We all hit significant junctures in our lives. We have insights that open our eyes. We have experiences - emotional, physical, spiritual - that change our lives. We do things that make a difference.
We think, we feel, we do.
Sometimes these junctures change us significantly, not just our thinking, feeling, or doing, but our very being. Who am I? Why am I? Isn’t there something more than what’s here? A juncture. Questions. Answers? Jesus came with answers. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)
Meeting Him, the Christ, welcoming Him is a significant juncture.
We start out already behind in life. No encouragement can conquer all doubts and uncertainties or solve the problem of the human condition.
I am convinced it is often better just to let the Word of God speak for itself. As it does, I hope you will be encouraged to find out more about the Christ, and let go of doubt. Give it your all as you hold on to something oh so much better - the Great I AM.
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:14
“As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,” Genesis 9:9
“… Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” Genesis 15:1
And that very night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you and make your offspring numerous for my servant Abraham’s sake.” Genesis 26:24
He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Exodus 3:6
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:14
Say therefore to the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. Exodus 6:6
He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.” Exodus 15:26
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;” Exodus 20:2
Jesus said to her, “I am He, the one who is speaking to you.” John 4:26
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty. John 6:35
Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.” John 7:33
So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed Me.” John 8:28
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but He sent Me.” John 8:42
Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” John 8:58
So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” John 10:7
But He was silent and did not answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’” Mark 14:61-62
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live,” John 11:25
All of these uses of ‘hold on’ imply something slightly different, yet they also imply something similar - value.
In the first case, someone’s communication has been misinterpreted. To the speaker the correct interpretation of what they had to say is obviously important to them. They are saying, “Wait a minute. Let me clarify. I want you to understand me. The link between what I am expressing and what you are receiving from me has value to me.”
In the second case, ‘hold on’ implies something more tangible. As the speaker says, “Hold on,” the picture is of an object that needs to be handled with care. I can envision a fragile piece of expensive porcelain being entrusted from the grasp of its caretaker to the expectant, cupped palms of a wide-eyed admirer, the object’s value emphasized in the solicitude of the transfer.
Picture 3. “Hold on. Do you have a good grip?” This time safety seems stressed. Perhaps its a child’s first dalliance with an adventure, maybe climbing a tree or a first ride on the back of a motorcycle or something even more daring. The value of a life, sacred, precious beyond measure, halts a mother’s heart as she says, “hold on!”
“Hold onto it. Don’t lose it.” "Hold on. You can do it." “Hold onto it. Don’t give it away.” "Hold onto it. Protect it.” "Hold on. You can make it." “Hold onto it. Watch what you say.”
What do these mean to you? Will you guard your heart to love or protect it from loving? Will you hold onto your faith or be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine? Will you be careful or careless about what comes out of your mouth or is expressed in your emotions? Will you give up or keep it up?"
Words do mean something, but they can mean so many different things depending on the context and the background of the parties involved. People are complicated. So are our relationships, our emotions, our communications, and the list goes on.
It is worth giving our all to find out what is really meant by the words communicated by the people we love in order to hold on to the truth.
As I limped home after walking my daughter to her
babysitting job, my dog tugged at me to hobble faster. I suffer with pain issues from arthritis in a
small bone in my foot. When it’s acting
up, it feels like walking on a broken foot.
Tendinitis adds to the irritation and pain. It hurts.
“Stop Gooper.” I
yanked back at the leash. “I’m giving it
my all.”
After the words came out of my mouth, the questions flooded
into my mind. WAS I giving it my all? What did that really mean? Was I taking that term a bit too lightly? After all, I was using it to chastise my dog.
A few weeks before this, I walked an 8K race with my
daughter. My foot was doing ok
comparatively. Though I had been working
out, we hadn’t trained for the race, and it was a 2 mile jaunt just to get to
the start. I really hadn’t thought this
was all that big of a deal, but plodding through that last mile, I was
hurting. It felt every bit as hard as
the last mile of the marathon I HAD trained for several years earlier. Oh boy, I was giving it my all just to crawl
to that finish line.
Was I though? I
thought I couldn’t walk another step, but I did; and another and another.
So many times I’m dragging;
I can’t do one more thing. I
can’t… I’ve given my all, but I
know. As hard as I may have pushed
myself, as deserved as the rest might be, giving it my all, that’s something else
all together.
American soldiers are giving and have given their all. People around the world dying for their faith
are giving their all. The one who most
comes to mind as giving His all, is Jesus, the Christ.
Jesus told us what giving it all looks like, and it’s all
about love. He said,
“Greater love has no one than
this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
He did.
He laid His life down for everyone who puts their trust in Him as the
remedy for their human problem. It’s a
beautiful example of giving one’s all.
It’s worth finding out more about.
“Well, it’s common knowledge. Doesn’t everyone know it?” I answered, surprised at the question.
“Well, I didn’t know that and I go there all the time. In fact I have no recollection of that ever being the case.”
I thought about that. “Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but I don’t think so. I’ll check it out and let you know what I find out.”
His honest, non-threatening question made me wonder. Was I taking too much for granted? I needed to find out the truth.
After doing a little research I found out that my information, though technically accurate, was really inconsequential in its scope. In other words, it wasn’t worth acknowledging or acting upon. So the stress I put on my supposed “common knowledge” that made my friend ask the question, WAS really in error.
How much do I believe, talk about, act upon without really understanding the ins and outs? How much do I pass along without finding out the real deal?
I’ve been paying more attention to those things, those ideas that I have accepted without giving it a second thought. I’m trying to listen for those underlying assumptions to which I blindly acquiesce. Our culture is filled with all kinds of ideas we operate on or agree to because they sound good or because someone we think we can trust said it. However, with a little reasoning or research we might just see them fall apart.
What 'common knowledge' are you accepting that may be based in error? What ideas are you holding onto that have just enough verisimilitude to be convincing, but lead you to wrong conclusions?
I am grateful my friend asked that simple question, “How do you know that?” to prompt me to find out the truth.
Whether or not you’re a Christian, the Bible has a lot to
offer in the way of words of encouragement.These are worth exploring and contemplating and applying.
I am working on
committing to memory some of those right now.
“… Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is
still called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of
sin.”Hebrews 3:13
Do you think it is important to encourage others?Why?Where does that sense of morality come from?I encourage you to think about that.
Christ came to bring deliverance, freedom, life abundant. He claims to be “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) That’s difficult to grasp and can’t be completely understood, but it is worth taking the time to consider because if it is true, if He is who He claims to be, God incarnate, then what you do with Christ makes all the difference in your world.
So let your eyes gaze upon Jesus. I used to wonder what it meant to keep your eyes on the Lord. I mean, isn’t being a good Christian about believing Jesus died for my sins and rose again to give me eternal life and then living the good moral life set forth in the Bible. However, the longer I live the committed Christian life, the better I come to understand how its all about keeping my eyes on Christ.
Jesus Christ is central to the Christian faith. Unlike other religions, Christianity can’t be separated from its founder, Jesus Christ. Who He is and what you do with Jesus is what makes Christianity what it is. You can’t take Christ out of Christianity and still have Christianity. If you take other founders out of their religions, leaving only with their teachings, their religions could still function. They are separate from what they taught. Christ is integral to what He taught. For the Christian, if Jesus isn’t who He says He was, the religion falls apart. One could still live according to some of the moral principles He taught. In fact a lot of people do just that without embracing Christ for who He claimed to be. That isn’t Christianity though. Christianity demands confronting Christ.
You see, as C.S. Lewis and other renowned thinkers have put it, Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or the real deal, God incarnate. He can’t be just a good teacher, just a prophet, just a great guy. He doesn’t leave that option open to us. He claimed to be God. He claimed to be the answer to man’s sin problem. He made claims that don’t leave those other titles as possibilities. What would you say to someone who claimed to be God if he wasn’t? You see if Jesus wasn’t God, as He claimed to be, he was either deluded, or He knew He wasn’t God and He aimed to delude.
As I spend time reading my Bible, praying, meditating on what I read, considering divergent thoughts and analysis, and conversing with skeptics, questioners, and those who have studied this in depth, as I consider the evidence for and against each of these propositions, deluded, deluder, truth, I am convinced of Jesus Christ’s authenticity as the Son of God. His claims best fit the evidence and reality. Christianity is not blind faith, but reasoned faith, yet faith none the less. We can’t prove who Jesus Christ is, but we can, if we examine the evidence carefully, come to a reasoned conclusion to feed a confident faith.
Yes, Jesus was a great teacher. He was a prophet and a good man. He fulfilled many roles. However, Jesus is so much more. He was and is the Christ. And if that is the case, does it make reasonable sense to ignore Him or treat Him as just one choice among many? He doesn’t leave us that option either. If His words are true and He says there is only one way to find the way to eternal life, shouldn’t we pay attention? If He is God incarnate, then He has the answers to life’s big questions and other answers are just wrong. If you have a disease that will kill you, you want the right medicine. The wrong medicine won’t solve your problem. Neither will the wrong belief solve a problem for which only Christ is the solution.
“Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to [the Father] who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.”Hebrews 3:1-6 If Jesus Christ is who He says He is, and the evidence certainly points in that direction, can you afford not to consider Him and what He had to say? Consider Jesus Christ. Even better, discover the delight: the deliverance, the freedom, the life-abundant in knowing Him.
…“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”Hebrews 12:2
Yes, 'A' is for 'already' and 'B' is for 'Behind' because I am already behind.
As I l plopped into bed last night, letting myself relax, eyes just closing, with that end of day comfort sigh, it hit me. My eyes popped open. I had failed to enter my first A to Z post.
"Oh well." I thought." "Already behind." That's when it struck me that 'already' started with A, and I supposed I would trash my original 'A' selection and just use 'already'.
I have to admit, though, it didn't occur to me to merge 'A' and 'B' until I actually wrote the words "Already Behind." It's interesting - isn't it? - how something can be floating around in one's mind, but until you let your fingers do the walking across the page or your mouth do the talking out loud, there will be obvious lessons still yet to be seized.
So I am seizing the moment. I hope it isn't too much of a rule breaker. It seems my life is often, already behind, and I have a feeling many can empathize with that sentiment. So for today, I will take the 'Already' and mix it with a little 'Behind' so that I can look ahead (ooh another 'A' word), beyond 'B' (ooh another 'B' word), to catch up at 'C' tomorrow.
Since I threw in the 'C' with 'catch up', can I count 'C' complete? (ooh another 'C' word) Well, maybe not.
I'll try not to fall behind again until I get to 'F', because then it'll fit.
Well I waited until the bitter end here to sign up for the April A to Z blogging challenge. Delight Directed Living is 1338 on the list at the A to Z Challenge website. This challenge is the brainchild of Arlee Bird of Tossing it Out. I am privileged to try my hand at it for a second year. I hope I can survive this year as I don't feel nearly as prepared even though, or maybe because, I am more aware of what I am getting into. I remember what fun it was, though, and I invite you to check it out for yourself.
How does it work? Well straight from Arlee Bird:
HERE IS MORE INFORMATION
IN A NUTSHELL...THIS IS IT…
Starting April 1st, for 26 days, write a post for each letter of the alphabet.
With 30 days in April, that allows for 4 days off - seems like Sunday was a favourite last year!
This year, April 1st is a Sunday...so your first post will be that day, then go from there!
I expect to experience some of the delight of getting back to blogging a bit more regularly. So, woohoo, here I go. I am now officially signed up and psyched! God bless, Maria
Number changed to 1304. Trying to track it. Number now 1266 on April 6. 1255 on April 7 1249 on APRIL 9 1203 on April 13 1186 on April 15 1160 on April 23 1143 on April 30
I have not signed into or written on my blog for months. Honestly, I found myself paralyzed by the blog awards. It may seem silly, but what I found flattering and uplifting, I simultaneously allowed to confine and enslave me.
Not uncommon in my life, once other things clamoring for my attention filled my time, I found it easy to neglect blogging. What had so recently been a joy to engage in, was now a weight. Though I wanted to make time for it, I likewise wanted to avoid it. The months went by and before I knew what had happened, blogging was but an afterthought, something I would read and respond to rather than a personal venture of my own. How did the kindness of an award turn into a burden?
When I received my first award, I was touched that someone might think enough of what I had shared of myself to affirm me. I followed the award reqs and I felt encouraged as was intended. Then, as is almost routine among bloggers because everyone is about supporting other bloggers in their craft, more awards continued to come. I appreciated the acknowledgement. Wanting to honor those who had honored me by following through with what was expected in the awards, I found my strong sense of fulfilling my obligations shackling me and I couldn't break free.
The blogging community is about empowering others to write by providing tools and incentives to do just that. The awards are one of those vehicles by which we can be a support staff to each other. In no way do I want to impugn the giving of blogging awards. Rather it was my response I hope to discourage in others. I let self-imposed expectations inhibit me from doing something through which I found satisfaction. I put up my own unnecessary road blocks. Initially getting and responding to the awards was fun for me, but soon it became a trap for me. I felt this cloud hanging over me. I needed to let it rain my responses, I thought, before I could write anything else. Pretty soon I didn't want to write anymore.
I tripped myself up by not letting go of something I didn't need to hold onto. It is a real lesson for me personally in more than just blogging. I like to say, "Get over yourself. Get out of your own way," and here I was very much in my own way, not knowing how to move.
I just have to admit that fulfilling the requirements of the awards, as fun as they are, has got to be a secondary concern for me or award flu might set in again. Better to get over myself and get on my way to delighting in living.
3. Visit the person who linked up before you and encourage them with your comments. The one unbreakable rule.
I haven’t written a Five Minute Friday for awhile. I haven’t blogged for a few weeks either, come to think of it. I’ve barely gotten online to leave a comment here or there, but at least I have done that over the last few weeks a time or two. It has been nagging at me to sit down and write something more than a journal entry, a homeschool test, or something work related.
"Ah, it’s Friday, I’ll check in and at least write for 5 minutes," I think. So I checked in to find the word “Imagine” was the prompt for the day. Then I was immediately summoned to perform mom driving duties. The word "Imagine" hummed in my head as I drove.
Upon return: Five minutes begin.
GO!
I couldn’t help but immediately think of one of my favorite songs, “I Can Only Imagine.”
Every time I hear it, my heart turns to praise. I can’t help but meditate on the concept of being in the eternal presence of God. The sense of abundance, not of lots of stuff as in the physical, but of abundant filling of the Spirit, with a satiation that leads to sense of satisfaction and sanctification that is palpable. I can breathe it, feel it, bask in it: the abundance of joy that overwhelms me as I imagine. The song often moves me to tears of joy, and I love to just sing along, and then think about it when it is done.
I drove along and thought about the song. I thought about the words and the concept on my way back after dropping the kids. Then I turned the radio on. I confess I usually listen to talk radio in the afternoon. There was a commercial on; so I switched the channel to the Christian radio station. Just as I turned it on, “I Can Only Imagine” began to play. I couldn’t help but well up with tears of joy at the realization that my God was speaking directly to me.
Five minutes up: Stop.
______________
I also can’t help but think about Team Hoyt every time I hear the song since when I first heard it, it was in conjunction with a music video about this amazing father and son duo. Their story is quite incredible. Son, Rick Hoyt was born with cerebral palsy which left him paralyzed with minimal mobility. Medical personnel held out little hope, but the Hoyts, Dick and Judy, would not give up on their son. As he grew, they grew too ministering to him as loving parents might. Along the way, they discovered that young Rick Hoyt got a tremendous sense of freedom from being out with his dad in racing events, Father Hoyt pushing his son in some kind of chair or bike, or carrying him along in some way.
After the initial 5 mile benefit run in 1977, the Hoyts went on to participate in more and more races including marathons and triathlons. In 1989 the Hoyt Foundation was started to raise awareness of the challenges of people with disabilities as it, “aspires to build the individual character, self-confidence, and self-esteem of America’s disabled young people through inclusion in all facets of daily life...” One of the ironic and quite poignant vignettes of their larger story came when Dick Hoyt had a heart attack after years of racing with his son. The doctor’s told him he wouldn’t have survived had he not been in such tremendous physical condition. Here the Dad had been thinking he was helping his son all these years, and it turns out the son saved his dad’s life.
There is lots more of the inspiring story, and the music video is worth watching again and again. I hope you’ll take the time to visit Team Hoyt.
It has been a whirlwind weekend for our family. We headed off last Thursday to join my son and prepare for his wedding on Saturday, on my birthday.
Family came from all parts and we had a wonderful family reunion after the rehearsal on Friday.
Then came the big event on Saturday. It was beautiful and lots of tears were shed by Mom, (that's me).
My Children were all in the wedding, the groom in the middle.
Of course they were happy tears, sort of. I didn't think this would be as difficult as it is. After all, isn't this what we get them ready for - to go off on their own, live their own lives, start their own families?
Really it isn't that I am not happy for the bride and groom. I am. They love each other and they bring out the best in each other. What is difficult are these transitions. It is like you are leaving behind one life and beginning another. Transitions are difficult. You know an era has passed. That's a hard thing on a personal level for me. Even happy transitions are hard things for some of us.
And so, though I should be rejoicing, and I am, I am also struggling with the emotional tumult of transition. I feel bad for my family because I am sure I am a bit salty right now. But salt brings flavor and salt preserves; so perhaps I'm adding something good with my internal wrestling match as it flavors their lives.
I am spending extra time with the Lord lamenting the emotions that accompany transition. I am not complaining. There isn't anything to complain about. Look at this beautiful couple! It is a wonderful thing, marriage. I am confessing, confessing that I want to be as joyful as I know I should be, but I am not there yet. I am thanking, thanking God for the beautiful bride He has given my son, and the wonderful family He has blessed us with. I am praising, praising God for who He is and how He works all these things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. I am just resting, dwelling in His presence so that my lament will turn to praise and thanksgiving and contentment and joy.
Buck and Anna Dunn, married May 11, 2013
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.Genesis 2:24
Thank you to those who have passed along awards to my blog. I appreciate you and will get to the responses eventually. And thanks for coming by and celebrating this joyous time with me too.
The A to Z Challenge really started for me back a few month in preparation for April. I began tracking the A to Z challenge website and gaining tips and tricks for how to prepare, as well as how to get and give the most in the challenge. And I did learn oodles from that daily check in. I practiced daily what I was learning, like visiting blogs of those on the list and prewriting some of the A to Z entries. Both of these were huge helps. In fact, if I participate next year, and right now I think I will, I’ll start even earlier and try to not only get most prewritten but also pre-posted, which I did not do until we got very close to the kick-off.
Starting off in April wasn’t too tough. I was able to get a week’s worth of pre-posts ready to go, and so the daily 5 new blog visits and revisiting those who became blogging friends or those blogs that really intrigued me or those that were kind enough to stop by my blog was not initially too difficult. However, as I began to fall behind on the rest of life, running to catch up, and as I didn’t have a week in advance ready anymore, if even a day, and as the revisits mounted up, well the CHALLENGE of the event began to challenge me.
I imagine I am not much different than others in this regard. At that point I not only had to catch up some days with life outside of the blogosphere, I started to feel like I had to catch up with life in blogland as well, because I am fanatical about keeping my commitments, and I made a commitment to visit as well as write my own entry. So by golly, I was going to do it!
In spite of the stress in the second half, what a joy it has been connecting with the like-minded, coming to understand the not-so-like-minded, visiting places and people from around the world, being inspired by the young, the old, and the simply inspiring, and so much more that many of us would never have been exposed to. It has been a truly growing experience. Not only writing everyday in this way, but also connecting in a way that is, well, out of this world in more ways than one, I have found myself very deeply contemplative on some points and prayerful for new people. The fun, the inspiration, the challenge, have all been a healthy stretch.
I am very grateful that God laid it on Arlee’s heart to get this off the ground those few years back. It is incredible how many people’s lives around the world A to Z has touched and how it has connected so many of us in such a good way. Recently I was listening to a speaker who was addressing the current state of our information age that we know so many things that in reality are trivial and unnecessary to our daily lives, and yet we don’t know what is happening in our neighbors lives. True and sad. Yet this challenge brought lives together in an explosion of discovery. Perhaps some of it was trivial and unnecessary, but I have to say I do feel like it did add to the quality of my life, my personal development, and my relationships across the spectrum of this world and the cyber-world. Thank you Arlee and thank you to all of you who have connected with me through this A-Z adventure.
It has been such a busy month trying to keep up with the A to Z Challenge. Now I have whirling around in my head that I want to make the next hurdle and post on the reflections link. And will I make it? I am not a novelist, but I love to write. I primarily like to share things that I have learned or that I believe the Lord is teaching me that someone else might benefit from. I am a counselor, a home school teacher, a mom, a wife, not necessarily in that order. I have been a newsletter editor, a speech editor, a program editor, among my various editorial experience. But who am I to think I can even be part of an "Insecure Writer's Support Group?" It has been a real high being part of the A to Z challenge and rubbing words with all of you real writers. Who am I? I write my thoughts down in a blog. I write devotionals for our home school newsletter. I write in my journal. I think about writing more extensively, but barely have time to keep up with the pittance I am already executing. A to Z was a real CHALLENGE for me to fit in while keeping up with all the rest of my responsibilities. I am no writer. Am I? Who am I? I am not any one of any notoriety and probably never will be. I am a pretty joyful, Christian wife and mom. I am happy to be serving my family, the church, and the community in the capacity that I do. But is the Lord really calling me to write? Do I have something to say that needs to be heard? Who am I? So while I came away from the A-Z Challenge really excited for all that I learned and everyone I met and what I was able to accomplish, I also came away with that sense of "what am I doing here?" Who am I?
