Hot potato


            We have had breezes that last few days.  There is something about a cool breeze, any breeze at all for that matter, which refreshes.  In New Testament Greek, the word for spirit and wind (aka breeze) is the same word.  I am often reminded of the Holy Spirit and comforted by the wind.  It serves as a reminder that there are things we can’t see exactly but we can see their effects, we can feel their presence.  The Holy Spirit is a rather subtle entity though, often times moving behind the scenes, it requires one to be acutely aware of little details.  I often recognize the Holy Spirit at work “after the fact” when I perform my own retrospective observation of a situation.

            Love is another such entity.  We are not always aware of it in the physical sense but we can see its effects. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by that, after all, God is love.  When we consider all the possible intangible qualities; love, appreciation, encouragement, satisfaction, joy and even sorrow to name a few; we can recognize, these are the articles that produce the kind of life we seek.  As God’s children, it is our responsibility to fill our world with these qualities.

            I have found myself a bit grumpy as of late and through self-examination, I have concluded it is because I am not planting the seeds of holy fruit and I cannot reap what I do not sow. How about you?  At times the Christian life is like a game of hot potato with God, what we give away in love he throws right back to us.  The key is, we have to keep throwing it out to the world to keep it going.  Imagine all that red-hot love flying around, brings a smile to your face, it does to mine.

            Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.”
Posted by

Comments

  1. harleyMay 31, 2012 at 9:13 AM

    The breezes on Monday were rather strong at times. 6 shingles got ripped off my roof and neatly deposited in 3 locations. 2 landed neatly on top of my neighbors recycle bin. 2 landed on plants another neighbor donated when they no longer had use for them and the last 2 landed in the neighbor to the rear's yard. That landing wasn't so neat as one of the shingles was intact and the other was broken into bits. I'm a firm believer that all things happen for a reason. Right now God only knows, but through meditation and prayer the answer will be revealed. The key is in the 2 that landed neatly on top of my neighbors recycle bin. And that fuels my faith that there is an aspect of life (like the wind) that will ultimately survive bodily death.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How are you?

Image
            When I wake, one of the first things I do is say, “Good morning God!” Some days are more enthusiastic than others. When I greet another human being, I usually follow that greeting with, “how are you?” This morning it occurred to me that I don’t ask God how he is. I have been contemplating this idea, how are you God? Obviously, given his attributes of omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience it is easy to follow the train of thought that he has everything in check. Despite that; I think of him in human terms and I can’t help but feel he is; not mad but disappointed (cringe). When he looks at creation, like a parent gazing on the wreckage of a kid’s toy room, wouldn’t there be disappointment?             As I contemplated that, my meandering mind led me to consider guilt. The guilt that leads to the disappointment of others. Every culture I have known lays claim to guilt; Lutheran guilt, Catholic guilt, Jewish guilt, Italian guilt and so on. Truth be told, we’re all guil
Read more

Out of the Mouth

Image
  Genesis 3:14 “God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM.’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I Am has sent me to you.”             I feel the need to make a disclaimer statement up front as I can see what I will write in these next few sentences could be misconstrued. This writing is not claiming that man is God although I will say, that if you have claimed the Holy Spirit lives in you, that identifies that God is in you too.             How many times a day do you use the phrase “I am…”? Probably much more than you or I realize. This is how God identified Himself to Moses. “I AM who I AM” We often refer to God as the great I AM, which He is. Going back to how often we use the phrase, for myself those two words are often followed with denigrating words like; so stupid, so foolish, so dumb, so angry, so hurt, so fill in the blank. What if each time we thought about those two words and how we identify ourselves we replaced “I AM” with “God is” most of us (I make this assumptio
Read more

Masterpiece

Image
              As a young person, I was fond of painting, not great at it but reasonable. I set it aside when I fell in love and got married. In these days of isolation I needed to find some other ways to occupy myself other than baking and decided to get back to my paint brushes.   To get used to handling the brushes again I got myself a paint by number,             If you have never tried one of these let me give you a little insight. You receive a canvas with an image divided up into numbered areas and little pots of paint with corresponding numbers. Then you begin a sort of scavenger hunt trying to fill in all the spots of a particular number. Sounds simple enough, however some of these areas are so tiny they are easily overlooked. The tiny spots are important though, they give that little flourish that can draw the eye or round out an object.             Why do I tell you about this? As I dove into this project, a great life analogy was revealed to me and I do love a good word
Read more