speedbumps?

"I will wait for you, Jesus. You're the sun in my horizon..... all my hope's in you, Jesus, I can see you now, arising...." Thank you, Jason Upton, for the stunning illumination.

I have been "navel gazing" this week. Thinking about myself. Thinking about how my plans are being thwarted lately by the world. Things happen. You have to "roll with the punches", and sometimes I'm better at it than others. I remembered the verse that says, "even the darkness is light to you" (Psalms). Last night I started to put it all together. There are a lot of metaphors in the Bible, and even more in the words of earlier Christian writers. Symbol after symbol. When I see the word "sun", particularly in the New Testament, sometimes I like to substitute the word "Son" and see if it still makes sense, or sometimes, even more sense. I was praying the other night and this Jason Upton song came up on my iPod with the words as noted above. I couldn't help but substitute. I like the symbol of the Son as the sun. It makes him truly illuminating.

"Even the darkness is light to you" because the Son is just past the horizon, reflecting light off the moon. The son is hope. The sun brings a new day. I see you on the horizon. My hope is in the horizon.... a new day, given by the SON, not made by me. Given in time HE created, not me. I have no control of time, only what I do with the time I have. I have no control of the timing of events or situations in my life, only what I do with the situations I am given as they are given.

We get disappointed when we don't get our way. Even when we think our hearts are in the right place, our hopes can be misplaced in "the plan" and not "in the son". The only hope to be found is in the Son. We lose the glory in the situation when we cease to see that we are not the author of the dawn and we can not illuminate the darkness ourselves. Everything we do will fall short of the glory of God.

Matthew 5:44-45 "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

justly justifying justice

I've been helping some girls with a Bible study lately. Well, they're women, not girls. While I was there the other night, we ran into one of those confusing and wordy passages in a new testament letter from Paul. We were talking about "justification" vs. "justice". Here's the passage, Romans 3:22-26:

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The lesson was discussing how even though we have sinned, God has forgiven us. There is no "penance" to be paid for the rest of our lives. He says he forgave us, so he forgave us. That's God's grace, that's "justification". God looks at us as though we have never sinned and all that stuff in the past is forgotten. It won't ever be thrown back in our faces. The battle then becomes an inward one. We have to forgive ourselves and move on. This idea of justification was being compared to "justice" which is, briefly, "fairness". Each day you hear "what's fair is fair" or "an eye for an eye" or "he/she doesn't deserve to be treated any better". Someone hurts you, so you hurt them back or withhold something from them in an effort to hurt them back. And you feel as if you are "justified" by your actions because you have been hurt. But what about that is "justified"? What about your personal vengeance or payback makes you look at the other person as though they have never hurt you? Nothing. Justification and being "justified" is not something that we can give to ourselves or to others. We can only pray and ask for God to provide the justice we need (including our own forgiveness). He alone can justify a situation or bring it into perspective.

Stating the obvious

I haven't blogged here in a few weeks now. Sorry about that. I've been lazy. In many ways, and very busy in others. We recently took a vacation which took a lot of work at home (packing, laundry, etc) and a lot of work professionally (finishing up charts, seeing an inflated volume of patients before we left, etc). It also meant we got a lot of time to relax... a 3 hour plane ride and 4 days in Mexico. Unfortunately, I left my "little Bible" in my car by accident. When I got to Mexico, there was a new testament bible in the night stand, but it was in Spanish! So, I've had a week away from my Bible and since I have gotten back, I've been so busy "catching up" that I honestly have only been reading one day.

I was praying in the car one morning on the way to work and I was like, "God, you feel so distant right now"... then I realized the obvious.. when was the last time I really spent time with him? When I truly read the word, truly looked for him... it's been about 10 days now since I spent legitimate time with him and not "selfish time" (like, I've got 10 minutes to read this, then I'm gonna snooze for 15 minutes before I get ready for work).

So, for those of you who follow the blog, I'm sorry I've been out so long. I'm working on my daily structures/discipline and I will try to do better!! :D Oh, and by the way, for more information on our recent trip, click here to see vacation pics.