Desire

Most people find desire in someone's eyes irresistible. Wonder why we find God's desire for us so resistible? Why do we fight to the death, God's desire for us? Why is He so humble that He would be so willing to be so vulnerable? If I make myself vulnerable and you reject me, I'm outa here. But God continually makes Himself vulnerable and we continually reject Him and He still is not "outa here".

Or maybe we don't recognize the Cloud and the Fire as being God's desire, God's wooing.

Bragging Rights

I find it interesting that God seems to have a higher opinion of man than man gives Him credit for. For instance, in the exchange between God and Satan, God praises Job for being such a good person. Job 1:8 Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

And yet if I had been asked to guess what God's opinion of man was or to guess what He told Satan, I would have guessed it would have been, "Yes, Job is like the rest of humanity, he has fallen short of my glory, but I love him." Yet here we have God saying about a person, that he is blameless and upright.

Who knows, you might be surprised at what God thinks of you - He might be bragging about you to the Powers that Be, "Look at my servant, she is blameless and upright - she respects Me and shuns evil!

(I'm thinking the writers should get together and decide once and for all what God thinks about man.)

Thoughts Based on Truth

So how do we know which of our thoughts are true and which of our thoughts are not true? Or another way to say this is . . . how do we know which of our thoughts are based on Truth?

These days, I determine the veracity of my thoughts by whether or not I have energy/strength when those thoughts present themselves. So for instance, if the fog characterized by "I'm so lazy I never get anything done" engulfs me and the result is I have no energy/strength and I am demoralized, the odds are that those thoughts are not thoughts based on Truth - I might not be getting anything done, but it is not because I'm lazy.

Or you can also come to truth through the back door. I note when I have energy/strength and then I work backwards and track what my thoughts were during that time of energy/strength.

This is another example of what Scripture means when it says, "I set before you life and death, choose life that you my live." Choose thoughts that give you strength and energy - choose life.

Getting Away with Murder

You've heard it said, "Be like Christ". But I'm thinking, if you are like Christ, than the people around you will get away with murder.

Insignificant Failures

I imagined I had died and had been in heaven for a while when Jesus came strolling by. He stopped, He lingered, He sat on a rock and we chatted. After a while He said, “So, tell me about your life on earth.” And I said, “Well, if you strip everything away I failed.’ And He said, “All have failed”. And I remembered the Scripture that said, “All have sinned.” It’s like He was saying, “No big deal – that is true of everyone. Now tell me something else, something interesting.” Somehow from that perspective, my failures lost their significance.

Relax in Perfection

Jesus didn't stop being who He had been for 29 years when he went into "public ministry". He was just as "Divine" at 10 as He was at 20 as He was at 33. Yet this divinity was described by his peers as (paraphrased) "progressing nicely and people liking Him". How ordinary! In fact, he was so ordinary that His divinity was never seen except by revelation. How does one hide divinity? How does one hide perfection?

Well maybe divinity/perfection is not halos and feather wings and speaking with a lisp (thee's and thou's - just kidding). Maybe divinity/perfection means a continual growing in the right direction and snuggling up to God. Maybe doing everything right and avoiding doing anything wrong has nothing to do with being Divine or perfect.

So if our core passion is to know Him, if our core hope is to be like Him and if being like the Divine is perfection and if perfection is progression and snuggling up to God, can we relax? If He is relaxed, can we relax?

Pleasant Reward

What is the reward for being a pleasant person? Well, who is it that you live with? You live with yourself! So if yourself is pleasant, you get to live with a pleasant person!

Shimmering Shout of Glory

Not only are we significant as individuals, but we are also significant corporately. We are part of a larger picture. The analogy that comes to mind is the analogy of a sparkle on the ocean. Sometimes when I see myself as a sparkle on the ocean, I can imagine being concerned about how wide my sparkle is, whether or not my sparkle is growing or if my sparkle is diminishing, whether or not holes are appearing in my sparkle, which direction I am drifting etc. And because I can't stand on the shore and see the shimmering shout of glory that the mass of sparkles produce, I forget that I am not ultimately the point. What I am part of is the point - together we reflect the glory of God. Who I am is eclipsed by what I am a part of. So if your present day sparkle doesn't make sense from your point of view, remember that a further day grouping will.

A "Bones" Moment

A gentleman at work came up to me today and said, "I can't stop thinking about you!" And I said, "What a waste of energy!" and he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Everyone is given the equivalent of about a cup of energy to spend every day. When you spend all your cup of energy thinking about me, you've wasted your energy. Instead, you should use your energy to further your growth by putting it into your plans and your goals." He predictably looked at me with a blank look. I think I was having a "Bones" moment.