Thank you for joining us for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 889 of our trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For some, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. Some may utilize structured meditation practices.

In my life meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and praying. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and make sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you too will experience a time for reflecting and renewing your mind. 

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. There are many foolish people and situations in our world today which we should not follow or become involved with. There is an exception to this, and in our Meditation Monday today we will learn about…

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflected on the meaning of the cross, he concluded, “A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.” After all, everything about Jesus’ life was counter to the kingdom that his contemporaries were expecting and the empire that Rome had established. Perhaps, therefore, it is not so unusual that the nature of his kingdom would be “strange” to modern-day sensibilities? Even easier to reject. Especially a kingdom where the king suffers in apparent foolish weakness.

Brennan Manning said, “Jesus entered our world as the music man, but the world was disturbed by his song…” But did the nails silence the music? Could it be that, in those nails, God succeeded in putting into operation his new creation and plan for the world? Could it be that, in those nails, a new kind of music could be heard?

Anyone who looks at the cross as a single screenshot on the monitor of their mind will think God is not loving or powerful but cruel and unfeeling. But when we see the cross as a part of the whole story, we will see it as a shining tile in the divine mosaic that is the story of God.

That this tile reveals to us that God is not waiting for us on the other side of suffering. He understands its...