The Sunday Newspaper

Our little town was about 50 miles down the rails from Cleveland. Every Saturday night the Sunday edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper would be “delivered” to our station. That meant a bundle of about 200 papers would be tossed from the moving train—hopefully intact, but not always. My task, as a young boy, was to assemble the various parts of the paper into an organized edition that could be sold and distributed from the store called the News Center.

Talk about strange working conditions. I would be sent to the basement of the store—a very dark and damp place, with one hanging light bulb. There were shadows everywhere cast by the many shelves and boxes. Did I see the shadows occasionally move? A small table was provided for me to assemble the paper. Of course I was not to make any mistakes—each completed newspaper was to have the same parts. Yet, I would invariably discover a few missing parts for the final few newspapers. Some were going to receive an extra fat edition the next day! The store manager would grumble at me, but she knew it was hard to be perfect.

If I were nervous and fearful about the basement conditions, my “close friend” David would delight in adding to my fright. He would sneak down the stairs, tiptoe in the shadows, and then jump out of nowhere with a “Boo!” Maybe that had something to do with the imperfect newspaper assemblies.

Are we not like these newspapers? We think we are all pretty much alike, but in many of us there are some extra “pages” marked Joy, Love, or Peace, while others may have an abundance of Fear, Worry, or Problems. In others these pages are missing or fewer in number. We each try to assemble our lives, making choices along the way that seem right or wrong, but in the final analysis we are to be “read” by a loving God who knows fully how to interpret our life message. We know His word says, “You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:2,3, NASB)

My friend, are you willing to turn your life “edition” over to Jesus? He will assemble your life in a loving way that makes all the pages honor Him. He will provide abundant light as you work with Him—dark, basement conditions are not His design. The scary adversary, lurking in the shadows, will not have his way. Jesus will provide a peace that assures you that the pages of your life are copies of His life.

M. R. Seiler, 1/24/2006

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