One Truth Said Two Ways

Old age is easy for me to bear, and is not only not painful, but positively a joy. 

Cicero

Vernal flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only intended by nature as preparatives to autumn fruits.

Dr. Samuel Johnson

Live Like Him

Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

I John 2:6

Most mornings, like this one, the dark is still on and only the faintest night sounds remain, all day creatures still slumber, all night ones have faded too.  In our hearts Christ has again awakened a desire to be more like Him this day, to live and love as He does.  The noise of man-day will quickly overwhelm Christ’s quite voice, “be like Me.”  It is our determination that will allow us to hear that Still Small Voice named Jesus continually urging us to Be Like Me.

Often to be like Jesus is difficult.  Not that I do not desire it but that life happens.  It is like the darkness of the morning, dawn is here but busily writing about the dawn I miss it.  I am so consumed with the pride of being able to write about the sunrise that I fail to live in the light, as I am so inspired with trying to be like Jesus that I fail to live like Him.

A Walk Taking You

One of the great losses of modern man is to walk upon the earth.  By that journey we come to continually marvel at the exquisiteness of the created thing and the kindness of The Creator.  Reading in the Bible of the great ancients, God continually told them to walk across the land.  Walking seems to be the pace that is best suited for knowing God!

The latest meeting with God in the woods of my back yard.

Walking Keeps You From Falling

Walking is continually resisting falling.  Great way to look at life and reason to praise God.  Praise can be as easy as putting one foot in front of another.

I Doubt

“One of the paradoxes of the Christian life is that the more believers learn and grow, the more sensitive they become to how much they do not know.  Maturity brings humility-a better appreciation of God’s perfection and of our distance from it.  Faith becomes deeper, though not necessarily more solid.  It is less rigid than in its first days, often because believers have come to experience the unique power of doubt.

Those young in their faith often dismiss doubt as a shameful lack of faith.  But doubt is not unbelief; they are quite distinct.  Lewis (C.S.) and his fellow Oxford writers knew that.  They were men of impressive scholarship and faith, but they were also men who welcomed doubt and the work that it did in their lives.  Doubt recognizes the tensions and the ambiguities of life and, most important, our inability to grasp truth with the same timing and depth as God does.  Doubt can herald the perseverance of the desire to believe despite circumstances, mentalities, and feelings that work precisely against belief.  With the foundation of a commitment to Christ, doubt becomes the cry of belief in the dark and the starting point of new, deeper insight.

Learning is critical to this kind of faith-building doubt.  More study of God’s Word, more interactions with believers from other life experiences, more principles gained from other cultures can stretch our vision of God and the church and can leave us with more questions than before.  This should not be avoided but welcomed.  One cannot entrench oneself in pride when a doubt is pushing for further examination.  Doubt can motivate us to continually seek God’s perspective and guidance and to reaffirm our submission to his guidance, as doubt reminds us that none of us have perfect vision.

“Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete…Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.  All that I now know is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.  I Corinthians 13:9,12””

The Soul of C.S. Lewis, Martindale, Root, Washington, pg. 283

Your House Is On Fire! Grab Something?

I have a new Bible.  Started reading it this morning.  The Word Of God is the most precious object I own.  I thought about this. 

My wedding band and my new Bible, Holy Matrimony, Holy Word, the two most precious objects I own.  I cannot seem to place them in hierarchy.

I was urged to consider this more objectively.  My house is on fire; I have time to save one object.  Would I grab my Bible?  It is good for humans to consider the value of the objects they process.  Helps to evaluate yourself.

You can tell a lot about a book by its cover