All of life is a progression. Ebb and Flow happen (Ebs and Flows is also a blog by Nick and other contributors) constant change, grow and die. These thoughts always come to mind as the sun bs and flows i. It seems that the most beautiful sunsets do not last very long. I only hope for five minutes to capture some good images on camera. Some call me a sunset junky with a camera and it’s close to an addiction I suppose but the thoughts a sunset stimulate can literally capture ones whole life in those five minutes. Take a look at a recent view a few feet out our front door where we live in the northern Wisconsin.
On the one hand God creates such beauty. No sunset is the same and every image is different of the same sunset. God has given us, as part of his image, the ability to feel His Beauty emotion as we gaze upon something so common as a sunset. For us it happens once a day. Jesus as human, experienced the sun rise and sunset.
I see a sunset as a part of dying. The day is over and in a sense our life will have one last sunset. Some lives are beautiful to the end and finish well. Other lives are shrouded by the clouds of surviving life and busyness. There is a beauty that exudes even from the most pain wracked follower of Jesus. Beauty that burnishes the cloudiest day. Both you and I have seen those warriors ready for the time travel of their life. I saw it in my mom before she left.
Rather than trying to get deep here I leave you with a simple thought given a long time ago to Gods people …”But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15
Our nation has all kinds of gods that we have created. In many ways the sun is setting and our beauty has faded. Pray for Revival anyone? Only God can fix it one life at a time.
Choose with me each day to serve the Lord. May we be a light in the darkness until our last beautiful fading sunset…Gary
How do we learn? Teaching a grand daughter to fish. Picture by my Daughter Tracy Demarse
We are born with a brain in the physical sense. I am told that most of us only use a few percentage points of our brains capacity through out our lives. Huh! Funny word “capacity” . I picture a livestock water tank (from growing up on the farm) that can hold 200 gallons of water and most of us put in 10 gallons our whole life.
Reality check here. The brain is actually closer to being a water balloon with growing expansion room as we grow. Yes, it matters what you put into it! “But wait, there’s more” (to quote the overused commercials). Way more!
What if the brain grew more capacity as it was used? what if capacity (and it does) grows exponentially in the areas used? What if we were created in the image (and we are) and likeness (how much do you know about His likeness?) of God? That part of us that can have a close relationship with our creator and be-becoming like Him in proportion.
Here is my story…and a spiritual illustration.
Trying to get a grand son interested….this is going to take some work
When I was 11 years old a saw blade came off a machine and cut both my arms to the bone, cutting off the main nerves to the rest of the arms, hands and fingers. As I tried to function somehow a doctor told my mother I needed to either play the piano or learn to type; and do it a lot. I now had Hope to be able to use my fingers past being clothespins on the end of my hands. I chose piano. It was slow. Very slow. Somehow I began to use my fingers. After years of playing (even with a degree of proficiency) I began to wonder why I could feel the keys when I played. I could play songs in the dark and actually feel the keys. Hmmm. This is not possible…or is it? What happened?
A few years ago I read an article from a retired neurosurgeon that explained what happened. The brain can actually begin to fill in the blanks (it’s the nerves that tell the brain what is being felt and in essence we experience feeling through the brain. This is why a blind person can use their hands to feel your face and say with confidence “I can see you” and they really can! This is why, when I play the piano, I actually have a touch on the keys and do not just pound away (although pounding was a huge part of learning for me). I can feel the keys and yet get a wood sliver under my fingernail and not feel it until I see it…then the brain kicks in and then says “yep , sorry, this should be hurting….oh, sorry wrong finger. Sometimes my brain still gets the fingers mixed up.
Don’t miss the applications here. I have realized that knowing God and having a personal relationship with Him is way more than knowing about God. It’s like knowing about pianos. The hours spent on the piano for me are way beyond what most people would need to be able to play the piano extremely well.
We come to God, in a sense (pun intended), with our spiritual nerves cut off. The best we can do if we used 100% of our capacity falls extremely short of Gods requirement of perfection.
Our baby brain does not start out leaning toward anything but ourselves. fast forward into adulthood and we have no more capacity to play the piano proficiently or have a deep relationship with God without a “start” in our lives. With the piano the start was easy. Sit down and start banging away right? No I needed someone to at least start me in the right direction, Sit down on the bench, open a beginner’s book, point the way, keep pointing the way and then practice for hours on end every week for years. I started to “feel” the piano keys some time in my 20’s. The progression was extremely slow. Even now, if I quit playing for awhile my feeling of the keys deteriorates rapidly.
I believe a relationship with God is the same way. Our “Start” is when we realize we cannot even know God except through Jesus Christ, your most important relationship (Please see how this is explained in detail here).
Final thought and why I wrote this blog: Knowing Gods heart deeply takes time. Knowing God can be in the next few minutes. Knowing God and His Heart can begin right out of the gate. Knowing God deeply takes a lot of time spent with God. No short-cuts on in-depth relationships of any kind. I am still a beginner but alone time is essential.
Every morning I get up and put my book (not the piano book) in front of me and read my Bible. I ask God for understanding, guidance and honestly have a staff meeting with God. Side Note: God seems to like “obedience” quite a bit. We talk and listen to one another. It’s taken years for this time to not be so one sided. My “feeling” capacity for God and for others has changed me to be more like Jesus. I may be quite slow to love God, others and possibly even my enemies but hey my nerves were cut off as were yours. I suspect that is why there are so many “One Another” commandments in the Bible, sigh, that’s another discussion.
