Not Because I Have To…

Oh glorious Father! My sustainer, my fortress, my everlasting hope! How toilsome, to face the swiftly passing days as they relentlessly crash against the starboard side of this vessel called life, pushing me this way and that. There is but one bearing that I wish to pursue! One! May your mighty outstretched arms shield the waves and with your breath may you carry my sails through the storms of the raging sea! How wearisome it is to battle constantly, a foe that never tires, that never slumbers. Ever violent he is, attacking the mind, the body, and the spirit… and without a shred of mercy. How much easier the fight O Lord, if I could just relinquish the gift of sight, the gift of feeling and sensations, and the gifts of deep pondering and heartfelt emotions. Thus, leaving the enemy with no kinks left in my armor to penetrate through as he seeks to gravely wound my soul. Had I not been blessed with such gifts, they would not have also been my downfall, causing me to fall away from you Lord, my first love.  And so I battle the hordes of deceit, selfishness, pain, sorrows, and worries. Oh how much easier it would be to surrender these gifts, so that I may not be distracted by the sights, lead away by my feelings, and so I could be simple in thought as to be forced only one choice of thinking and action… to love you Lord with all of my being! Oh how in complete despair my soul screams out in horrendous agony, to be eternally bonded to the fullness of your indescribable love without reservation… a love like no other. How ignorant of me though, to miss the magnificent beauty of the gift of freely choosing to love, and by emphasizing such beauty by being given the choice to love through the crashing waves, through the storms of life, and through battling the merciless hordes of the enemy. Is not love given wings to soar, when contrasted against perils of life and found to be triumphant… because of the choice to love? If this be so Father, then let me keep my eyes, let me keep my body, and my spirit… and for a thousand years let me live, that I may tirelessly fight and display my love for you! Send me off into the front lines of the battlefield, that I may fight for you until every ounce of my affection for you, every single drop, has been spilled from my body… poured out for you as your Son has so selflessly and sacrificially done for me first. Not because I have to O Lord… but because I choose to. Because I choose to… love you.

Psalm 63:1-3 – You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.  I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

Psalm 63:7-8 – Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.

John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Three Words – One Life

His love…

Like food and water to the body, our spirit craves nourishment. It desires to be filled with all that is good, so that it can function to its fullest potential, thereby yielding some good of its own. Such goodness, is called love. God’s love. It sets our spirit in motion, whom puts the body to work, fueling us and giving us purpose to live. This is why we were created, what we were created for. So that we can labor in love, and for love. Nothing will satisfy the body and the spirit, like the unconditional, never failing, persistent love of our Creator. He and only He gives us purpose, and fills the void within ourselves like no one or nothing on Earth could ever satisfy. His love is perfect and free, as the price for such a love was paid for by the blood of His son, Christ Jesus. Believe… and live with purpose, leaving a legacy of love.

Romans 8:37-39 – … in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Hope

Hope – The fading wilderness. The elusive dream. A distant shelter in a fast approaching storm.

Hope – Wishful thinking. A beautiful notion. The black hole of life.

How have we come to this, to reduce hope nothing more then fairy-tales inked within the pages of our history? Or something worse. At least in the fairy-tales, small flames could potentially burst forth from the simmering coals beneath the surface of our doubts. These flames could grow and spread like wild fire, if we remove the bounds by which it’s contained… unless we snuff it out all together by the means of our bucket filled with ice cold realism.

In our current society, the latter seems to be the case, as we have no need, room, or time for hope. Why? May I suggest that it is because hope has failed us more times then we would care to reflect upon, again? After all, when we turn on the news in the morning, or when we step out of our homes, or when we arrive at work, we are completely saturated by the negativity experienced through every sensation available. And so, the tiresome march of life relentlessly drudges on. Did we feel this way as a small child? Was it always like this? I dare say that it was not. I dare say that something changed. I dare say, we are what has changed, and not the world. For life has always been unfair, cruel, broken, and full of sin and destruction. The elements of our surroundings alone inescapably wear on ones fragile body. As a child, our minds are boundless, free from these facts. And as we grow older, as we experience life, we begin to form within ourselves the rules for living and understanding that we will ultimately be bound by, thereby creating our own prison. The result is that we place no faith, in hope.

What is the solution to freeing our minds from this prison, from this place of slow decay and depravity to which the prince of the world has led us? As stated previously, the problem two fold.

This first issue is that we have lost our childlike sense of awe and wonder of the world and the possibilities within. Somewhere along this path of growing up, we correlated growing up with having to let go of this sense of the world as a part of the process of change, and so that we would fit in and look like others around us. We became fearful and worrisome in the process. Therefore we became structured and systematic. We became, ironically, what we feared the most as a child. No longer were we an individual, special, or unique. We were, we are, no one in particular… only a somebody.

The second issue is that we place our hopes in the people and things of this world that are fickle, frail, and fallible. Such things will more certainly, as the scars of life have proven, let us down without a single care or concern. Life hits us as hard as professional boxer in an amateur fight. With each crushing blow, our hope bleeds out from our wounds. We feverishly race to patch each wound but the next round of flurries one opens up fresh ones. Puddles of failure surround our feet, as we feel our arms lowering from becoming heavy and weak for they have soaked up most of the blows in life. The battle is a losing one.

Or is it? We have lost our hope, frankly, because our hope rested in the things and people of this world, as well as because we have lost our passion for a simplistic and majestic life as we once so blessedly experienced while just a mere child. The good news is that our child like faith and limitless magnificence of character, as well as our hope for all possible blessings, miracles, and fairytale endings can be restored! It all starts with the renewing of the mind, such as developing one as fresh as that of a child who dreams of being the hero or the princess within the grand story, where the marvelous possibilities are infinite. This then, is followed with placing our hope in the one who is hope and who is the real Hero of the grand story called life. The one who gave us life, who created us with purpose, who made us special, and who is perfection in every way that is pure, holy, and good. The one who is love and so He exemplifies love to the maximum degree. He created us in His image, with the potential for us to express all of His glorious virtues, that we may manifest His Son for the world to regain, and renew its hope in Him. For He is unwavering, unchanging, constant, capable, and beautiful even beyond our comprehension. He is our candle in the dark. He is where our hope should lie, for He who is good, and who created us for good, has only good in store for us… His children. If we would but simply open ourselves up to receiving Him, placing our hope in Him, and open our minds up to all of the awe-inspiring ways in which our omnipotent God desires to exalt His name, we could ourselves become part of His never ending story, which is a greater role then we could have ever hoped to have written for ourselves.

What kind of a legacy will YOU leave behind? One of hope, and life that shows it? Or one of despair? There is so much more to life than what we see, and that EVERY choice we make, makes a difference. It all starts with a choice… a choice to hope for something more.

Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

1 Corinthians 15:19 – If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 – So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.