Order the Combo Meal

I am doing pretty well with one of my NYR goals this year - to read my bible and journal every day of twenty twelve. I know, you're thinking - 'hey that's great T$, but we're not even two weeks in'. I know. Humility. But I am excited as I press into the word each day and spend time engaging with God, and hopefully hearing things that I need to hear to grow in our relationship, and grow in understanding what I am on this earth to do each day. Trust has been a regular theme that continues to evolve in my conversations with God, and certainly in this time, I need to continue to trust Him more with more of my life. It is greatly rewarding personally to let all of the anxiety of life go, and allow Him to give me the peace Paul describes in Phillipians 4:7:
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
But we are looking at HOPE at communitasnyc as of late, and I had somewhat of a revelation this morning in my quiet time. Hope is something that is anticipated in the future, a feeling that things will turn out well down the road. I have hope, for example, that one day I will be with God forever. (Such a small sentence that means so much)That is something that I look forward to. But - (dramatic pause. cue the movie music. show graphic of sunrise.) in order to have that hope for the future, for what is to come, I must demonstrate trust in the present, that is NOW. This is the conduit with which I have hope, in the trust I have now. But - (dramatic pause, music, scene) in order to trust in Him now, I must remember the past. I have to remind myself of what God has done for me in the past, and we are all idiots in that we SO EASILY FORGET what God has done for us. I am reading the old testament as of late, and I read these stories and think "YOU IDIOTS! DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR YOU? PARTING A SEA? MANNA? HELLO!!!" And then, depression sets in.... Why you ask? Because I am just as stupid as the Israelites. I forget about the Red Sea moments in my life where God saved me with wreckless abandon. I forget about how delicious the manna is that He fed me at times I needed to be sustained. And so, we must look back at things in the past - not to perseverate on them, but to remember things God has done for us - so that we can trust Him more in this moment, today, which leads us to the hope He desires us to experience for the future. Brilliant.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Too, Too, Too Much Fun

Alright. So you're sitting in front of your computer right now. And you're saying to yourself at about 8:00 pm: "Huh. It's been dark out for nearly three and a half hours now. What else can we do for fun?" Well, sir, we have the answer. Take a look at this.
Read more

Big Difference.

I heard my superstar say this to the girls this week: "Discipline sounds like something that is bad, right? But really, it isn't. It means to push yourself to doing something. Like journalling, reading your bible, spending time with God. That is a spiritual discipline. See how that isn't a bad thing?" For nearly four years now (you can get the full story if you look back to 2007 postings), I have certainly elevated my game in the area of spiritual disciplines. Reading the bible more than I ever did before, truly engaging with what God's desire is for my life, not just when it is convenient, trying to spend time being still and listening to what God has to say to me, and one thing I never really understood why superstar did it - journalling. I really started engaging in my morning "Java with Jesus" when I began to work for my company in the D. I would get up early to drive down Alter Road to the little park where the lake turns into the D river.
Read more

My Communication Arsenal

Let’s be honest, we all have moments of glory when we are communicating with others, and moments of incredible fall on your face failure.   I for one have always thought I was a relatively good communicator, and my perspective was that I could effectively communicate and engage with a variety of people from different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicity, upbringing, or what have you.   I have been a teacher, coach, assistant principal, principal, leadership development consultant, school improvement coach/facilitator, and done these things in a variety of areas in suburbia, rural districts, and even in Detroit, Flint, and Brooklyn.   But today, I came across this word arsenal .   I felt as if I was walking down the street of life and a sign with this word was in my path and I walked my face right into it – you know the videos you see online when someone doesn’t see the sign before they run their head into it?   And it was painful.   The pain came from the realization that I have an
Read more