The view of the sky - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:8

The view of the sky
The image in the man’s mind often startles him out of his dreams even today, 70 years later.

It is D-Day, June 6, 1944, the day the Allied troops invaded Normandy. The soldiers want to capture the stretch of beach that will later be called “Omaha Beach”. His unit is supposed to stop the enemy and drive them back. He sees one of the Allied soldiers jump off the landing craft ramp, wade through the water and run to the bluff, straight at him. There he shoots and hits the American soldier right in the chest. He sinks to his knees, lays his machine gun in the sand in front of him, takes off his helmet and folds his hands. Then he puts his head back and looks up at the sky … until he slumps.

This image, this one soldier, is always in his mind. It is not the many dead in the war that startle him; no, it is this one who prayed before he died. Again and again he has to think about it, “How can one be so pious that he still prays in the last second of his life?”

Perhaps you are also plagued by a particular experience in your life and a single scene keeps coming to mind: a word ... an encounter ... a glance – in thoughts or in dreams, suddenly and repeatedly.

I wonder if God might be speaking to you through this memory. It is His desire that you tell Him what terrifies you, what burdens you. He wants to forgive you transgressions, to give you peace. He wants you to be at rest inwardly: to be calm in the face of shame, or questions, or feelings of guilt in your life – but above all, calm in view of eternity.

Today’s reading: 2 Kings 19:14-24 · 1 John 5:6-12