First encounters….

 First encounters….

Weddings have a way of making us reminisce about the past …first encounters…those planned and unplanned meetings of couples, families in the past and present…we look around at new faces and old familiar ones…

I thought of the first time I met my future husband, in a dorm at college…did I sense that he was the one I would marry…

Or when he first met my parents…(my mom had suggest to my dad beforehand to invite my “boyfriend “ to breakfast, to which my father replied protectively, “I am not just going to ask any ole yahoo”…) he asked him to breakfast…then we all went to meet his parents…friends to the end…going away from the meeting, thinking these are really nice people…

Or when we met each of our children’s future spouses and then their parents…going away with the same…”those  are really nice people”…hoping they feel the same…

We share family events, children and then grandchildren and maybe great grandchildren over the years…we may not see one another but once a year or more…but there is that connection that we hold dear…those first moments of introduction, those first impressions…and then long term friendships…

We add new characters to our books of life…

Thinking of first encounters…Adam and God….Adam and Eve…Isaac and Rebekah…

 So the  God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the  God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Gen.2.21-22

 Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?”“He is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself. Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.  Gen.24.62-67

Down through the ages of the Word…Samuel and God…David and Samuel, Ruth and Boaz…Isaiah, Jonah, Jeremiah , Elijah and the widow….

The disciples and Jesus, the encounter on the road to Emmaus, Paul on the road to Damascus, Paul in the multitude of churches….

And many, many more first encounters…life long and changing relationships…

Our encounters with the Creator, the Savior, the Prince of Peace, Emmanuel …am I engaged, seeking  the most important relationship….the one that lasts an eternity not just an earthly, temporal time…

 Look to the  Lord and his strength;seek his face always. Ps.105.4

 You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. John.15.14-17

Thank YOU….