I live near Palm Springs, California, USA. Every year during the fall, we see beautiful groupings of snow geese arriving, after what must be a physically exhausting flight. As they gracefully wend their way in formation to springs and lakes throughout southern California and Mexico, they have come almost 1,500 miles! We often see 30 or 40 arriving in perfect formation, flying about 100 feet above the ground. It is an awe-inspiring sight.

But it is nothing like the leaving I witnessed earlier this year when all these separate V-formations massed, as if they had heard a clarion call, to form themselves into a spectacular cloud of geese swirling effortlessly on a rising hot air cyclone to fill the sky with 10,000 or more bodies riding effortlessly upward. These graceful birds hardly move as they are carried aloft, as if they are being thrust into the heavens by some grand and magnificent force. From a distance, the formation resembles a great cumulus thunderhead, moving upward, and yet strangely still, until it reaches the top of Mount San Jacinto, an altitude of more than 7,000 feet. At the very top, spectacular V-formations of about 100 birds peel off to begin their instinctive flights toward their homes in Canada.

What a spectacle! I wish everyone could witness it!

It calls forth a vision of today's Scripture, which declares that Christ will return in the clouds, to come for us who are alive. I can visualize a great host, clothed in white, welcoming those of us who are being caught up in a wonderful swirl of clouds made up of all the saints of all times. Maybe God gave us the ascending geese to help us picture this event, which will happen when the trumpet sounds, and we are caught up!

Isn't it sad for any geese that miss this amazing experience, and are left to spend the summer in the hot desert! The geese are programmed to make their annual flight, but must make a choice. We also must make a choice. God grant that we may realize the importance of that choice, and choose to go on an adventure beyond our wildest imagination. Be ready!

Prayer: Our God, thank You for the beautiful examples from Your creation that let us realize that You have made us for Your purposes. Help us to love You, and to realize that You want to be more than our God — You want to be our most intimate friend. Lift us upward, we pray. We love You. Amen.

On a morning not unlike any other, a young man climbed out of his Jewish bed with visions and dreams of magic performed by an amazing Jewish miracle worker. Rumours had flown all over his small village that Jesus might be the long-awaited Messiah and the lad just had to see for himself. Imagine his mother searching the cupboard for just the right lunch to satisfy a gnawing hunger she knew her boy would feel before the desert sun crested its flight. Five barley loaves and two small fishes wrapped lovingly in a cloth bag and tucked away under a loose fitting tunic, "Enough for my boy and maybe a little to share with a friend," she thought.

Little did she or her boy imagine that this little morsel in the Master's hands was enough to feed a hungry throng of more than 5,000 individuals, whose curiosity also had driven them to our Lord. That day, the inexorable will and purpose of God, as an arrow straight and sure, crossed paths with a boy and his lunch bag. Jesus touched that small offering, blessed it and broke it into five thousand lunches. He — who made natural law — proved to all by that act that He was the Master of the physical world by overruling natural law. With the precious token of bread in His hand, He illustrated to all mankind, throughout all the ages, that He alone is the bread of life. He alone, who created life, is also the sustenance of life. He is our Manna from heaven, our daily bread.

What do we bring to the Master today? We may not think it is much. It may not count for much in this world, but Jesus sees beyond the physical. His is the big picture, seen with God's spiritual eyes. The will of the Father will be! He will take our small offering, bless it, and in His hands use it to teach a spiritual principle and touch a hurting world beyond all that we could ask or imagine. He is looking for our willingness to release what we have in our hands into his, to make it into something unimaginable, shining with the glory of God. Let us open our hands and hearts today to see if the small thing we have clutched so closely might be used by Jesus to bless a hurting and hungry world. He said, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me!" (John 12:32, KJV)

Prayer: Father, we bring to you today all we have and are. We recognize that you made the universe and you don't need our tiny loaves of bread, but you do need our love and worship. Help us to look beyond our own needs, to let you touch what we do have, so that it might bless and serve those you love around us. Help us to remember that every good and perfect gift is from above, your loving gift to us. Help our wills to be brought into line with your sure and perfect plan, so that the entire world may also know you as Lord and Saviour. In the blessed name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

In 1991, I was privileged to go to Russia with a group of teachers and administrators to help the ex-Soviet teachers deal with the morality crisis, which was tearing apart their country. Miraculously, we were invited to share the gospel with thousands of public school teachers and give them materials to be used in their public schools, even containing the clear plan of salvation. More than one hundred weeklong events all over Russia, known as convocations, were held. Such events continue even to this day.

On one occasion, as we handed out Bibles written in the Russian language to a group of almost 100 school administrators, a most startling event occurred. Each Russian participant was directed to write his or her name inside the cover. The leader then suggested that the table of contents be divided into sections by writing headings in the left margin next to the title of each book, e.g. law, history, poetry, prophecy. As others eagerly followed the directions and wrote in their Bibles, a big burly junior high school principal in my group, named Sergio, appeared to be disturbed by the request. He clutched his Bible tenaciously to his chest, his body language rejecting the speaker. Through my interpreter I asked Sergio to do as the teacher instructed. He sat still for a moment and then slowly turned to me, eyes flushed with tears, and looking clear through me he exclaimed, "I waited forty years for this Bible, I will never write in it!"

Beginning in 1918, Stalin set out to systematically destroy the Word of God. He tortured and killed Christians and ridiculed religion, making believers the laughing-stock of the nation. He tore down churches and used the priceless materials in the construction of the Moscow subway. Bibles were burned in the streets in an open campaign to forever eradicate religion from the empire. Thereafter, followers of God found it almost impossible to obtain any but menial employment under communism. Triumphantly, God had watched over His word all this time, just increasing the hunger. Truly, Sergio's supernatural desire to own his own Bible is explained by God's promise to protect the word and to accomplish everything which He has set out to do.

Prayer: Eternal and ever-faithful God, we pray for the people in Russia and the other parts of the fallen USSR, and in other parts of Eastern Europe, that the window of opportunity which You have opened will lead to a great and sweeping revival. Help us, in our homes, to remember the price of the word of God, and to love, appreciate, read and defend it. We praise Your holy name. Amen.