Over the last three weeks, as the wheels of this New Year continue to turn and gain speed, I have been challenged to slow down…to pause and reflect on [my] life – as God would have me embrace and live it. How amazing is the gift and blessing of intentional pauses, that create space for the wisdom of God to penetrate granite falsehoods, erected over time; they inspire fresh thoughts, and an awesome wonder,  at God’s unabashed collusion with nature, people and situations, to speak truth to us.

Such has been my experience since the beginning of 2021 and, while I have been playing a kind of cat and mouse game with my Creator, there’s no denying the fact that He is the One calling the shots, challenging me to a higher level of responsibility in developing my higher/better self. I am being challenged to recognize that in as much as I am counting on Him to enable this evolving, He is counting on me, to ensure that it happens…in real time.

There is a verse of scripture that speaks to the heart of this challenge/command/entreaty, and I share it for your own pondering. It is to be found in 2 Timothy 1:7, which The Voice translation of the Bible renders…You see, God did not give us a cowardly spirit but a powerful, loving and disciplined spirit. In other words, much for which I am beseeching God’s benevolent action – either for personal situations or those having to do with the community of family, friends, church and the world – lay within the power of my own disciplined attitude and approach. So no…I may not be able to turn water into wine, but a bland or bitter relationship or situation, in which I am involved, whether personally or as an onlooker, can be turned into something pleasing and/or gratifying, depending on how I respond…when like Jesus, I perceive it is my time.

 God is counting on me [you]! I first encountered that nugget of wisdom back in 1995, via the Cursio weekend experience, aimed at deepening the spiritual life, through the daily consciousness and hence practice of the presence of God. There is a way in which certain truths come to us intellectually at first, they are then submerged it seems, into the unconscious, as if in gestation, waiting to be birthed at an appropriate Kairos – the opportune, appropriate, critical moment in which that which is received intellectually is internalized, becoming part of one’s conscious way of being.

As I continue to read, mark and inwardly digest God’s Word in scripture and by the Spirit’s direction, via meditation, I am realizing more and more [and this evokes tears] that a lot of the things that I desire, a lot of the things I would wish to do, the person I want to be…is already there! Created in God’s image, I have what it takes to bring to life, the person God created me to be…but for an undisciplined way that refuses to see challenges as opportunities.

So…here I am [we are] at the start of another work-week, replete with glorious possibilities…if only I [we] can summon the power within, to eschew woe-is-me sob stories and drama that keep me [us] in a state of perennial inertia, when the Author of Life has declared and decreed abundance as my [our] lot. It seems that a mixture of Carpe Diem steeped in the Word of God, is the elixir that will provide the stamina, to move me [us] from disappointment to discipline…from woe is me to…Here I am!

Until next week, stay safe as you remain in His grip.

Grace+