Can it already have been 23 days into the new year?
This month has been like a whirlwind for me. Yet, though it now seems to have passed in a flash, its duration seems more along the lines of a few months instead of just around three weeks. (The paradox of time... or our perceptions of time...) Here's some stuff out of the overflow:
I am back in America.
Coming back here feels like trying to keep up on a major highway with a bicycle. Can I please go back to the picturesque, twisting country roads with little traffic and lots of time to ponder the world from my worn, comfortable old Schwinn bicycle seat? (That was a metaphor... I didn't have country roads to ride on, and my bike temporarily has a popped front tire.)
It is so good to see old friends again. To spend time with them, to share the Word with them, to pour out truth and have truth poured in, to encourage, uplift, listen... To joke and laugh and play. To live. To be. You know what I'm talking about? Living life. Not surviving life. Living it.
And I'm not talking about that "wild side" "living the life" stuff, either. I'm talking about the real stuff. The simple stuff. The stuff we miss sometimes if we're not looking up from our cell phones and computer screens.
I'm talking about conversation. Relationship. Face-to-face, flesh and blood stuff.
The "stop-in-your-tracks-and-gaze-in-awe-at-the-sunset" stuff.
The learning you were wrong and it's okay stuff.
Real life.
What a blessing to be alive!
What a blessing to be able to go to classes that challenge me and sharpen my critical thinking skills. What a blessing to force myself out of bed, to push myself to learn and know more, to drive toward...
Light falls across my keyboard and shoots a reflection through the the tumbler holding my tea. Piano music is streaming through the speakers. My Bible is close at hand. I have a paper to write. A couple of textbooks to read. Some Romantic poets to endure... And through it all, I'm just looking for those things God is trying to show me, to teach me. To make me more like Him.
"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious riches so that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully give thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."
-[Colossians 1:9-12]
"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God... I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."
-[Ephesians 3:14-19, 4:1-3]
"For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart my be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe..."
-[Ephsians 1:15-19]
Ah! There is so much more! You must read it! Sharpen your minds. He's so good! His plan of salvation and for the kingdom of heaven is so intricate and masterfully pieced together. How could we ask for more? What a beautiful mystery, this gospel of Jesus Christ!
