Welcome and good morning; or as they say in Jerusalem, where I am this morning, "boker tov". It is wonderful that you are here this morning and I wish that I could be here to lift my voice in praise alongside you.
I really like ice cream. I'm pretty sure it's in my blood. Rumor has it that my mom moved to the US from New Zealand because she wanted to try American ice cream. I'm not sure that I don't believe it - but that's a different story.
I find ice cream refreshing and satisfying. For some reason I really like soft ice cream. Meredith will attest to the fact that I will make a sudden u-turn in traffic if I spy a dairy queen on the other side of the road when we are travelling. It's something about the texture and the shape that just makes me happy. Not to mention that you can dip it in jimmies or a crunchy coating. Yummy.
It's actually harder to find soft-serve than you might imagine. If I am on a road trip it is usually a toss up as to whether we will come across it; and believe me I am on the lookout. So imagine my joy when I realized that right across the street from the office at the Towson Town Center there was a Dairy Queen. I could go over on any given day get some soft-serve and feel a little leap of joy in a simple pleasure. So I went over the other day to get a cone. I stopped in front of the mall map and located the DQ and purposely made my way to the other end of the mall.
When I arrived I was greeted by a closed store which had paper over all of its windows. The Dairy Queen was gone; a victim of the renovation of the mall and a desire to appeal to a more upscale crowd. Oh the pain of it all. But it was on the map! So it had to be there! I proceeded to walk up and down past each store to be sure that I was in the right place. Still no DQ. So I trudged back to the office mumbling to myself about the injustice of it all and wondering how much time I had wasted in search of a moment of refreshment; and how much time do I waste seeking for internal refreshment in places that are temporal and passing away?
When we come to the Lord in stillness and humility he pours out refreshment that surpasses even the pleasures of soft-serve. It is refreshment that finds its way into the very marrow of our bones like nothing else. The best thing is that the store never moves, is never closed and is always there when you need it. Come, leap with joy in the Lord's refreshing presence this day.
