Sage is a 12-year-old Labrador dog whose owners live in the state of Washington.
And there was a day on which Sage went missing,
which was bad enough news all by itself.
But in the area there had recently been sightings of mountain lions
and so the family was worried that something was going to happen to Sage.
And in addition,
Sage is blind.
Sage can't see anything.
So the family, and the friends, and neighbors,
they went out searching for Sage but they didn't find Sage.
And so they called in professional dog trackers
who searched for Sage for two days.
But even the dog trackers didn't find Sage.
And then three days went by and still no sign of Sage.
And then five days.
And seven days and still no sign.
Finally, on the eighth day,
a neighbor named Dan was out hiking in the woods.
And he came up to a little peak of a hill and he looked off in the distance
and he saw what looked to be Sage laying down on the ground
near a small stream of water.
As Dan ran toward Sage, he was thinking,
"How am I going to break the news to Sage's family that,
that Sage, that Sage is no longer,
that Sage is no longer alive."
But, but thankfully, as Dan got closer to Sage,
Sage lifted up her head and showed that that she was alive,
just barely, but she was alive.
And Sage survived.
Dan carried Sage on his shoulders all the way back
and brought, uh, and brought that happy news back to the family.
And sage was home again.
There might be times in life, no matter how old you are,
times in life when you feel maybe like Sage did
during those eight days in the woods.
Days when you feel lost
or alone.
There might be days when you open your eyes
and you just can't see anything good happening.
There might be days when you are
wandering through the woods of life
and you wonder if you're going to survive.
But even if that's true, even if that's the case for you,
God still gives us the right to believe and expect that we will survive.
In the book of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul reminds us of a very important principle
that Christians get to walk through life believing.
He says this. He says,
In other words,
we don't have to go through life opening our eyes
and expecting to see good things in order to know that we're going to be okay,
that we're going to survive.
We simply need to live by faith
in a Jesus
who didn't wonder if he was going to survive.
He knew that he wouldn't.
Jesus wasn't blind to what was going on around him.
He saw the whip.
He saw the nails.
He felt their pain.
He felt their sting.
And though he could have avoided it and run away
and been done with it and never felt it, he didn't.
And why?
Because he really wanted to give you something to believe in.
A God who will stick by your side,
even if doing so kills him.
And a Savior who would rise from the dead on Easter morning
just to show you that he really can keep a promise
to take you to the one place where there is no more death,
and no more pain, and no more wandering.
And where every last tear is wiped away.
Thank you for letting me spend some time with you
around the Word of God this week.
There are so many souls out there that need to see on a regular basis
the Savior that we're so blessed to be able to have faith in.
And you can help us reach those souls by becoming a Grace Partner.
Consider setting up a reoccurring gift to this ministry.
You can find out more information by clicking on the link in this post.
Prayerfully consider it.
God's blessings on your weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week.
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