Not There Yet

Genesis 12:1
Now the LORD had said to Abram, "Get out of your country. From your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.'

Last day of the year.......December 31, 2013.
One more year in a series of years that God has allowed me to live.
Another day in a long line of days that stretch back to my birth.
I picked the song, "I am a long long way from my home" because it reminds me that my journey is closer to being over than when I first began. If anything has been made clear to me this year, it has been how deceptive and easy it is to fall in love with this old world.
To be caught up in the insignificant and the common is all part of the deception to pull us away from the journey. Does that mean that I am going to shed myself of society and go live on a hill top somewhere, wear brown robes and sandals and grow organic vegetables? No...nothing wrong with those things. But as Bonhoeffer wrote in Cost Of Discipleship, "The church found out that this pulling away from society in cloistered settings did nothing but truly show the heart of man that follows him every where he goes." No wonder that Jesus said we "were salt and light." We are the vessels used to preserve the souls of those who don't yet know this Jesus, and we are the illumination of God that opens the eyes of those blinded by sin.

Funny, but at this stage of life I carry around a mixture of great sorrow and great joy. How the two can mix is beyond me, but they seem to co-exist in my heart and in my mind. Sorrow for the darkness that is all around. Darkness that touches so many lives and keeps them from seeing the glorious light of Christ. Darkness that is manifested in sickness and disease that racks a body with pain. In such darkness, Jesus came to manifest the goodness of God in contrast with the works of the devil. And through such manifestation, Jesus exercised authority and power to destroy these hellish works. Now, here on December 31st, either that authority and power is still at work, or Jesus is a mere shell of who He use to be. As for me and my house (Not trying to go all Joshua on you) we fall on the side of believing Jesus is the Christ and that the Kingdom of God is still moving and healing. Power has not ceased. The Spirit of God is still at work in this world, in fact I believe if you listen closely you will hear and see that everything is building to a divine crescendo. A time of release when blind eyes will see, deaf ears will hear and bodies, long numb by sin and destruction, will feel the liberation of God Almighty, as chains of bondage are broken and freedom proclaimed.

Fairy tale?
I don't think so. But the world would want me to believe that this God, and everything about Him, exists only as a child's story meant to calm little fears when the storm of life is raging.
I have been touched by His fire. I have felt the breath of God  giving me new life and dragging me from a pit of despair. When I gave myself to Him, He filled me with His own personal Spirit of Holiness that is like a divine GPS. He keeps me on track. Convicts me when I move and act outside of Grace. Teaches me as I study His word. So, here in this mortal body that is breaking down, lies the treasure of treasures. As Paul put it so eloquently in II Corinthians 4:7 - But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. I have a body that longs to be a part of this world but, at the same time, A deposit of God's Spirit in me keeps me looking forward to the day I am reunited with Christ. Be it in death or at His return, no matter which, I am going home. But until that time, I will keep moving forward. I will pray until I have no more breath to do so. I will read and study, feast on and digest His word. Because I have to? No, because such things are life. Such things as prayer and study fill me with hope to stay the course and not give up. I may be getting older but the message is timeless. I may not be a "bendy" as I use to be but the message is a solid as a wall of granite, unshaken and undeterred by every assault that comes against it. It is for His Kingdom that I share what God has done in me, because I know all to well that without Him and His Spirit in me.......I would be lost beyond lost in a sea of sin.
Today I am grateful.
Today I look forward to 2014 and what it may hold for me and my family.
Today I am alive.

Revelation 22:17
And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!"

God on you....
mb