Reflections on the Christian Life

It seems like it should be easier after 43 years.
I must not be doing Christian right.
Shouldn’t I continually feel God’s presence and absolutely know His ‘perfect’ will by now?  Why don’t I pray without ceasing? Why don’t I live a more selfless life?  These are the questions I can waste a lot of time asking, but I know who’s really asking those questions.
My Adversary.  The Accuser.

God’s Perspective

God, my Father, never asks those things.

He knows my frame, that I’m of the dust and cobbled together by His power, that’s enough for now.

This dust sculpture doesn’t have to last forever.
God knows what I will be.  He’s in a completely different time zone and when I arrive there none of this dust will cling to me. This corruption must put on incorruption.  Mortality swallowed up in immortality.

My New Perspective

Learning to walk with Him is a long course.
Receiving from Him takes practice.  I keep trying to do it all myself as though I could. How to receive transformation?  How do I let the power flow in and up to overflowing?

First I’m asking for it.
I think I’ve quit depending. Quit expecting. Maybe even quit believing it could be so simple.
From now on I’m asking for abiding.
I’m asking for companionship. I’m asking to hear and receive.

I’m quieting the shoulds and tearing up the To Do list.
Walking with God isn’t about productivity; it’s about knowing Him deeply and enjoying Him fully.

Fresh Vision ~ Fresh Hope

There is some barren terrain between all that I know and the way I that I live.

A recalibrating is long overdue.
He’s been patiently waiting for me to tire of self-reliance and turn again to Him.

The Christian life is described as a race that’s set before us.
The old exhortation is to lay aside the weight and sin that so easily entangles us and run with endurance the race that is set before us—looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

Looking to Him.

I’m asking for companionship and then looking to Him.

There’s a beautiful thrilling mixture of peace and excitement when I think about what God has planned.
I know He has divine plans for me, for all of us whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  BIG PLANS.

Let’s Toss Out The Measuring Tape

To the world none of it is BIG.

They’re all wearing spiritual Kevlar that protects them from absorbing or being penetrated by eternal thoughts.
They never escape the earth’s atmosphere but spend all of this precious life focused on getting and spending.  They seek to make a name for themselves and the yardstick in each one’s hand is his fellow man.

 

 

Believers do it too.
Measuring.
Can we finally break the habit of self-measuring and trust Him for the growth and the end result?
He wants to welcome each of us with a “Well done good and faithful servant”, but distraction and the desire for “other things” chokes out the life sustaining word.

We hear, but not really.
It doesn’t sink down into our ears.

This life is a limited commodity.

I want to use it wisely.
I can’t accept a mediocre existence.
I believe in eternity and I care about people.
I want the talents He entrusted to make a good gain. I want to see a few people in heaven because I was faithful in my walk with God.

That’s what I really truly desire, a small part in the salvation and the edification of the people I have the privilege of meeting in this life.

I want to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to love the unloved and teach the sincere seeker.  I want women to love their husbands and children and men to be kind and caring. I want children to grow up knowing God because their mothers knew Him. I want husbands to want to know the God who changed their wife—filling her heart with love and her days with kindness and caring. I want pastors and their wives to be uplifted finding joy and peace in their calling.

I want to feel His presence as I minister and study and pray and cook and clean and walk through a village or pray with a friend who’s struggling. I want to live as an example of a believer in love and faith. I want to trust God as Sarah learned to trust and then received strength to conceive.
It’s not to late for me to bear miracle fruit in my old age.

I refuse to look back wistfully and think what might have been.

My eyes are facing forward and I have fixed them on Christ.
That plan He has will get revealed day by day and His strength is gonna flow through a pipeline called faith until it bubbles up and spills out of my life 😉