Sabbath Rest - New Life

"...for the display of His Splendor."

Those 6 words are profound. Let's sit with them for awhile.  Think of your life, the way you were raised, trained up and how you perceive life and meaning.  

We make decisions each and every day to bring levels of splendor into our lives.  Be it the quest for the 'Western Dream' of prosperity, a life of ease, indulgence, fascinations with the best things in life, we are always seeking after something of majesty, something of brilliance. We can also seek after the splendor of things that ease our burden or pain.  Addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, gossip/idle talk, sex, money/greed (this list is not exhaustive) and if we are honest, these things are on display in our lives which point to a deep heart issue that we all face. How do I escape or how do I build my own kingdom? We have a deep fear of missing out. (FOMO is real) 

What if we stopped and did a re-set?  What would it mean to slow down and stop rushing from one thing to another and took time to be present with what our hands are doing, or where our feet are taking us?  What if we resisted building our own display of our kingdom come? 

What if we re-connected with who made us?  A creator God who didn't just cause cells to divide by accident or evolution, but purposefully created us to seek after His Splendor.  To desire for his splendor to be on display, rather than ours.  When I think of that action, I get a deep sense of rest, and the ability to take deep breathes and to come back to realize that all the good/work I seek to do can be ordered in a way that takes away people's vision of me, and put it on Jesus who sought to save me from my own doing. 

"...for the display of His Splendor!" 

Rest, sabbath rest, intentionally stopping and focusing on the real purposes of life, happiness and goodness in the land of the living with an eternal perspective of human flourishing.  Can we attain this? Rejecting the lies of the culture around us that tries to dictate to us how we shall live, rather than drinking and eating from the source of the divine, God with us, Emmanuel?  

This is my prayer as I move throughout 2025.  To resist rushing, to resist my kingdom and to seek first the one who gives me breath.  Care to join?

Living Love

Well, it seems my writing and personal journal writing this past year kinda bit the dust. All good intentions flew out the window in what was a very difficult year on many levels. In retrospect, I was managing life, but that was about it.  There wasn't a lot of capacity or reserve to do much else.  Living with someone with a Chronic illness can put excess pressure on the whole house, and I learned much in this season about myself and my own propensity toward 'dark days'.  I had many upward moments (the ups!) in the midst of the down (dark) days, and as I look back I have chosen to cherish all the days, all the moments, because I was alive and God gave me breath.  Each day whether easy, difficult or just plain neutral was a gift to us and we can either forget all about it or we can learn and grow from the experience.  I want to grow.

Entering into 2018, I wondered..."Will life look any different? What will life look like?" and as I thought about it, I began to see that all God is asking for me at the moment is to live love. Not so much a focus on love living, but to live love out of His empowerment for His glory. You see my understanding of 'love living'  is to think that everything will be rosy, dandy, and of my choosing.  That somehow I can love living through experiences that I make and yet I want something deeper than experiential opportunities.  I was to live love, despite the circumstances that I may face whether good or bad.

It's a manifesto of sorts, to proclaim and declare that one will live love rather than love living.  To some this will sound rather redundant or you can't have one without the other, or the later is a by product of living love, but I think if we decide to seek first the Kingdom of God and ALL his righteousness and choose to live love in every situation, circumstance and experience, we can in the good times and the difficult times learn in very essence the art of loving life.

Practically speaking, I think it looks a whole lot like the fruits of the spirit: Kindness, gentleness, self control, patience, goodness, joy, faithfulness, peace...and the greatest of all...love.

Choosing to live love means to be cloaked in love...and we can't have this fully unless we are seeped in the Holy Spirit.  Declaring each day the Holiness of God our Father, who extravagantly loves.  Asking for the fullness of our day..."Give us this day...", guarding against evil, sin, patterns of selfishness, walking as ones forgiven and ones offering forgiveness...and laying down our lives to serve only one master...God. (Matthew 6)

To live love is to radically choose the opposite of how we may feel on any given moment and to choose to depend fully on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit who is revealing Jesus, who equips us with everything we need to live life to the full, not for our glory or fame but for his.  To God be the Glory and furthering of His Kingdom.  AMEN