Today, I am not bringing you a quirky poem I wrote sparked by God’s demonstration through nature. Today, this blog is more about me than it is you. Today, I am pretty much building an alter here……a marker in time pinpointing an unsurmountable change that has taken place. This is a day of reckoning for me and the course of my life and my family’s lives will change.
Read these scriptures, reread them, chew on them, and this blog may just become about you, too.
So, let’s dig in:
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. James 1:5
My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God. For the Lord grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2: 1-6
Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. Hebrews 2:14
It’s taken me 38 years, 7 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days to understand that I am set free from fear. Fear of dying. Fear of the unknown. Fear of sickness. Fear of man. FEAR, PERIOD. *A commentary by David Guzik examines closely Proverbs 2:1. He explains that in the first chapter of Proverbs, Solomon began to speak to his son and teach him about wisdom. Upon analyzing “receive my words” and “treasure my commands,” he points out that “receive” is paralleled with “treasure” or “stored-up.” Indicating that most teaching cannot be used immediately, but some amount of time may pass before education’s effects are felt.
My brother, ahem cousin, Brad “The Boot” Beck, gave me an analogy last week. We were talking about how each person in the body of Christ goes at their own pace. The important thing to remember, he said, is not how fast people are going, or not going, but that they are going in the right direction……and that direction being, toward Jesus. Some of us are a little slow 😉 It’s okay. Let’s run this race together. “Let’s strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let’s run with endurance that race that God set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” Hebrews 12: 1.
God’s been asking me to strip things out of my life over the last decade: from those breast implants I thought I just had to have— to those martinis and margaritas on the patio….. Yes, Lord, I will give it up! Who wants to run a race carrying extra weight?! Not me, the race is hard enough without extra crap to carry around! What has God asked you to lay down? What knowledge has God bestowed upon you, whether you understood it quickly or a little slow like me?? It blesses me to hear from you, I look forward to reading your comments!
Be blessed!
*Reference
Featured photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
Very thought provoking and well written!