Dear SouthLake Family,

Sunday evening, July 23, marked a significant moment in all our lives. It was more than turning the page to the next chapter of a book. It was opening the cover of a new book. It’s a new life with new hope, new dreams, new loves… let’s don’t stop short of his new life. The gap between our old life and new life is spelled out in 2 Corinthians 5 which we will unpack this Sunday. John Newton sings of it as well in Amazing Grace –

“Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see”

An event from my life a few decades ago illustrates well the transformation Christ brings about in us and individuals and as a community.

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It was a cold day, spitting rain and windy. Still I was out in it fishing. With weather like that, there is little surprise that I didn’t catch any fish! But I didn’t come home empty handed… Moving along the shore I heard a noise from an empty boat shed. Curiosity got the better of me and I moved in to check it out. In the back right corner, something cowered. It was winter on the lake and all the summer residents had long since departed. The only live animals anywhere around were sure to be wild. This one could have been a wounded deer or a rabid coyote! I should have been more careful but instead I went on in. I was 13 year old boy so who knows what was I thinking!? The mass turned out to be a very large yet scrawny, shivering, wet, muddy and matted German Shepherd. She had some open sores and something was wrong with one of her legs. And she was so very scared. She was nothing but a mongrel that many would have just put to sleep. I remember thinking that if she lived, this mongrel would need a name… so I called her Duchess.

It took a while but I coaxed her out, fed her from my hand, bathed her and treated her wounds. Many days passed before she learned to trust me. I never did find out where she had come from. She had been lost and was found, wounded and near death but was now healed and healthy. She had been alone and now had a family. Over time Duchess became a strong shepherd. Instead of being afraid at the touch of her master’s hand, she became ridiculously devoted! She had been a filthy mongrel but within a month, I found her sprawled on the sofa! This mongrel loved the life of a Duchess!

My life is so much like that mongrel’s. With a soul that was lost, matted, muddy and afraid, I was far from God. Yet he pursued me. He came into the dark corner and called me out. He bound up my wounds, healed my soul, gave me a new name and a place at his table. And I am ridiculously devoted to Christ Jesus my Lord!

God’s hand of lavished love and incomprehensible grace might be strange to you but do not fear his touch. He calls you out of the darkness to give you a place at his table. Christ came that you might have life and have it to the fullest.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Jesus in John 10:10

Anchored in Grace,

Harrison