One of my favorite conversations in the whole Bible transpires between Jesus of Nazareth and Pontius Pilate. This complex exchange takes place after Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin, the religious authority that ruled over all of Jewish life at the time. He spoke hardly a word to His own people, and they rejected Him. He held a profound conversation with a Gentile ruler, who in turn tried desperately to save His life. I often see the world in these two categories; the supremacists who think they know everything (and God shuns them), and the lost Gentiles of the world who know nothing, with whom God willingly engages.
When to Remain Silent
The Sanhedrin ‘trial’ if you will, took place in Mark 14:53-65. The Son of Man only spoke sparingly, if at all. I think it’s important to note that when He did speak, He told them who He was which in turn made them furious. These are the same individuals that pursued Him throughout His entire three year ministry. They were relentless.
They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law came together.
It was a big bullying ring. This angers me because I see the same thing today happening in churches who think they are the only ones that God has chosen – and yet, God does not engage with them, or only sparingly. It’s sad too, but it’s hard to have much empathy for legalistic dictators who think they’re always right.
Words carry the full force of life and death; God describes the tongue in such a manner. He knows exactly how the human being works, inside and out. His Spirit divides between our every thought and intention. God cannot be fooled:
“Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
When to Listen
Sometimes we think silence is just weakness. But silence is actually a powerful force. Why speak when no one is listening? You only diminish your self worth and cast your pearls before people who don’t care for you or like you – which gives them every opportunity to trample over you even more. It’s good to fast our words, our conversations, sometimes in order to reset the board internally and allow the Spirit of God to work in us. We can’t listen if we’re constantly talking, even if it’s prayer to God. To be still and listen for His answer provides a healing balm to our souls.
A Time of Reflection
It’s a good thing to take time to build our relationship with God and commune with the Holy Spirit. I’m glad I can do this with little repercussions. I’d encourage you today to add time to your prayer life where you’re not just presenting your petitions before our Father’s throne but also listening for His answers, His direction and His will in our lives. Practicing His Presence is a beautiful way to build our relationship with Him.
Some Additional Catching Up
So I’m not going to go into a ton of detail (and bellyaching and complaining) but I just recently found out that my thyroid has been under active for over a year. Probably for nearly 3-4 years now, slowly dying while sapping the very life out of me.
I couldn’t figure out what was going on, lifestyle? diet? not enough exercise? And in doing all these things I just thought I needed to do more. But as the years rolled by, I had less and less energy, not more. I was perplexed and concluded that I must’ve just broke, and indeed, I kinda did. When your body sabotages you, it can be a difficult thing to manage when you aren’t sure what’s happening.
I thought, ‘well, I guess I’m just lazy now. covid and all the ptsd broke me.’ And well, it did, but I still couldn’t understand why my recovery wasn’t happening faster. It wasn’t mental or emotional at that point. No, but a little thyroid hormone that decided to copout on me was the culprit! I had been talking to my aunt about this extensively and turned out we were on the right track. Then I found out at least one of my friends was also taking it and she encouraged me with the results she had. Turned her whole life around. Deadly, these hormones zapping away as our bodies show the signs of that mortal inevitability. I’m still going to hope in the promise that ‘He renews my youth like the eagles.’ I like that. No wonder we died at 45 two hundred years ago. Mortality is a creep!
Life is Strange
Well, who knows if this will actually work, taking this tiny little pill everyday, but I sure hope it does. Otherwise I really might as well retire to a tiki hut in Central America and blow away in the next hurricane. There’s nothing worse than having zero energy or enthusiasm about anything and even when you do, you’re so tired all day there’s little fun or enjoyment in it.
To think back over the past three years and how awful I felt about myself….things aren’t always as they appear, sweet people. Knowledge is power. Don’t let the Sanhedrin within dictate your life to you, or dictate to you who you are based solely on an antiquated set of past failures. God says your more than that, and indeed you are. Much more, friends.
So here’s to looking forward and doing more in the coming future. For now though, I think I’ll stop beating up on myself, pushing myself to do more, and being mad that I can’t do it and instead relax into a better state of mind, taking some time to just recalibrate, reassess and let this little pill work its wonders I think is in order.
Stay strong and rest in Him beautiful people, you are the apple of His eye~
When the righteous are in power, the people rejoice. This is biblical truth. I am thankful that we have Donald Trump for President otherwise our country would have been tossed into a gutter of far left radical sludge. I’m not angry with this current administration, am angry at the times. I’m frustrated that no one can give an honest, transparent answer. Mostly, I’m angry that the previous administration seems to have done horrific things to the people of this country and the world – releasing covid, executing tyrannical law complete with vaccine passports and mask mandates and how far apart from one another we could stand (1984 just scaled down a bit), and the destruction of our society by mobs.
Through a massive prayer initiative by the Church, God heard our prayers and the previous administration was removed from office. We succeeded in seizing the hour and the day for the Kingdom of God. I believe we saved our country from the control of the globalists and their heinous agenda.
Choosing God Over Satan’s Worldly Systems
Let’s be real, the Seven Pillars are not metaphorical but active systems Satan and demonic principalities use to hold sway over the children of man. Government, Business, Family, Media, Arts/Entertainment, Religion and Education. These are the highest battle grounds for influence upon all of God’s creation. God laid out what was happening in the spiritual realm:
From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent have been seizing it by force.
Matthew 11.12
It’s interesting that the word interjects a starting point for this phenomenon as beginning sometime during the days of John the Baptist. People often argue about the differences between the Old and New Testaments. To me they flow together seamlessly when you realize the following:
That Christ is the Seed spoken of in Genesis,
The same Seed foretold by every Prophet of old,
The same Seed born the Son of Man and of God,
The same Seed buried in the ground and Who died because as Jesus noted, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,”
And the Seed Who rose again from the grave and pulled us out of darkness along with Him,
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Colossians 2.15
It Isn’t God vs. Satan
Christ is the Seed that crushed the serpents head, Satan himself, by the power of the Cross. We tend to think evil is so powerful but it only bruised Christ’s heal, whereas Christ crushed evil’s head. No contest, I’ve said it before, the fight is not between God and Satan. Satan lost faster than a strike of lightening from the heavens to the earth. The word even speaks symbolically through the King of Tyre regarding this pathetic Cherub: Those who see you stare at you, they look at you carefully, thinking: “Is this the man who shook the earth, the one who made kingdoms tremble?
No. The battle is between the Church and Satan. My, my, my dear people of God, we have to understand this! Destined for the Throne by Paul E. Billheimer beautifully illustrates this truth we must grasp in order to wage this war in the heavens and see the result in the earth of our prayerful labor in Christ.
Seize the Hours, Seize the Days
Arrest the time you’ve been given, saints. Either the Church rises to the sound of the trumpet in battle and seizes the day or else the Seven Pillars will continue to crumble and fall. Israel, because of their disobedience lost all the splendor of the Days of Solomon, all their glory and pride. They lost their land promised to them by God. We have to fight the spiritual battle in prayer and in action. I don’t have time to write everything on my heart which concerns our present times. Either we lose our life for God or the world will devour us.
Someone I listen to regularly said they don’t see the United States anywhere in the Book of Revelation, implying it ceases to be a coherent country by future biblical accounts.
Now I have a difficult time believing this for many reasons I won’t go into here, but the thought of that struck a deep seated belief I thought wouldn’t come to pass – the loss of my nation, my homeland. I pondered this for sometime afterword and still do at times. It haunts me.
We see nations fall everyday it seems, Syria, Iraq, ancient Persia and Egypt, never putting ourself into that position. Nothing but God is permanent and everything that is permanent on this earth is still temporal to all of eternal life.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18
Revealing the Truth of the Word
It’s difficult to write like this, to write of spiritual truths because there is a war constantly against truth – a war in the heavenly realm and the natural realm we live in. It takes prayer and sometimes fasting to reveal the spiritual through our clay vessels and into the world to transform it. And I myself am insufficient oftentimes distracted and exhausted, fussy and irritable unwilling to put in the work. We’re all human and whipping ourselves continually isn’t helpful.
Look how many thousands of years it took God to bring to fruition the Promise of His Seed, Christ. This life is no joke. And yet we wrestle with all manner of difficult obstacles from emotional stress to psychological and genetic addictions to personality quirks then sin on top of that and the fire of Hell to top it all off. God knows this. He understands our struggle through Christ.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every respect as we are, but without sinning.
Hebrews 4.15
There is no mistake, no stumble, no wrong, no temptation, no heartbreak that the Lord does not understand or cannot empathize with concerning the children of man. None. We are not alone in our quest for His goodness, to see His goodness in the land of the living, in the land of our own lives, in our hearts and our thoughts. He knows and still forgives, without a moment’s notice.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Hebrew 8.12
The Holy Spirit is a Helper Not a Punisher; He is the Feminine Aspect of God the Father
God is renewal, He is life. Nothing for us as His people ever ends in death and darkness. Though these things are experienced commonly by us all, He will not suffer death to hold us, He will pull us out of all the darkness even if it is our own doing. That’s what the Cross is all about. We are too weak to save ourselves so God comes to us, as He always will, and rescues us from our wretched fallen state and washes us by His word, clothes us honorably in white clean robes and invites us to the seat at the side of Christ our Redeemer. He will never forsake us and He makes it clear time and time again He means what He says,
No one cared enough for you to do even one of these things out of compassion for you. Instead, you were thrown out into the open field, because you were despised on the day of your birth. Then I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’ There I said to you, ‘Live!’ I made you thrive like a plant of the field. Ezekiel 16.5-7
Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7.13-14
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8.38-39
May your soul be at peace, may God bring His peace into every aspect of your life. Rest in Him and knowing that no one is ever so far gone that His arm is not able to reach you and save you.
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:” Isaiah 59.1
He knows our troubles, He hears our cries. May we in turn hear His heart and do His will upon the earth to bring to fruition His Kingdom among the children of man.
As a followup to last week’s post I wanted to explore how God speaks of His Church in scripture and how different that Church is from the church concept of today. This concept, in my opinion, having been offered even during the times of Acts. The serpent was there in the garden, there’s always a serpent in the garden. So while God is building His Church, satan is feverishly creating the copy-cat to mimic God’s original idea and true vision.
The Church is The Body, Living and Organic
First of all, I’ve mentioned various times the scriptures indicating that no constructed building is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. But in fact, we are the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. (1 Corinthians 3:16) I’ve also shown that no man will build God’s Church, but that He will write His laws on our hearts, not in ritual form and formality that humans undertake as religion.
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
“This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”
Hebrews 10.15-16
God is not Religion. He is a living being, the Holy Spirit is a Person, and Christ is the risen living King, the Son of God. His word is living and active. We aren’t dealing with a dead letter. So then, if He writes the living word on our hearts, in our souls, that living word transforms us and we become the Church. We don’t travel to church. Alas, everywhere we go the Church goes with us because the Spirit indwells our physical bodies.
In reality, we just can’t assimilate this so we outsource it to a building, push it away, we reason that God is in that church at the corner of Rose and High Street. Because if He is in me……what does that mean for how I act and think, for how I carry Him within?
Stealing the Basketball
Now if the Church then is within my heart and all believer’s hearts, and God dwells within me so that I am His temple, then there is no more separation. And this, in fact, is why Christ manifested, to rejoin, to reconcile God with man. Sin no longer reigns in our bodies but Christ has redeemed us and since we are now cleansed and have the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21), the Holy Spirit indwells us, not a physical temple constructed by the hands of men. Instead, we are the living, organic temple of God. We have His power not unlike how Christ had His power:
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.
John 14.12
Which is easier to take from me? The basketball I’m bouncing in my mind, or the basketball I’m bouncing in this third dimensional space? Do you think the devil was going to let ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’ just spread without any bounds? He had to contain what Christ unleashed on the Cross, to seize it and bring it back under his control. He’s referred to as the Prince of the Air. He couldn’t offer Jesus all the glory of the world and its riches if he didn’t have the ability to turn them over.
So he stole God’s original idea and brought it back into this world as a dead building. One which he could easily control if need be, just look into the life of Bonhoeffer and you’ll understand. Even during Covid lockdowns we saw how easily it was to close the doors on the physical church buildings and keep the Body separated. Let’s face it, it is easier to take a physical thing from someone than a deeply held thought or belief. And so we have Satan’s Cuckoo Chick in God’s Nest.
God’s Heart for the Poor
I just finished reading a book call God’s Heart for the Poor by Philippa Stroud. I had the privilege of hearing her and other prominent voices speak earlier this year at an ARC conference in London. The Spirit of God was present when she spoke, it’s like a reflection that is familiar, (My sheep hear My voice) and so I wanted to know more.
There are books that teach us and encourage us, books that challenge us, and books that wreck us. For me, this book was one of the most difficult I’ve read, not in the arrangement of words, but because it places you in the uncomfortable seat of the person who’s given up their life to God in the service of others. A surrendering of the will to something more important: God’s heart for the human race He created.
I wish I could describe it more poetically but it’s simply too difficult. To peer into this radical abandonment and surrender of ourselves in service to others is terrifying. The book lays out what the Church should be doing if we want to emulate Christ in the earth. It troubles me, convicts me and moves me to tears.
This book for me describes what God’s original ideal for the Church truly is. It’s not flashy and pretentious. Nor is it filled with glorious art and architecture or beautiful stained-glass. Its wardrobe isn’t the finest of garments with golden goblets shiny and clean on the outside. On the contrary, it’s what God’s glorious Church should be; helping those on the fringes of life, alcoholics, drug addicts, violent individuals, unkempt and often using foul language – the uncomfortableness of it all! This book wrecked me. What Stroud documented was the emulation of Christ, of our pursuit of God’s original ideal Church:
We started regular Friday night outreach meetings that October, and soon forty or so needy people crammed the kitchen at Clarendon Street – sprawled on the work surfaces, anywhere. Many were drunk, but they’d come to meet with God. We’d worship, do some teaching and pray for them. It proved an exciting place to be because God showed up. Excerpt pg. 48-49
David and I believe very strongly that caring for the poor has to be the responsibility of the local expression of the body of Christ. A strong dynamic comes into play when a local church works with the poor, because God longs for the disadvantaged to become radical disciples of Jesus. That involves being built into His body – being knitted together with those who love him. He longs for churches full of people who were once broken, whom he has redeemed and restored and who go on to bring his restoration to others. pg. 177
Is This Not What Jesus Did?
Jesus didn’t clothe Himself in the finest of garments expecting to be pampered, revered, and kept separate from the people. He didn’t show up day after day to put on rituals and formalities. He didn’t expect everything to be strictly ordered with no room or invitation to the Holy Spirit to have communion with His people. Many churches today set the whole schedule out in stagnant repeatable rituals. Why? Because it’s comfortable! It’s calm, peaceful and predictable. Dignified, like God is…..right? The Church is clean and polished and ordered, that’s God’s original idea for His Body in the earth, right?
I’m wrecked…
Everyday life proved chaotic. Disturbed residents often tried to damage or kill themselves, which is why we took all the locks off the toilet doors. (Live-in staff learnt to sing or pray loudly, or else developed bowel problems!) One night a female resident with psychiatric problems set herself alight in the garden. Emma and a couple of other female helpers managed to put out the flames and to get her back into the kitchen, where she started kicking the vegetable rack and throwing tables and chairs about. The whole house came running as the three of them tried to restrain her. pg 55
‘Philippa, get over here now, Gail’s in the office, drunk. She’s going to get me the sack!’ I bundled Gail into my car and set off for the Accident and Emergency, just in case she’d taken an overdose as well as too much alcohol. A few yards down the road she threw up inside the car. pg 122
God is Challenging, He is Relentless for His Church, for His People and for the Lost of This World
I have not read a more uncomfortable book, tears in my eyes knowing we have so much to do and we’ve shielded ourselves in rock solid ways against this kind of work, the work Jesus was actually doing among the people, not sitting quietly in a church pew enjoying the air conditioned sanctuary and our thoughts on lunch or whatever else we’d rather be doing.
My heart is broken, for the Church, for my own insufficiencies, our lack as a whole to come together and actual do what Christ instructed us to do. This is why I am angry, why my passion and zeal for God is more than I can manage. Maybe it’s what God is going to do to all His people until we stop what we are doing, all the empty vanities of what we call church, and listen to what the Holy Sprit is speaking to our hearts, however uncomfortable it makes us.
This book demonstrates the work that defines The Kingdom of God in the earth. This is only one aspect of what Christ was speaking of, but it is a most difficult one to bear. Not everyone is called to this type of work. Perhaps this call is only for a season, but it is necessary and one to be highly esteemed and admired.
When I was 27 I bought my first computer. That was the year 2000. It was the era of the Apple relaunch and I can remember the first time I walked into our local CompUSA and discovered an array of stunning, colorful computers in the back corner of the store. A wonderland of screens and cases and keyboards all glowing and calling my name from some otherworldly realm. The iMac was a magical mushroom no one had ever seen before and it offered a new experience: an art exhibit in the middle of a boring, techbox store.
I’d never seen anything like it. No one had. I can’t remember now how many visits to that store I made but I found myself walking through the enchanted wonderland of Steve Job’s creations and pining away. A set of Harman Kardon speakers encased in clear plastic sci-fi bubbles came with the package. Works of art and I thought, ‘I’ll have those one day.’ (Fast forward twelve full years, and I did.)
These plastic and metal artworks presented a conundrum for me, one that I couldn’t overcome in the end. See, I’m practical, always weighing the benefits of a thing with its aesthetic. I’d ask the tech guys at work about how compatible iMacs were with PC’s and they’d always shake their head and instruct me to ‘do the right thing‘ and buy the PC. They were right because at that time hardly any external software came with the iMac. Nothing was compatible and there was no such thing as Microsoft Word for iMac computers. Even email formats were wonky when sent from iMac users.
Practicality When a Mushroom Beckons
I barely had the money to buy any computer at all, much less two. So one had to go. You can guess which one since I’m still here, 25 years in the future reminiscing about a visionary’s creation that was so stunning it captured the imagination of the individual, and then the world. There has been nothing like it since and even if there was, it would never satisfy within me that first encounter with a glowing mushroom called iMac that I’d never seen or experienced before. It was magical.
I read my credit card off to the Dell salesman over the phone and within a couple of weeks, I had a brand new flat screen Dell PC sitting in my living room. It weighed five tons, was black and gray plastic and came with a full surround sound system including a subwoofer. Nothing about it glowed. The speakers weren’t transparent, artsy or aesthetically pleasing, none of it was, but it worked and its utilitarian features helped me to create plenty of interesting music and writings. I remember the day, some six years later, my friend agreed to help me drag that flatscreen monitor to the curb for the garbage pickup, complaining the task broke his back. I giggled, apologized and thanked him, well aware it weighed five tons.
Regret Doesn’t Always Mean Mistake
To this day, if I ask myself seriously, would I go back and buy the Mac instead, my decision would be the same. Some things simply aren’t usable to everyone, and to me I was not tech savvy enough to navigate different operating systems. The only way I would have also procured the iMac is if I’d had the means to acquire both. Then I would have taken my chances on the Mac knowing I could buy the PC if I found beauty to be less utilitarian than I’d hoped.
I’m practical. And I’m not upset about it. In fact, it’s one of the few strengths I have that has kept me balanced in life. There’s nothing quite like being raised by an artistic, mad, bohemian mother. A beautiful but broken genius whom my father balanced to a great degree. I have enough of his pragmatism to navigate through life steadily and enough of God’s love to just skirt the edges of catastrophe.
The Practical and The Unknown
There will never be another moment like those few months in the year 2000 when I teetered on the fence of aesthetics verses practicality – that regretful memory, the colors, the awe of artistic vision suspended forever perhaps in my mind like a beautiful wonderland that was just out of reach. Even if the exact same computer relaunched today, and even if I bought one I doubt it would satiate the void which was the result of a decision to walk the path of convention as opposed to novelty.
Sounds silly, but memory isn’t always the best of navigation devices. Nostalgia is deadly.
To look back now those iMac computers look dated, out of touch and I laugh at myself silently about it. How could something that seems so insignificant now still be part of my memory bank?
Who knows to this day how much my practical decision cost me. Or how much it saved me. Perhaps it’s trivial enough that it really doesn’t even matter. Balance, I suppose, matters most. There’s nothing like conventional to kill the spirit of creation; and there’s nothing like the unconventional to exact change in the world.
An Eternal Flame is a Controlled Burn
The world and the individual then needs both the chaos of creation and the practicality of convention – a controlled burn – in order to balance the curiosities of life and the utility of daily living. This balance plays out over the longest length of time. I might venture to say that the most unconventional decisions could actually be the best direction to take if balanced with reason.
Maybe all of this is the meaning that wraps itself into and throughout our lifetime here on earth, where the most important decisions are sometimes the quietest; the ones least understood because their results are laid up in heavenly treasures which are yet unseen from this side of eternity.
Nostalgia is not my favorite past time. It slams into me sometimes, like a wake up call to get busy, get on with it, time is short and very few things in life are worth it. Everything our flesh desires is temporal and fades away. All the riches of this earth are never certain, things rot, burn, fade and disappear. For me, the ultimate essence of a life well-lived is how successfully we align ourselves to become vessels used by God for His purpose on this earth. The battle between my will and His will is no joke. But He is all that I am at the end of it all. Without Him I would surely pass away, my spirit could not handle remaining in this body if its Savior were to pull away. People can come and go, time can pass away, but if He leaves, I’ll leave with Him. Thank God He promises He will never leave us nor forsake us. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere God isn’t.
If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead), behold, You are there.
(Psalm 139.8)
What we misunderstand about the tapestry of life; some threads are woven in as accents to brighten an area of our life we couldn’t otherwise discern. Some threads start at the beginning and remain. Humans are strange and dangerous, here we are striving to birth a child savior in AI and we don’t have a clue what we’re dealing with. We’re lonely and aching for something or someone to belong to, yet out of pride we refuse our Maker and choose to make another in our own fallen image. It will be a catastrophe.
God Knows All Things
I remember several years ago, my father was still alive, it was 2022. I had found a decent amount of success after resigning from a corporate job that plagued my creative life, (as those 9-to-5’s always do), but my financial timeline wasn’t limitless. Through some meager successes I had added another year to the creative journey I’d embarked upon, but I was still nervous about it. And it was the height of covid B.S. and DEI insanity. I had caught on to the fact that for the most part, anyone white was being discriminated against, even if they were already established, much less if they were looking for a door of opportunity as a beginner. I was trying to break into the sci-fi publication corner. (There couldn’t have been a worse time to try.)
But on this morning in late Spring, I was floating in the strange sleep state of half awake, half asleep and a powerful vision unfolded before me. A golden sun hovered several hours above the horizon, the sky still blue but just below the glowing sphere emerged the pink and orange hues of twilight. I could feel His presence. Then I heard, as if audibly, a voice say,
‘The sun will not fall below your horizon.’
I awakened immediately, sitting up in my bed, in awe. Every part of my body felt it, that’s the best way I know how to describe it. I didn’t just hear the words, I felt them. I knew everything was going to work out and a sense of peace was tangibly present. It was the Holy Spirit because faith was also immediately available.
But like everything in life, especially as one gets older, there is no win without some other aspect of our lives being tempered. As blades of grass, my father passed away within a few months, hurricanes demolished the coast of Florida, and people can hate you not because of you, but because of envy, or lack of control over you, or just because they choose to be hateful. The massive amount of complications life can throw at us is sometimes unbearable to contemplate. The treasures of this world never last.
Covid Era Polarization
The years between 2020 and 2024 were nothing short of a preemptive horror show. I’ve said it before but I felt like one of the bizarre psychics in the conscious mind-pool of the movie Minority Report. I could see what was coming, the beast slithering its tentacles into the infrastructure of mankind and wrestling us to the ground, bound and shackled. I think what could be the most difficult part about the beast is that it perhaps won’t be a figure, a person or a point on a map with a location. It’s going to be an infrastructure, a thought pattern that becomes the final snare for mankind. I can barely think of it without having to break the vision. It’s too overwhelming.
For me, the only way to face something like this is through prayer. And not the daily prayer that keeps us in communion with God. A deeper, dedicated prayer life, one as a monk perhaps would have. There’s no other way to prepare the vessel for use by the Holy Spirit than to dedicate the whole self to Him. And I’m in a position to do that. I’d have to let go of a lot of things. Trust in God would be paramount.
A Strangely Mapped Landscape
People are difficult. I’m difficult. I’ve found the post-covid era demarkation lines to be quite brutal. I never knew just how liberal the majority of my friend base was. It didn’t matter because it wasn’t seen, and what isn’t seen can’t be mapped or known. Now with social media, things are getting mapped quickly and with great definition.
With a few of my friends, we hardly have anything to talk about outside of events and other people’s lives. And since I generally don’t get into these things, I don’t have anything to talk about with them anymore. It was the art scene that was the main draw, people love to associate with artists. (Just not conservative, God-fearing, anti-woke/esg/dei artists, I’ve come to understand.) These are friends I’ve had in my life for decades. But if they aren’t excited and curious and living for God, what do we have in common? The Lord is gently closing doors, and I must remember what I know about the tapestry…
Art Has Become A Conundrum For Me
It was my art. I realize that now. There are no better supporters of art than liberal minded people. And I had far less worldview problems pre-covid. Or maybe it was pre-Trump era. And though we all have much love for each other, the underlying hate and rage for anything Christian, Conservative and/or anti-woke was too much of a gap to bridge. You can feel it simmering under the surface, your friend loves you but loathes something about you too – even they are struggling to understand it. And God forbid anyone brings up the subject of politics while out to lunch. I’ve learned to not keep my mouth shut, whereas before I would have tolerated disrespect against my values and worldview, no more.
I once had a friend say to my face, after telling them how I was going to vote, ‘Yeah no, I can’t respect anyone who votes like that.’
Wow….and now they wonder why they don’t see me much anymore.
I’m Not Sure If Art Is Worth It, Nor Politics
On social media, I still find myself restraining my tongue. For various reasons, mainly on FB because this is where my friends and family are and my community. Why disrupt things? Then they just attack whatever I’ve posted. People follow me for my art. And the minute I express my views on political matters, my posts are ignored, or attacked or they stop supporting my art. And I totally get it, I do the same. This has got to be one of the most hostile environments we’ve had throughout all of history. Was the scare of ‘Communists among us’ back in the 1940’s-50s ever this bad? Maybe, but since I wasn’t alive then, it seems pretty damn bad now.
Almost once a month I’m seeing a post from someone who has lost a near lifelong friend over religion or politics. I love to see stories when Christians come together, crossing denominational lines and acting as one Body of Christ – as we should be acting! This is why any church that claims they are the only one going to heaven draws my fierce indignation.
Let Go Of Offense
There is a huge shift coming, I can feel it and have known it for years. The old movement of God is passing into the history books. I was on the end of that movement and believe me, when you move on and away from them, they will despise you. Offense is one of the worst sins one can commit against the self. If you find yourself despising someone outwardly, check that you aren’t inwardly offended. I always bear in mind what happens to those who remain in offense:
Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”
(Matthew 11.4-6)
And the result of John’s offense towards Jesus was nothing short of deadly:
The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.
(Matthew 14.9-11)
Jesus, upon hearing this immediately withdrew from the crowds to be alone. It shook Him deeply what had happened to John. It could have been averted, but John could not get past Jesus leaving him in prison, thinking surely He would have come to his rescue if He was the true Messiah. What a terrible thing to succumb to. “If you loved me you would have…..”
Stay out of offense, sweet people of God. It will behead your life and cease any forward movement in God. It’s not worth it, no one is worth that.
Pastors Need To Learn To Let People Go When God Calls Them Away: Pastors are Shepherds, Not Dictators, Not Wardens
It took me awhile to sort out what was happening, why some people were so against me for refusing to promote their sacredly held beliefs. Once you have a revelation about a previously accepted view and God shows you the error in it, you can’t ‘play church’ anymore. One must move on where the Spirit is beckoning. When God moves, you move with Him and those stuck in their own idea of what God is get left behind, grabbing at your coattails and calling you the bad one….let them be. Pray for them that they don’t drown in their offense, but don’t let God out of your sight.
They couldn’t learn from their mistakes and so they are being shut down. Not losing their salvation as individuals, but losing the Spirit of God and their compass. Whenever the old passes away, behold the new is arriving! Indeed, it’s already here. Now this is exciting to me:) Very little interests me outside of God. And it will be through prayer that fortitude and endurance is established over our lives. I still feel good about these coming four years of change. If I can get my act together, perhaps whenever the darkness comes up from the sea again, I’ll be prepared next time to rise from my dwelling and unsheath my sword.
It’s good to be prepared, in season and out of season, for the work of God.
Social Media is Getting Old, Or God is Trying to Tell Me Something
So this brings me back around to social media in general and the art of managing time. The absolutely useless arguments that we can get wrapped up in. I’m losing patience, especially with myself. Some discussions are interesting and worthwhile. Others are just time-drains. Now that things are looking a bit brighter out there, this might be the perfect time to draw nearer to God in an even deeper way. I will not allow myself to be caught unaware with only a half-filled oil lamp.
I feel as though whatever books I want to write, whatever paintings I may paint, they are hidden in Him. And unless I seek Him, I won’t find what I’m looking for. What sense is it for me to write a book? I’m not that interesting or good. But the book that is in Him, that’s the book I seek to write. I can feel it. And there is no chance I will find it or write it without first pressing into Him. This will take prayer, fasting and reading His word.
Not just for a few minutes a day. I believe this is going to be my career, if you will, for the next several months if not years. I just have to overcome my whole self. Simple enough, right?
I’m angry. I just hope I can turn it into a fervor that cannot stop me from drawing closer to God. Satan will do anything to keep us from entering into the presence of the Almighty. Because the devil knows, when we get our motives out of the way, God’s power through us to change and heal the world for good will be limitless. The sun will not set on us, my brothers and sisters. We have a great work to do in this earth still.
The Days are Coming
God will have His way in the earth. And it will be executed through a consecrated Body of Christ, His people. But the tempering must occur first, the price must be paid in prayer and fasting. And if you think this is an easily accessible goal, try to live even for a few weeks in a fasted, prayerful state. You’ll have so many doors of opportunity open to you that you won’t know which to open first. People knocking, events beckoning, distractions glaring…..
because……the devil knows us….he knows us all too well.
It’s difficult when we don’t just have an enemy in the devil, but we also have our own flesh to contend with and crucify daily. Time is tangible and adds up, it’s fleeting and adds insult to injury. We are third dimensional creatures with many things ticking outside and inside against us. If anyone thinks they can do it alone, they are sorely mistaken. God is our only hope, the Body of Christ our community of faithful believers. He will bring to us everything and everyone we need to make this life a beautiful consecration to Him, one that counts, one that lays up treasures in heaven where nothing and no one can destroy it, and that changes the world systems bringing heaven to earth; His government rests on our shoulders, the Body of Christ. Or didn’t you know that wherever you go, you present in the spiritual realm as an Ambassador of God’s Kingdom? His Body is going to shift worldly systems and bring salvation to billions of lost people.
This is what I’m aiming for, and a time of preparation will be necessary to fulfill it.
I recently returned from a trip to Boston. I love big cities. They are always awake and always open for business. I also like the way of living far more than small town – each has its advantages I suppose – one offering a slower pace to life and one engaging and always beckoning attention and involvement.
I never clocked less than 10K steps a day while in Boston, and that’s without any extra dedicated time. In small towns, there’s no great possibility of walking or biking. Stores and destinations are just too far apart. In many instances, biking and driving took the same amount of time in Boston. Even in small ‘cities’ like Lexington, there is no decent public transportation that runs frequently enough without wasting an hour and a half waiting at bus terminals. A fifteen minute car drive is the only alternative.
We’re walking through the MIT tunnels to catch the rail to a 5K, not mine, just to be clear.
I was talking with a friend up there who stated it quite perfectly. He said that there’s an energy you can feel when walking the city. You always have other people bustling about, things are happening like deliveries, events, shows, students, other runners or cyclists on the city streets with you no matter the time of day. But to walk to a friends house in a suburb of a small town, all the houses shut up, curtains drawn, lawns are the same, row after row – it’s just an excruciatingly boring walk.
It’s true!
I do my best to walk daily – which I have to make time and drive to the park. But I have to work much harder to get 10K steps whereas the city seems to provide ample opportunity for healthy living without even trying.
Anyway, I guess I want too much just in general. Maybe we all do. We want everything that is good about all we’ve experienced combined for a perfect life. It’s just not going to happen.
I daydream about living in a big city. Who daydreams about something so mundane? Maybe I’m seeing a vision, this happens to me sometimes. Will have to pay more attention to these daydreams.
Motivators
I have to consider why something is being done, why I’m taking a particular action. Shouldn’t we all consider why we are doing certain things in our life? Jesus said to lay up treasures for ourselves in Heaven because the treasures of this world rot and disintegrate and pass away. Entropy. Even ideas that seem to propagate suffer deterioration if they aren’t of any eternal value.
I’ve noticed how much the wrong ideas about God propagate on social media. People who are Christians saying that what makes a shepherd inadequate is not preaching the goodness of a particular political party to their congregations. In other words, not using a position given by God to push your own political agenda is unacceptable as a Christian Pastor. Like, what kind of Hell-talk is this? Who is embodying the essence of the great Accuser of the Brethren here?
How is it that Christian influencers are falling into this treacherous language against Christ?
And then, as if just speaking it isn’t treacherous enough, we have loads of ‘avatars’ liking the post, not because they are Christians necessarily, but because their agenda lines up with the poster’s comment.
These Christians influencers will be held accountable.
Anything we say – especially if we have followers on a massive level – will be solely our responsibility come the Judgement. ‘But someone else taught me that!’ This argument, my friend, will hold no water with God almighty. He has already warned us, ‘My people perish for lack of knowledge.’ This is why I am so adamant, esp with those God has laid on my heart, in correcting when someone is going down the wrong path. I care for them AND I care for all those children of God they are leading astray. I say children because they may be the few who are exempt, though still they will perish at the hands of ill-informed leaders, if they are never correct and taught proper biblical truth.
This is why leaders will be judged with far more weight than the children they are leading and influencing.
Hence this warning given: ‘Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.’
Now we just as easily can put ‘influencers’ in place of teachers. Same thing, same process of passing along the wrong information about God in this example. Do I know everything? Of course not! Which is why I’m grateful (though maybe at first quite irritated) when I get corrected. Correction, admonishment, saves our lives!
Now that alone keeps me from stepping out as much as I might be, it’s a grave thing to have great influence and be dead wrong about something so grave as life and death of a person’s soul and body. That’s my issue I must overcome.
The Wicked Won’t Win, Even Though Now They Appear To Prosper
The wicked shall not prosper. There’s a verse that admonishes, ‘do not envy the prosperity of the wicked.’ And it’s easy to do that. This life on earth has many interesting and pleasurable things we could use our vessels to indulge in, yet this assuredly brings death. God knows the human’s psychological makeup better than anyone or anything. Even Satan understands human psychology better than humans do, duh..
Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37.1-3
Everywhere I look anti-Christ organizations, corpse-porations and blasphemous God-haters seem to garner praise, financial gain and worldly clout. But like, who wants that kind of ROI?
Death of self would be our aim today, in this world of indulgent pleasures, including dopamine kicks-and-giggles that social media tends to deliver to our starving central nervous receptors. Sometimes I wonder if Christians aren’t saying these ridiculous things because they believe the more social media likes and praise they garner means somehow they are doing the right thing and are approved of God.
My God, people! This is such a trap. All of this misdirection must burn away. Self-centered ambitions must burn away. I know, far easier said than done – and I don’t have thousands of followers…God help me if I ever do. I might run away, which would result in zero benefit to anyone.
And there are always whales at-the-ready for servants of God who run….fantastic…
It’s a problem of space and time for me, I think. It’s a problem of losing. Losing things. And I hate losing things. I hate losing time and options. I need an eternal view, not a here-and-now view. Many who are smarter than I, keep correcting my thought on this: I must narrow my path which sacrifices all other paths I could walk and proceed with all focus in one direction. This is excruciating for me even though I know that to do otherwise just keeps the wheels spinning unproductively.
Everyday Witnesses Through Their Gifts
The Lord has been bringing unique individuals to my attention. People I would never find in the circle of interests I have, and these people are full-on dedicated to the work of God’s kingdom here on the earth. They aren’t formally in the ministry at all, they are chefs, or skateboarders, or comedians – all manner of professions but they never miss a beat to talk about God during an interview about their chosen profession or craft. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
And quite frankly, they speak with much more profound depth and authority about God than those who are in positions of prestige or power within the church (noun, place) today. I became disillusioned about the structure of church organizations and institutions since the mid-2000s.
Indeed, we all wrestle with God at some point.
God always calls the Gideon, or the David, or the Esther when they are known by few and obscure. I think this is amazing and I love to watch it unfold in a life; how the seemingly smallest is made the greatest among us, not by their own hand of power, but by offering all their strengths to God to use for His glory.
This kind of wrestling is among the most difficult because it is our weaknesses, the self, the ego, the intellect like Leviathans pushing forward within us for control when, perhaps one might say, the hero overcomes them to submit his or her vessel with all its inadequacies to the will of God, as Jesus did. It’s nothing short of miraculous. Indeed, without the Spirit of God, we could not possibly do it. Faith is a powerful thing when it’s witnessed working through an individuals life.
I’m seeing this more and more, in the most far away corners of the world; God’s people lighting up and flashing a signal, as it were, that God is ever present and available to save and guide into a more abundant and rewarding life. That is, if we can pay the price. There’s always a sacrifice.
God’s Refinery
God’s fire is all consuming. And whatever is not of Him burns off of our lives. God help those of us who have built much in this world but little in the kingdom of God. It’s no fun to walk through the fire, but in the end we are certainly better for it. The continual regeneration of life is an unmistakeable attribute of God. Without Him, there is no life-force. I can’t take this train of thought too far here, it’s one blog post, but it ties in with so many other aspects of the human-Christ-eternal dynamic.
MIT tunnel graffiti, hallway art.
If anyone abides not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
John 15.6
The above scripture is exactly how it is. But there are other scriptures which indicate that what isn’t burned up, remains.
Paul says that if our work is burned up, we will suffer loss – there’s my loss hang-up – though we will be saved, but only as through fire. So I would even go as far as saying if anyone doesn’t subject themselves to the fire to burn away what should not be there, then they themselves cannot be saved. Either we chose it voluntarily and in doing so we pass through it, or we succumb to it involuntarily and lose our lives as well.
Peter tells us that everything that makes up the universe will burn and be destroyed and that heaven will pass away. This informs the reader that everyone will pass through that fire; but some things aren’t burned up but remain, continue, live on. And in the case of Christ, that living is eternal.
And again, Paul states that there is coming a great shaking and everything that can be shaken will be. But what is of God and eternal will remain. So this ‘passing through’ is a phenomenon we all must subject ourselves to, I think it’s voluntary, first. But if we don’t do this, run from it or deny God, the fire still must be passed through and we will also lose ourselves, our inhabited vessels even to the flames.
Now let’s think about our lives and how much will be consumed by the fire, how much we’ve done for our own self-centered ambitions and striving to impress other humans in this world. That’s a difficult thought experiment. But let us importantly remind ourselves of this, we are saved not by our own hand but by Christ.
This is so because we are in Him, we abide in Him and guess what? He had no evil in Him so that when He passed through the flames of Hell taking the keys of death Hell and the grave from that pesky Cherub, everything who was Christ rose again. In other words, His body also, being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing could hold Him, not even the death which was appointed to all of us to suffer, once. So indeed God’s words were true, Jesus suffered death, once as appointed to every man. But again,
But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Acts 2.24
And again, this is one portion of our promise, having been adopted by Him as His own children, a prophecy that is the Spirit of Christ, we shall inherit life eternal:
…because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
Psalm 16.10
The grave couldn’t hold Him, nor will it hold us, dear brothers and sisters.
Okay, I can’t help but think how long it took me to write this one post. How does one measure time wasted or time spent productively?
Have a beautiful week, all you curious people. Or if you’re feeling adventurous; have a curious week, all you beautiful people~
Featured Image: Snapshot of more MIT graffiti, taken by yours truly~
Being unconventional can get you into a load of trouble with humans. It can also be a powerful tool in a boring, (even dangerous) lemming-like society.
I’ve never been one for following the crowd, and as long as I am quiet everything is fine. But I’m usually not quiet. And when you begin blazing a trail in the opposite direction, and those conventional humans start seeing it, (even seeing you doing well at it) you’ll receive plenty of flack.
Many people choose to follow the mainstream because their parents and grandparents did. If it worked for them and they are happy, then they made the right decision… for their life.
I. Never. Wanted. That.
The problem is, I see people resigning their lives to the pressure of the mainstream. And it isn’t easy walking the road less travelled. But resigning out of fear or difficulty is different than making a thoughtful decision to do so. Mainstream is intolerant of unconventional ideas and ways of thinking.
Seventy-five years ago in 1945, getting married, having children, holding down a good job with a pension, (or if you were a woman, keeping house and husband and kids at the expense of your own desires), was all the rage. It’s what a contemporary American family looked like. No more. And I like to challenge people and why they believe the way they do and why they’ve made the choices they’ve made – oh boy! That’s a crowd pleaser, let me tell you!
But I do care. I care that people 1. Get out of this way of thinking if they want to, but if not 2. Don’t impose this way of thinking on others, which decreases one’s value as an individual person and limits people’s potential.
It is a difficult balance to keep: not caring what people think about me and yet, showing people that I care for them. Fortunately, I did a pretty good job of staying out of the clutches of traditional, conventional living.
Alas, but not quite.
Here I find myself – again – in a daily corporate grind. It is an unhappy place for me. Think about this: eight hours of the best part of the day spent making someone else lots of money. Pushing papers. Calculating totals, Excel spreadsheets, emails, phone calls….working for a paycheck is not freedom. Just try to leave at 2 in the afternoon and go enjoy a hike for the rest of the day without telling anyone. Just try sleeping in until 8am, then instead of getting in your car and rushing to work because your late, you head to the park, or shopping or anything – you’ll be getting a phone call. Or your ears boxed tomorrow.
Or maybe even a pink slip.
Oh, you can do whatever you like, but there’ll be consequences for it.
Freedom to Pursue His Calling on Our Lives
Lack of freedom is anyone or anything capable of dictating to you how your time is to be spent without you having a choice to agree to it or power to refuse it.
Work is important. Very important. But so is satisfaction and especially what you are called to do in this short life you’ve been given. Don’t take God’s Calling over your life lightly. It’s serious business..
The Calling is a pull – a steady desire of your heart that you want to fulfill or that you feel drawn towards. It could be broad or specific but it will not let you go. The sad thing is, many people let the Calling go because they see no other way to get out of societal judgment, the corporate grind, the conventional machine, the daily slog of humanity to make a living.
Forget. That.
I found my way out once with God’s help. I’ll find my way out again.
Let me also say here, that sometimes there are silent, unnoticed seasons God will take us through to prepare us for the Calling over our lives. We’ll talk more about this later, but the Bible does say, ‘despise not small beginnings’. The critical issue is not giving up your dreams because you see no way out. Determine in your heart that giving up is not an option for you! God will show you how to overcome the situations you encounter so you can move into the blessings He has for you.
Conventional Paths are Acceptable
The problem can sometimes be people, especially when they don’t think like you. Most people find unconventional thinkers an affront to their carefully indoctrinated, socially-accepted lives. But when these people are our friends, family or mentors, we’ll listen to them, be made to feel guilty by them, have our value decreased or be made to feel foolish or selfish and before we know it, bam!, right back into the slog we go…
After all, who are you to have something different and better? Or maybe they don’t understand that their ‘happy’ is not your ‘happy’? Or perhaps they had to give up their dreams to fit in, and their hope of a better happier life in order to be socially accepted — so you should too! Because what does that say about them if you get out and blaze a better trail when they did not? You should suffer the same way they still suffer…
No. Way.
I just cannot accept less than what my heart is longing for – it’s what God put there to begin with and I must find it. Is your heart burning for something more powerful that will impact people’s lives in a great and meaningful way? Don’t forsake that desire in your heart. It’s probably your Calling.
Time. Oh Lord help me. I am starved for time. The 8-5 workday takes my energy, performing for something other than what my heart desires.
Time Links Value and Money Together
When I was in my 20s and 30s I had time and plenty of left over energy! Not so much anymore. Listen, isn’t your time more valuable than sitting behind a desk helping no one in any meaningful way? Time affords us the ability to think, invent, write, encounter, discover all kinds of things which in turn, brings the world around us to a better place. Try doing all that behind a desk, pushing papers and trying to figure out which cell has the wrong formula in that God forsaken Excel spreadsheet…there are only so many hours in a day, and even less productive hours…
Remember, what ever it is you’re working to obtain is also what you are exchanging your life for.
Think about this: how many years of your life did you exchange for that car you are driving? How about the phone your holding in your hand right now?
If you made $50,000 last year and your car cost you $50,000, well then, every hour of every day you worked for a solid year was exchanged for that car. It doesn’t matter how many months you spread the payment over.
It seems unfair, but it isn’t – some people can work one month, earning fifty-thousand dollars and exchange one month of their life for a car. It’s just how the world works down here.
The choice then, that we all have is this, “what can I do to make my life more satisfying and rewarding right where I am?”
Because money isn’t the answer. Freedom is the answer.
Money Is Freedom
Trust me, you don’t need to be rich to be satisfied and live a fulfilling and rewarding life. Listen to King Solomon when he said that much wisdom can bring much sadness. Money can also bring its own oppression.
We also must face the truth that in many ways, money is freedom. Or it can at least buy you financial freedom to pursue what you want. But many get slogged down and miss the beat. Money can work for you or against you. And you don’t need money to find your Call or work in a field that is fulfilling and satisfies you personally. Understand that money is only a tool and half the battle is won.
Hold on tight. We’re going to get into a lot of unconventional thinking in the next several weeks/months that encompasses more than just work and the daily grind. Is your work fulfilling and satisfying and at the end of the day helping others and pushing the envelope to make this world a better place? Then thank God for that! We will all benefit from your valuable time being spent doing something awesome for the world. But let’s not stop there because God has so much more for us! And when we are done, we may just find ourselves a little more free and a little closer to living in the Call of God that is over our lives. Until next time…
Here we are at the cusp of another year ending and a new one beginning. Even though it’s a day just like any other, there is something more poignant about observing the calendar change from one year to the next.
It’s a time when many begin to reflect on the previous year and try to summarize its overall theme. If only life could be like that – where we could take certain times and seasons and leave others behind. But our lives are cumulative where each experience, every emotion and every circumstance adds to our life and our character. Sometimes life doesn’t always imbue a celebratory reaction from us, especially when we’ve suffered loss, setbacks, depression or other difficult circumstances.
In a way, our lives are like tapestries where everything and everyone we experience are woven into the fabric and as time passes, the colors change and the work of art expands and begins to show the intricacies of God’s hand in our lives. People are woven in that continue in the tapestry for the whole of our lives. Others are woven in only for a few seasons, and then their thread ends. Sometimes when we go through the rough patches in life, we can’t see the whole picture, we don’t fully understand how it could be of any use to us at all to lose things, to hurt, or to experience difficulties.
And really, God has given us every means of getting through this life while keeping joy, peace and love close to us, surrounding us and keeping us through all the darker hours of our life. But I will be the first to admit, this is difficult in and of itself. I have at certain times in my life clung tightly to joy so as not to drown in sorrow; but alas, I drowned anyway.
But isn’t this life? Isn’t life a choice? If so, then we need to choose life. God never said we wouldn’t have to endure suffering; but he doesn’t at anytime say depression, darkness and fear are things we have to live with. No. That is the Good News of the word of God, that we do not have to fall prey to these things. We will have to work through them, but the promise is that love, joy and peace can be had throughout our suffering. The promise is that Jesus has made the way for each of us to commune with God having paid that price for us. And with God, all things are possible, this instills hope, which in turn increases joy. And suffering won’t last. To everything there is a season, as Solomon said, so just know that your season of happiness and peace and freedom are coming.
If it’s one thing that should be remembered, it is that we should never feel guilty about our emotions and how we work through them. It is never acceptable to hurt others because we cannot control our own emotions. But don’t feel guilty if you are in a place of mourning, or sadness or regrouping and getting your life back on track and it’s taking you longer than you thought. Your true friends will always be there to encourage and help. (But if anyone is hurting you because of their inability to take responsibility for themselves and their own emotions, then think long and hard about why you are allowing this person to stay in your life.) Sometimes moving forward and making positive changes means walking away from someone who is hurtful to you.
Trials make us stronger. They dig into the deepest part of our soul and challenge us to rise up and overcome. Don’t get down on yourself if you are unable to rise immediately to the task. We have all fought many battles that have taken multiple attempts to first understand, then overcome. Sometimes the hardest part is first realizing our situation and circumstance, then finding the courage to take action and do the right thing.
Life is about people – but don’t forget you are a ‘people’ as well. Don’t forget to look after you. After all, if we don’t know how to love ourselves, how can we effectively love anyone else? If we don’t know how to overcome self-doubt, fear, loneliness, hardship and suffering, how can we help others do the same? These are the lessons, it seems, that are the most colorful in that tapestry of life we were talking about earlier. They are the hardest to work through and overcome but the pigments are the brightest and most elaborate because they are the fabric of our existence.
Let me say that once more: The harder lessons are the pigments that shine the brightest and are most elaborate because they are the fabric of our existence – because we have that choice remember? Choose life so that others can see what you’ve overcome and take courage to do the same in their own difficult circumstances.
These are the stories that resonate most with others, pulls them up out of the pits they’re stuck in, shines the light into the world’s darkness so that others can find their way out of a tough time. Don’t ever think that the hardships that befall you are for your demise. No, instead they are for your victory that you might rejoice in God and others also may see you and gain triumph over their circumstances as well.
Looking into 2018, let’s not make resolutions. Instead let’s make peace. Peace with ourselves, with others and with life’s twists and turns. Let’s decide that no hardships or troubles are going to be the end of the story for us – but instead let’s trust that God will work those times into our tapestry of life so that they shine brightest that others may follow. We have a choice, as hard as it can be to rise up over difficult circumstances, we have a choice to be joyful or let it depress us. Let’s choose to be at peace with ourselves and others, forgiving and moving forward with love in our hearts. Let’s forgive ourselves for not living up to our own standards or others, and let’s take courage to not live blindly and comfortably but instead to branch out into the unknown, fully trusting God has us in his very capable hands.
Let’s dare to be great.
Happy New Year to you all~
If you have questions or need direction on how to begin to make a change, don’t hesitate to contact me. Leave a comment or email me – you can also reach out on social media like Linked In.
