back again

Not long ago I realized that my work is actually an obstacle to my writing. You see, I work in the electronics industry, and my job involves the design of computers. Not desktop computers, laptops, or netbooks, such as what you might be using to read this, but specialty systems, such as retail kiosks, price checkers, and so on. However, the development work I do is hosted on the same type of computer I use to write this blog, and I realized that after spending all day every day "on the computer," I often don't want to do computer stuff in my off time. That, I have realized, is why I have gone "missing" from writing several times.

Life is full of obstacles. Some are real, some imagined. But whether actual or rationalized, the effect is the same. Last year, I wrote a post about church attendance and membership which was prompted by people leaving and/or switching churches. There are real reasons to switch churches, but there are many more selfish, imagined "reasons" to do so. I don't like the preacher, someone hurt my feelings, I'm not appreciated. At least at their beginning, an honest, human emotion can be found in each of these, but acting on the emotion rather than God-grown character is an error. I've seen some who left for wrong reasons come back, once they realize they miss their [church] family or that what they sought doesn't exist.

God-grown character. It's all a matter of maturity that only God can accomplish in us, if we let Him. This is the reason for this rant: I was reading Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest this morning and saw in today's session the following question:

Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister?

Is my focus to minister? Or is my priority to seek to be ministered to? For myself I'll just say that I regularly must acknowledge that God isn't finished with me yet.

quotpourri

When our lives are focused on God, awe and wonder lead us to worship God, filling our inner being with a fullness we would never have thought possible. Awe prepares the way in us for the power of God to transform us and this transformation of our inner attitudes can only take place when awe leads us in turn to wonder, admiration, reverence, surrender, and obedience toward God.

James Houston

what's on the inside

You may or may not have picked up on the fact that, about once a month, I post a quote that has interested me, yet without comment. The rest of the time, I attempt to share some of the thoughts that come to mind as I read or remember a certain quote or quotes. This, taken together with the occasional unrelated mental upheaval, is after all the nature of my blog.

It has been two weeks since my last post, which is a little less often than I try to write. This longer-than-normal gap came about due to some increased personal "busy-ness" in my life. This morning I awoke thinking about the fact that when one has more things [than normal] to do in a given time, priorities are explicitly or implicitly assigned so that the most important and/or favorite things get accomplished in the available time. Items of lesser importance might be put off or canceled or not even thought of to begin with.

Now, I'm not making a commentary about the importance of my blog (or it's readers, if there are any) to me. I did wake up thinking something like, "Gee, it's been a while since I wrote anything." Right on the heels of that thought, it occurred to me that life's pressures can be very revealing as what we consider to be important becomes more and more apparent. If my Christian life is something that I do rather than who I am, does it not follow that it might be subject to priority too? To a watching world, it might then appear that, when I'm under pressure, my mask slips, i.e I forget to act like a Christian.

Praise be to the Lord, that Christianity is Christ, and even when life hands to me more plates than I can balance, the character traits that typify a genuine Christian life (such as patience, gentleness, and self-control) will still be present if I am letting Jesus live his life in me, because Jesus is the Christian life. That is why in the Bible, those traits are called the fruit of the Spirit.

I used to know a man who said, "Trouble doesn't build character, it reveals it." Even if there is no trouble or pressure ("Life's good!"), our life should be that of Christ in us, rather than our highest-priority effort to "be Christian."

The Christian life isn't difficult--it is impossible. If we don't know that, we will try to do things ourselves. Faith is not necessary when we think we can do it ourselves. Faith comes along when we realize that we cannot do it on our own.

Joseph Garlingen

One might well say, "What's the difference in a believer and a non-believer doing the same things? What makes the believer's life 'Christ living in him'?" Faith in God's Word--Jesus, the trusting of one's life to Him, makes the difference. So, with these thoughts in mind, may I repeat my quote of two weeks ago, from Douglas Rhymes, who said,

If our faith is not relevant to our daily life in the world and in the parish, then it is no use; and if we cannot be Christians in our work, in the neighborhood, in our political decisions, then we had better stop being Christians. A piety reserved for Sundays is no message for this age.

As in all ages, Christ in you is the message the world needs.

quotpourri

If our faith is not relevant to our daily life in the world and in the parish, then it is no use; and if we cannot be Christians in our work, in the neighborhood, in our political decisions, then we had better stop being Christians. A piety reserved for Sundays is no message for this age.

Douglas Rhymes

needs

There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all cost, and God will fulfill His purpose through your life. (This includes meeting the needs of your heart.) One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life.

Oswald Chambers

This includes meeting the needs of your heart is the phrase that caught my attention because of the way that God did that for me today. Blessings come in all shapes and sizes, but one of the most common things about them is that they rarely, if ever, are what we expect.

This afternoon, I was at work and my cell phone rang. Pulling it from my pocket, I glanced at the display and saw to my surprise and delight that it was my son calling. Now, those of you that know me know that he has been in the Middle East on his second deployment with the U. S. Army; that he was calling me from his cell phone could only mean that he was back in this country! What a rich blessing indeed! We knew that he was due back sometime soon, but we didn't know exactly when.

The endless stream of love and care that God pours out on me, indeed all of His children, is certainly reason enough to take the whole of Chambers' comment to heart. The wonderful thing is, I need not set out to do anything to overtly bless anyone; that will be the natural outcome of living dependently on Jesus Christ, as such a life is always useful in His hands. And that is the greatest blessing of all.

back

Three week ago, I was tremendously excited because of our impending departure for summer vacation: "Only two days until we leave!" And it was a fabulous vacation during which we thoroughly enjoyed a portion of God's creation. Rivers--we canoed on the Snake and North Platte rivers; mountains--my daughter and two friends climbed Mt. Elbert, the tallest peak in Colorado! It was wonderfully cool everywhere we were, and the blessings and refreshment were awesome.

Today, as I write this, I've been back from vacation for two days, and it has reminded me how fleeting the temporal is. However, that brings into sharp focus the superiority of God's way. When one's life is centered on loving God and people, the passage of time nears irrelevance. As Henry van Dyke said,

Time is too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love -- time is eternity.

july fourth quotpourri

I have lived, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

Benjamin Franklin

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

Thomas Jefferson