Category: perspective

What Next?

Featured

If you are here, reading this blog, whether for the first or 50th time, there is something inside you that is seeking to know more about God. That is why I write, to try to put in words what it seems God is revealing to me. I do not believe that you have to be a member of an organized church or even call yourself a Christian to truly seek God. It seems to me that all you need is a heart that knows there is more to life than what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears.

I haven’t written here for a long time. Today is well over a year into the Covid-19 pandemic that has changed the whole world in ways we cannot fully understand right now, except to know that life in the before times was much different for all of us, and it is unlikely to ever go back to what we considered “normal.” Somehow, I have let myself get stuck in a rut–too much TV, too little exercise and fresh air, too much inertia and stalling and paralysis as I sit in my living room, stretched out in the recliner, with a blanket over me, waiting for the pandemic to end and life to begin again for real.

Phooey! What nonsense! Life is here and now and it won’t wait for me. I have to run behind that train and either get on board or take my own path. I think I’ll begin with a little, slow stroll here, reminding myself and hopefully someone else that life is what we make it. If I am not satisfied with how my life is going, then it is up to me to make changes, to push in the direction I want to go.

Right now, I am still employed full-time at a job I love, but more and more, I think about retirement. I am, after all, 63. I have decent health with a few problems to take care of in the near future (hip replacement, oh joy!). I still have a brain that mostly runs on all cylinders, although it’s never won any races, always preferring the slow, unpaved lane.

In the next 30 days, I plan to write here every day. I have no idea if anyone else will want to read this. Most times, I think my own thoughts turned into words on this blog are probably just boring to anyone else. But maybe there is someone out there who is seeking to find what God has in store for him/her too. If so, come along with me. I hope that in my quest to figure out what is next in my life, you will also begin to figure that out for yourself. And, I especially hope we find God is smiling over us in the process.

“He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, He increases strength.” Isaiah 40:29. Just ponder that for a moment. Maybe, just maybe, when we feel the most worthless, the weakest, and the least mighty, if we reach out to God, He will show us how to tap into strength we didn’t even know we had.

See you tomorrow, friend.

Amen and amen.

The View

Blindness comes in many forms–physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational. For some, healing happens in stages over expanses of time.

A dear friend of mine has a form of blindness that typically begins early in life. This beautiful young woman cannot see how fearfully and wonderfully and perfectly God has created her, inside and out. Somewhere along the way, the enemy enticed her to look a little too long at the uber-thin, air-brushed, models in magazines and the tiny, botoxed actresses who’ve had teams of make-up artists and lighting directors spending hours making them look “better” than reality.  My friend bought in to the enemy’s lie that if she did not fit into a certain size of clothing or look like these models and actresses, she should be ashamed of her looks.

God understands how easily so many of us fall into this trap. We don’t realize that it is a trap when we start comparing ourselves to others whose looks conform to our society’s current standard.  The enemy also uses another related ploy to keep us down in the pit of body-shame: he tricks us with false feelings of humility. My friend is kind and considerate, easily puts other people first and has a genuinely humble heart that never boasts or puts herself above others. The enemy can slip in the back door unnoticed and twist our God-given and God-honoring humility into a self-loathing that no longer honors God because it puts the world’s image of what we’re “supposed” to look like above the uniquely wonderful body God actually gave us.

Of course, we need balance too. God expects us to care for these amazing bodies and minds He gave us, and He certainly doesn’t want us to hate someone else because she’s beautiful in the ways our society values most. But He’s given us a roadmap for keeping that balance:

I beseech you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:1-2 NKJV

I pray that my friend learns to see, over and over again every day, how amazingly beautiful and valuable and perfect she is, just as she is today. I pray that her perception shifts from seeing herself through the lens of the world’s totally unrealistic expectations to seeing herself from heaven’s view–fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image, beloved, strong, and uniquely perfect. I pray the same for me because I still struggle with that perspective problem too. I pray for anyone who has only seen how they don’t measure up to the world’s standards, that we may each be transformed as God renews our minds to see ourselves through the love of Jesus.

Amen and amen.