Real Change

Change is all around me. My daughter is now driving as she races toward independence while my dad no longer drives and slowly slides into dependence. Seasons of life spin on. Yet, my life feels so unchanged from day to day. Circumstances are continuously different but real transformation keeps its distance. Short term progression becomes like Groundhog Day as I wake up again where I started. It is not fear of change but instead I stay wrapped in the comfort of un-involvement. The balance of being frustrated with the way things are remains tilted toward being too satisfied to change them. Inertia settles me in stillness, waiting for an outside force to inspire action. However, I know the force is not external but instead it calls from within if I will only listen and move.

Playing It Safe

"A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."

Grace Murray Hopper

So what were we built for? Are we here only to play it safe? So much of our focus tends to be on keeping ourselves tightly tethered to the shore.

However, are there plans waiting beyond the horizon that we just can't quite see? Something that may not come easy but a passion burns inside that requires pulling up anchor and setting sail.

Over the past few years I have met so many of the people that have headed out to find what God had waiting for them. No promises, no guarantees, just an over whelming love for God and a deep desire to trust what he had put on their hearts. Some are on the other side of the world while others are just down the street. It is amazing to see the peace and freedom in someone who finds what they were really built for.

God's miracles show up through us when we pursue the things other then those we can do on our own.

The Sea

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine De Saint Exupery

How often do we as Christians wrap ourselves in the details of building the ship instead of casting the vision of the endless immensity of the sea? If God's endless immense love is not communicated then the acts of discipleship in ones life will never find their target. I blush at how often I have beat the drum of reading the Bible or finding your quite time or getting involved in service but spent too little time kendeling a desire to be like Christ.

What is it like for even a small moment in time when my heart is touched by God? Why does the creator of an entire universe allow me to draw near? Where does this amazing peace come from when everything seems to fall apart around me? What happens when my eyes open to see what God is really doing around me? What does it really feel like when God connects my heart with another heart to share their load?

That is what I need to find out how to say. Then reading the Bible, quite time, service, solitude, worship and prayer will be joyous simple tasks that build the ship to float along on God's endless sea.

Treasure

With all my heart I have sought You;
Do not let me wander from Your commandments.
Your word I have treasured in my heart,
That I may not sin against You.
Psalm 119:10-11

How this burst within my soul this morning. When have I last sought You with ALL of my heart? Where was I looking? Have I truly treasured Your word recently?

Oh I love the great verses, the ones that inspire! The ones that surely I must have right because I have heard them a thousand times. But what about the rest? How often the goal has been the stroll through the word not the hunt for treasure.

What to do with words that are deep and require time to dig. The ones that involve coming to a stop and getting down on my knees. Too little time, too much effort. Leave it lay! Surely there will be more up ahead.

No, the Psalmist sought You - not the end of a chapter. He clung to the entire word like a gem of great value. Never would he put it down for fear it would be lost. He understood the value.

The same treasure is still here thousands of years later. Placed within reach but it is requires responsibility to seek it, find it, hold on to it - not letting it slip from our grasp. Could there be anything of greater value then to catch just a facet of God’s magnitude and glory found in His word? Sell everything else - obtain it.

Establish Your word to Your servant,
As that which produces reverence for You.
Psalm 119:38

Rhythm

Never have been consider one with rhythm. Even though the drum was my instrument of choice in the junior high band, my teacher never once mentioned that a protegee lay inside me waiting to be discovered. After all, the drum choice was more about not having to learn to read music then an actual passion for creating the beat. Have found little in the relationship between my muscles and nerves that show a gift of rhythm.

However, God calls me to a rhythm that has nothing to do with the coordination of my body and far more about the beat of my heart. Am I in rhythm with him? Is the flow of my life in line with His pace or am I once again dancing to the beat of my own drum?

God has given the natural world around us a rhythm. Spring/summer/fall/winter, morning/day/evening/night, sowing/growing/harvesting/resting, birth/child/youth/adult. These are God’s inescapable patterns.

However, I fail to find a pattern in my life when chasing the bright shiny bobbles that too often catch my eye. Look at all I have to get done today? What do I need to push aside so I can move forward? What other information do I need so I know it all? Who is ahead of me and what do I need to do to catch up? What new luxury do I need to impress those around me? Can’t everyone see how important I am? If they would just do it MY way they could be just like me.

Oh how the world needs my management and input. If I leave it alone for just a few seconds everything falls a part. Blindly I plunge ahead not comprehending, this is what breaks my rhythm. This is the way the world cuts me off from God.

When there are those all too short seasons of unbroken rhythm in my life, there comes a peace, a comfort and a joy that can not be explained except to know I am on beat with Him. Not that everything is perfect. Problems do not just simply vanish but the importance I place on them does. Romans 8:6

Jesus showed us the beat, the perfect life in rhythm with God. It does not come by managing the world. It comes when following the One who created it.

Journal on Journal

A couple of years ago, was introduced the tool of journaling. Just started using this blog to as an electronic means last month. Still do some writing in the old fashion book form and not sure that I shouldn’t stay on paper. However, have always been incredibly amazed at how this discipline can be used by God to help connect the dots in my life. Showing how various scripture or events actually tie together.

Sometimes I have mulled over and over a subject in my mind for days. Other times I just pickup the pen (or hit the keyboard) with no subject in mind. Not planning any direction where this one may go but willing to put words down in anticipation of where they may lead. First step of any entry is the most difficult. Changing from still to moving. Inertia – bodies at rest tend/want to stay at rest. While the reverse is also true – bodies in motion tend/want to stay in motion.

How often I sit with no thought, no time, no inspiration – but once the first words form the next ones begin to pile up waiting on their turn to move from consideration to find their place in the sentence. This seems to be true within a single writing or from day to day. Too often going long periods of time without opening myself up to let God organize my heart by putting them in a readable form.

So many things in my life are like that first letter. It is out there, I know I need to make the time, find the effort and change my inertia. My life is full of spiritual inertia. When I am at stop in my relationship with God, I tend to stay there. On the other hand, there is no joy or peace in my life like that when my relationship flows. Moving easily from one experience with God to the next. If only I could stop stopping and stay moving.