WHERE'S YOURS?

One thing that amazes me about scripture (no implication that there's only one) is the word, words or even a few letters that have been there all along, but I wasn't aware of them. I think I mentioned that in a fairly recent entry, so it must be weighing pretty heavily on my mind.

For me, recently did I discover that the land between the Nile and Euphrates that God gave to Israel is called the Promised Land. I had always thought it was Promise Land, no d. That's not like me to overlook something like that. But for practically all my life I had.

Of course it makes senseto call it Promised Land since the Abrahamic Covenant established that gift from God to Israel. It was promised to them. A land of milk and honey as it was reported by Caleb and Joshua to the rest of the Israelites.

Which got me thinking. Where's your Promised Land? Or, if you prefer, your Promise Land?

To me, there's a huge difference. Promised means it was given to you by some kind of decree or proclamation. Maybe an inheritance due you. The Promise Land is future. All the promises that the land holds for you. Inalienable right stuff.

It's always been, for me, a land of the sun. Far too many gray cloud curtain days for me in my Midwest youth and young adulthood. Practically every Spring Break, we would make a hadj to Florida for better weather. Summer is what we preferred and those days of soda and pretzels and beer that Nat King sang of. For me, it was more of baseball, and swimming, and golf. Or tomatoes and watermelon and corn to go with a cooked out burger, brat, steak or hamburger. But I guess Mr. Cole got it right. At least lyrically tied into the rhythm ad music of great summertime times.

So I'm living in my Promise Land. Three hundred days of bright sunshine. However after our three mile walk yesterday before noon, I could have used some cloud cover. Naw. Just more of a breeze.