Things to come

For those of you who might be following the odyssey which is my thesis, you will be pleased to know that I am done collecting data. Now I just have to enter it all in a computer, analyze it and write up what I found. Sounds like fun.

It’s also the week before Thanksgiving. We have all of next week off, which means I don’t have to go to campus if I don’t want to. I will still have plenty to do, but I’ll be heading to VA to see my sister, her husband, and their 2 kids. And my parents will be there too. :0)

It will be good to spend 10 hours in a car going to VA. I’m soooooo looking forward to Tuesday, driving along in my car. And then again after Thanksgiving. :0)

What are your Thanksgiving plans?

In His Strength

I was wearing my hiking shoes to school the other day. It was my class day so I dressed down: jeans, t-shirt, comfortable shoes. I was walking through the arboretum looking down at my shoes and remembering all the places these shoes have been with me.
I bought them in Colorado. I took them to Greece; walked through Athens, the Acropolis, ancient Corinth and modern Thesoliniki.

I took them to China. I hiked the Great Wall in them twice, walked the streets of Hong Kong, Shang Hai, Guilin, Kunming, Xi’an.

They have been faithful travel companions, always prepared to take care of my feet.
And I got to thinking about Ephesians 6 talking about the armor of God. Verse 15 says, “with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

Am I ready? Are you ready? For what; I don’t know. There is something about preparedness here. Prepared to go where you need to go, do what needs to be done.

And when I think about preparedness I am drawn to Mark 9:14 – 29.
Jesus and his three closest disciples descend the mount of transfiguration to find the remaining disciples arguing with a man. A crowd has gathered.
The disciples couldn’t drive an evil spirit from a boy; the man’s son.
Jesus approaches, asks some questions of the father and heals the boy of his enslavement.
Later the disciples asked why they had no effect on the demon.
Jesus told them, “this kind can come out only by prayer.”

Were the disciples ready for this foe? It doesn’t seem to be.
And I look at my life, and pause. I can only say I need you Lord.
And He gives peace for the journey, and He gives strength for each step.
I’m feeling so restless now. I can taste the end of the semester and yet it is not over yet.
I know I have much still to do, but He calls me to rest. Peace, be still.
And tomorrow I will say,
“Your grace is sufficient for me, for Your power is made perfect in my weakness.”

huh...

1 Colossians 1:16-17
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for hinm.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together...

In graduate school we talk about a lot of theories. We have theories for child development, we have theories for identity development. I'm at the tail end of a class that has been talking about theories and paradigms and what science is about. In general physics is regarded as the most pure science, and yet physics has science. Newton had his laws of gravity and all that. Einstein his relativity. But they are theories. They are supported by evidence but they are created by human beings trying to make sense of the world around them; trying to describe how it works.

What if Colossians 1:17 is true: in [Jesus] all things hold together...there is no gravity, only God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
What if we lived like He was with us all the time?

On Becoming...

John 12: 23 – 26
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."

Philippians 2:16 – 17
…as you hold out the word of life – in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.

Death is all around us. It is autumn. The leaves are dying and the trees are looking more bare. Daylight is expiring more quickly. And all around I see people, my friends, struggling to give their wills to God; to die to themselves.

Truly death is all around.

But it is the death that brings newness of life. Just as the caterpillar gives way to the butterfly, our rock-hard hearts must give way to hearts of flesh, that they may become new.

Two summers ago I was drawn to a field, “my field”, to seek the Lord. I put all else aside, the thesis, my work, and sat and sought. And I was told to look up the word “new” in my Bible Concordance. Have you ever done that? Amazing stuff!! Here is some of what I found.

Isaiah 43:18 – 19
Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something NEW, how it will spring forth: will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

Lamentations 3:22 – 25
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
They are NEW every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Ezekiel 11:19-20
I will give them an undivided heart and put a NEW spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. The they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

2 Corinthians 5:13-19
If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a NEW creation; the old has gone, the NEW has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

And there’s so much more…!!!

And I cannot say that I am completely new either, but I can say, as Paul said,
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus tool hold of me…I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

I am in the process of becoming. A grain of wheat must die to bear fruit. Paul was poured out as a drink offering on the altar of the service of others. All of this so he could put off the man he was to become who is supposed to be.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

It is autumn, but it also spring in our hearts - being renewed day by day.

We are NEW; may we live in the constant realization of our state.