy of our God,

With which the Sunrise from on high

shall visit us,

'To shine upon those who sit in darkness

 and the shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way of peace.'

And the child (John) continued to grow,

and to become strong in spirit,

and he lived in the deserts 

until the day of his public appearance to Israel."

Luke 1:72-80

"And the child continued to grow,

and to become strong in spirit..."

Our boys and our older grandsons have shot up as tall or taller than their grandpa, and even their dads.   I'd like my sons and grandsons to become strong in spirit as well.  It sounds like a strong-willed child to me.  That's okay as long as it is under God's strong will for our lives.  God needs strong-willed Christians, strong in the spirit in this desert of moral decay in which we live.  

My how they've grown since this!

Oh, Elizabeth, did you know your son would eat locusts and wild honey and would live in the deserts wearing camel skins, would baptize the Son of God, and be beheaded for calling out someone for adultery?  At least God provided a little honey to go with those crunchy locusts.  Jesus calls His cousin John the greatest.  Oh, Elizabeth, did you know he would grow from a boy to the greatest man to ever live, next to Mary and God's own Son, the Sunrise on high?