The Mystery Of Who They Are . . .

As I type these words I'm sitting in my parents living room and giving thanks for them and for their positive impact on my life. I just finished a book by Ian Cron, "Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me" and in this book he talked about the mystery of knowing our parents deeply, and even forwarded the opinion of if we should seek to discover stories about our parents. His reasoning is as follows, how can we really ever understand the motivations, environments and relationships that drove their decisions? Since it is impossible to replicate their environment in which life-decisions were made should we even attempt to discern the motivation behind such landmarks?

The quandary is that the people we love will always be the most shrouded in mystery, unattainable to the probing questions of their mortal loved ones. This is how it has always been and will always be. I’m reminded of this quote from the TV show, Madam Secretary, (This quote is from the Mom to her oldest daughter) “ If you never listen to anything I say again for the rest of your life, please hear this: Everything is more complicated than you think it is right now. And the only way you come to know that is through experience. And that’s what this whole process of growing up is all about.”

God's Promises - Let's Rank Them . . .

I’ve been spending time lately thinking about the promises of God. And probably because of the amount of time I spend listening to sports radio, I started imagining what order I would put my favorite promises of God. (I’ll bet you're already compiling a list in your head of your favorite promises right now too, aren't you?)

The first and greatest promise is eternal salvation, so I don't think there is much of a debate there. (John 3:16) But what about the next greatest promise?

In my opinion this is the second greatest promise of God. "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you." John 15:7

Where is God in our despair?

What about those times in our lives when we are being crushed by our circumstances - where is God?  When we are so beaten down that we can’t make a fist. When taking one more step requires more energy than we can muster. When our body and mind are beyond exhausted, friends have deserted us, family doesn't understand us, and we can’t think of one good thing in relation to our life. What are we supposed to do when we feel hope slipping away from our lives? Where is God when silence seems to be His only response?

Feelings . . .

One of the hardest lessons in life is learning how to deal with feelings. In fact, there is no way you can have a healthy relationship without knowing the difference between having feelings, and being aware of the presence of those feelings. This very small and yet important difference is the key to self-awareness in our emotional lives.

The Bible makes it clear that not being aware of this difference is being emotionally blind to your true situation. In fact, Jesus spent a lot of His ministry trying to remove this blindness and increasing people's own self-awareness. He knew that without truly knowing ourselves there is no way that we could properly know God. (Proverbs 14:12)