Daily Word of Grace # 114 (August 21, 2020)
In 1975 the classic rock band Pink Floyd recorded their gem Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road Studios in London (yes, the same Abbey Road featured on the iconic cover of the Beatles 1969 album). The title track of Wish You Were Here was co-written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour and in part a song of longing to be reunited with Syd Barrett, an original member of Pink Floyd who had succumbed to drug addiction. The chorus is something to which everyone can relate: “How I wish, how I wish you were here. We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year. Running over the same old ground, what have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.” God’s love in Jesus Christ is good news for lost souls, good news “year after year” and forever, because God’s love in Jesus Christ is greater than all our fears, including “the same old fears” that seem to never quite go away. In fact, God’s love can cast out those fears (1 John 4:18)—and even when those same old fears reappear, God’s love can do the same…again and again and again. When it comes to our longing for the presence of God’s love in our lives, God has already answered our prayer, “Wish you were here”—for God is with us all the time, even this very moment, even “to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
Love and Prayers,
Dave