I was thinking about how half of the United States by 12 am, January 1st. eastern time will still be in 2008. What does that mean? Are those people in the past? Will they be in my past? Interesting thought.... it definitely makes you ponder awhile.
In the last couple of days of 2008 this is what the Lord has been speaking to me about:
"Hurried is not just a disordered schedule, hurry is a disordered heart. Hurry must be ruthlessly eliminated from my life. For Love and Hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time. Also, one can not cultivate gentleness, inner beauty, when hurrying life. You can not cultivate anything. Hurry stunts any growth.. any potential of growing.
My job is to bless. (1 Peter 2, 3, & 4). "This is the kind of life you've been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came His way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step by step. They called Him every name in the book and He said nothing back; He suffered in silence - content to let God set things right. He used His servant body to carry our sins to the cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became our healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going.
Now I'm named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls . "
Cultivating inner beauty starts and comes from the inner disposition of the heart: surrender. Pure humility... Appropriate Smallness: the practice of servanthood.
(For a plant that is replaced, uprooted, and rooted again. . . it has die first before it can begin to grow again).
GROW: verb. Progress to maturity. Germinate and Develop. Produce by cultivation.
GROWABLE: adj. Something that has potential to increase, to be enlarged. Something that is teachable... willing to be stretched.
It all comes from being content with appropriate smallness. "We have all, in our own way, been trying to take God's place ever since Eden." Trying to control our lives. The vanity and the stubbornness of it all... PRIDE, "at the deepest level, pride is the is the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Pride moves us to exclude instead of embrace"..... resulting in wanting to have the control and hurry life. "Pride is a form of anti-love. Pride destroys the capacity to love. "
The first commandment is to love. Jesus went after sinners. Love chases but does not force itself. Love is humble. "Humility is not about convincing ourselves- or others- that we are unattractive or incompetent. It is not about "beating ourselves up" or trying to make ourselves nothing. If God wanted to make us nothing, he could have done it. Humility has to do with submitted willingness. It involves healthy self-forgetfulness. Humility, if ever grown into it, would not be a burden. It would be an immense gift. Humility is the freedom to stop trying to be what we're not, or pretending to be what we're not, and accepting our "appropriate smallness." In Luther's words, humility is the decision to "LET GOD BE GOD!"
*Humility involves a Copernican revolution of the soul, the realization that the universe does not revolve around us.
*When Jesus came in the form of a servant, he was not disguising who God is. He was revealing who God is.
My prayer: "Let your love, God, shape my life. Train me in the good common sense, I'm thoroughly committed to living your way. For your love, Lord, fills the earth! Train me to live by your counsel, always! Help to defeat hurry in my life... with true freedom of letting you be you! King of glory, Lord of my heart... my life."
HAPPY NEW YEARS
EVE DEAR ONES!
Goodbye 2008.
i am prayerfully yours. grow. laugh. love. surround your life with activities that bring out the fruits of the spirit. last good night.
indian. paintbrush
No comments:
Post a Comment