By Bob Beanblossom
9 May 2016
It seems to me that those who refuse to acknowledge God, or who just plain ignore Him, are missing most of what this life has to offer. Their view of life and the world they inhabit is necessarily skewed–it is incomplete. They trade the sublime for the mundane, beauty for the beast, joy for hopelessness and frustration.
The idea of life consisting of nothing but pain and suffering interspersed by brief episodes of pleasure, then death, is untenable. A little objective non-egocentric (as in ‘woe is me’) observation, helped along by transferring faith from self to a loving God works miracles. We all have and exercise faith. Where we place that faith makes all the difference.
Every step I have taken has, in retrospect, prepared me for the next. This is much more than chance.
The journey is an adventure more excellent than novelist, screenwriter, or gamesman can devise. Anticipation of the coming lends substance to the present and meaning to the past.
The trip has been beyond my childhood dreams and aspirations.
I have seen the Northern Lights and the Southern Cross, probed the ocean depths and hiked the Continental Divide. I’ve walked some of the world’s great deserts and lushest rain forests. I’ve experienced some of the most powerful forces of nature–hurricanes on land and at sea and earthquakes that caused the ground to ebb and flow in waves, the rigid to crumble, and the delicate to survive–and the most serene calms in the presence of snow-capped mountains and in the midst of flowers of unspeakable beauty and animals in rich diversity. I’ve traveled great highways and the trackless wilderness. I have touched and been touched by birth and death. These are all literal: been there, done that, wore out the t-shirt (and the shoes). In each, I’ve seen the hand of God both in His Creation and in my life. Never, have I been alone.
I may not fit your mold–but I am being fitted to His. I never intentionally ask that you please me, only that you please God.
Thus, I have come to today. Yesterday is past, never to be experienced again, but to be recalled, pondered, to glean what knowledge and wisdom was therein. Yesterday is not a place in which to dwell or to remain in. It is only instructional for Today. Tomorrow is yet to come. I will deal with it when I can rightfully call it Today. The Psalmist said, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
Are you alone? Lost? Drifting? Without purpose? Here’s the solution (and it is the only solution):
1) Get your priorities right–there are things far more important than you and I:
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)
2) Rejoice in the fact that you (and I) are not the ultimate anything. There is One in charge who is infinitely greater in all aspects than we are:
“In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:6)
3) Understand that we are all in the same world and subject to the world as it is:
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I recon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:16-18)