Los Angeles

Looking out from Jayne's Echo Park apartment, you can see the city of Los Angeles' skyline, and it just calls out to me for an adventure each time.  I stay here on business trips periodically and this time, I decided to jog the 4 miles down to the Staples Center where the LA Lakers play and other teams represent the city, and was not disappointed with what I got see on my way.  I have a little bit of Bilbo Baggins in me that hankers for a new adventure, with new sites and smells and people living a completely different existence than mine.  LA, block by block changes in an instant, from the business district down Figueroa St, to the homeless sleeping under overpasses, to the decaying neighborhoods two short blocks away.  As I ran, I asked God what he thinks about LA, and was His outlook and mood as gloomy as mine, as my thoughts helplessly run to the multi-layers of sin expressed in greed, pride, immorality, violence, etc.  I asked Him if He still delights in this city, invests any hope for restoration and redemption, or will wicked men just rule it like kings till the end.  I felt His delight for the people in all the different layers, His mood much brighter than my skepticism, and compassion far hotter than my cold assessing calculations.  God hopes all things, believes all things, and enjoys Himself, as He fully invests in redemption at every stage of sin's dark advance.  What shocks me and brings a skeptics doubt, sets Him back not at all.  I enjoyed my 8 mile adventure through downtown LA (There and Back Again, by Eric Baggins), but more enjoyed being with Him who is any crowded city's true light and joy.  Oh, if those who don't know Him like that could just taste and see, that the Lord is good, full of goodness and slow to anger, LA would be washed clean. I love this city!