New Year’s Darkness

In the daily devotional A Year With Thomas Merton, the reading for today is entitled New Year’s Darkness. Merton writes about the darkness of January and the fact that it had not only been snowing in Kentucky, but the snow mixed with rain made it seem even more dark. But, he finishes the entry by commenting on the peace he also senses in the darkness. He concludes that he would be “foolish to leave such peace with no reason.”

Can we find peace in the midst of darkness?

That’s a question I’ve been asking myself over the past few months. In the midst of darkness when it seems God is no longer speaking or giving direction, can we actually find peace? I have to say the answer is “yes”. But only if we know our peace comes from God at all times. The mystics called it the dark night of the soul. When God is in the refining process of the saint. How we respond to such a dark night determines how long the dark night will last. Or at least that’s what I used to think. Do we respond with despair? Do we respond with anguish? Do we respond with peace? I’ve come to the conclusion that the dark night of the soul might also be a safe place. After all, since we know God will never leave us nor forsake us, we can also find great peace and comfort that even in the darkness, He is faithfully watching over us.

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Searching For The Well Done
Dr. Rus D. Jeffrey – Dec 2009

When all is said and done,
Shouldn’t the world be loads of fun?
But along the way we often stray,
Losing focus as well as our way.

The bumps and potholes we find in life,
Many times fill us with loads of strife.
We look to the left and look to the right,
Wondering why help is not in sight.

The path can be strewn with many friends,
Who just might help us with the twists and bends.
But first we must find the trusted One,
Who really knows how to find the fun.

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Go And Sin No More

“And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, for there is no sin in Him. So if we continue to live in Him, we won’t sin either.”
1 John 3:5-6

Wow! Think about that. John is telling us there that if we “live in Jesus we won’t sin.” Let that sink in for a few moments. Many eject from the idea of holiness by having what I call a Paul complex. The Apostle Paul declared that he was the “chief of all sinners.” As a result many today excuse the sin in their life by saying they are just like Paul. But, who are we following? Paul? Or Jesus?

A life of holiness is a life of “sinning no more.” When defining Christian perfection John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said it’s not that we are “without” sin. But we do “sin no more.” When we are in Christ, “we won’t sin.” When we find ourselves struggling with sin, or doing what we know is not pleasing to God, we ask forgiveness, and receive His grace to sin no more in that particular area of our life.

That’s precisely what Andrew Murray is getting at today in the daily journal – The Best of Andrew Murray on Prayer.

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A Mirror Image

“The Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature.”
Hebrews 1:3

The Andrew Murray reading for today discusses the letter to the Hebrews. Murray quotes 13:20-21 where we read – “May the God of peace…equip you with all you need for doing his will. May He produce in you…all that is pleasing to Him.”

What does it mean to attain Christian perfection? Is this even something we can attain? Murray writes…

“The thought of being totally equipped to please Him is too high. The promise is too large. And yet, the promise remains, stimulating our faith.”

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In Search of Balance

In Seminary I had a Professor once explain balance as something very hard to find and achieve. While we all want balance and are in search of balance, finding such balance is very difficult.

The professor explained it this way….

“It’s like being on a boat,” he said. “You have everyone gathered to one side of the boat looking over the edge at something fascinating when suddenly the boat begins to pitch to one side.” Why does this happen? “Because everyone is on one side of the boat. As a result, there is no balance at all, and the boat begins to take on water.”

As a result of the situation, “Everyone screams and they suddenly run to the other side of the boat in an attempt to bring balance. While one would think we understand that balance comes from the middle, no one stops in the middle of the boat.” Actually, the opposite takes place! “Everyone keeps running to the other side of the boat in an attempt to stop the tipping sensation.” Of course simply running to the other side of the boat does not bring balance. “Actually,” declared the Professor, “in the search for balance, the boat suddenly starts to pitch in the other direction.”

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Withdrawing To Get A Better Look

Dandelion Fluff

Have you ever looked at the life cycle of a dandelion? Those incredible yellow flowers, or weeds, which spring up all over the grass as soon as spring arrives. To some people, they look pretty. To others, they’re a menace to be weeded out and discarded forever. The first life of the dandelion consists of that little yellow flower that just seems to never go away.

Then, for those that do survive the first cycle of life, the dandelion suddenly and magically turns into nothing more than fluff. On the surface, this fluff looks very harmless. When a wind comes along, the fluff is blown away and the dandelion is never to be seen again.

At least for a season…

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#FollowFriday On Twitter Once Again!

It’s another Friday and that means it’s another #followfriday on Twitter! This is a day when sometimes our Twitter streams get very noisy with people making suggestions of some of their favorite people they follow on Twitter. The idea is to recommend people who are worth following on Twitter.

Once again this week, instead of tossing a list of people into a 140 character tweet on Twitter, I’m following the advice of Steve Woodruff on a way to streamline #followfriday. If you’d like to read more about Steve’s suggestion you check out his blog entry entitled Improving #FollowFriday.

First off, if you aren’t on Twitter, you can head on over to the main Twitter website and set up an account. It’s really easy to set up a Twitter account.

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#FollowFriday On Twitter

Friday on Twitter is known as #FollowFriday. In case you’re not aware of what Twitter is, let me give you a brief description before I go any further.

Twitter is a social networking site. Actually, it’s better known as a microblog because you’re limited to 140 characters per tweet. Instead of filling up this entire post with links scattered throughout, at the end of the post I will give all the links in one place. So, you can read this brief description here, without feeling the need to click on a link. But, you will want to do so later on at the end of this post.

I discovered Twitter a long time ago. I’m not really sure when I joined, but I know I was one of the early adopters. But then again, I usually like to try out new things as soon as they hit the Internet. I played around for a while, but wasn’t really sure what added value Twitter brought to my Internet use. However, as time went on, I started discovering some great new friends. It’s a social network for people to connect on many levels. While some use it solely as a marketing tool, there’s much more to it than that. As a matter of fact, while many marketers may have big numbers for followers, they seldom interact, and for me, I usually ignore their requests for me to follow them. I’m not interested in an endless stream of marketing information.

I’m looking for interaction.

So, how does one find interesting people to follow on Twitter? That’s where #FollowFriday comes in. Usually every Friday people simply tweet out a list of @people they’re following. In other words, it’s a recommendation from one person to follow another person. Over the past few weeks, #FollowFriday has resulted in a lot of noise as people simply send out endless lists of @friend suggestions. I’ve actually started ignoring many of them because I simply don’t have time to look over every suggested person.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

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The Week Starts on Sunday…

Have you noticed how a lot of business calendars these days have the first day of the week as Monday? Actually, calendars have been sliding that way for a while, but I’m beginning to notice it more and more these days. It’s like the entire world is shifting to the idea that the most important thing in life is getting up Monday morning and heading off to work.

But, this simply is not the case.

Job burnout and overall distaste for where one works at is at an all time high. Many people simply are not happy with their lives. Could it be a result of the fact that many are geared to think Monday is the first day of the week? If your mindset is one of work, work, work, then you may quickly discover the old cliche – “All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy.”

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He Leaned On His Staff

Through the years the way we record our family history has changed. In the Old Testament the patriarch of the family always carried a staff. Of course the staff itself had many uses. It was a shepherd staff to keep the sheep in line. It was also a walking stick helping the young shepherd make his way through the rocky hillside. As the years moved along, the staff even took on more of a cane use instead of just a simple walking stick. Whatever the case may be, one thing was sure, the staff stayed with the patriarch throughout his life. 

But, the staff was far more than just a simple walking stick or cane. The staff also contained the geneology and history of that particular family. Etched along the patriarch’s staff were important events that took place in his life. Births, deaths, movements through time. All tracking and keeping a chronological order of the patriarch’s life.

The staff was how the Sojourner kept track of his journey as he made his way through life here on earth.

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