This coming month, there will be some milestones met: graduation from High School/College/University/Seminary, promotion to the next grade/school/job title, new to motherhood, even a new morning of mercy. So what will you do next?
Commit your actions to the LORD,
and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3 NLT
This Easter Season we will be sharing our annual Good Friday “service”, Experience the Passion. If you’ve never been before, I hope you’ll plan to do so. If you have been before, I hope you will visit again (and bring a friend).
Hosted in the chapel, Experience the Passion is a self-guided tour of several exhibits that depicts scenes from the last hours of Jesus’ life on earth. A program is provided which describes each station and lists scripture and questions to ponder. There are many different ways to interact with the displays and you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.
The other night, as we were praying before dinner, I was reminded of one of the kids’ prayers a few years ago as they asked the blessing: “Dear God, thank you for the things we like, and the things we don’t like.” Pretty much covers it, huh?
They were definitely young and couldn’t quite articulate the specifics (“I really don’t like this dinner”, “my brother/sister is such a pest”, “chores, ugh”), but they were thankful. They were realistic. They were honest.
Relationships are funny. If there’s one thing you can count on it’s that they’re always changing; growing closer, growing distant. There is give and take and sometimes more of one or the other. We have relationships with friends, parents, children, spouses, neighbors, coworkers, even strangers. For the believer, our relationship with God is changing too. Though God is never-changing, there is still and ebb and flow on account of us, I’m afraid.
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A new year is beginning and what does that mean? Remembering to write the correct year! I wish it were that easy. As with many other new years, there comes the annual resolutions. “I resolve to…”, you fill in the blank. I wish it were that easy too.
There are always things about ourselves we’d like to change. And as surely as you are breathing in and out all day long, you are changing. But what are you changing? How are you different? What is your goal? We need to be transformed. No longer conformed. Our mind renewed by nothing other than our Lord Jesus Himself (Romans 12:2).
Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. Who better to strive after? The one who knows us, made us, lived, died, lives, and intercedes for us. As Lenny LeBlanc so beautifully states in the song There Is None Like You, think about what He’s done, not just in your life but for all time.
There is none like You
No one else can touch my heart like You do
I could search for all eternity long and find
There is none like You
You will not find anyone/anything/anywhere that will bring the greatest fulfillment, greatest joy, or greatest model for life than the Lord Jesus. If you don’t know Him, don’t delay, you will not be disappointed. If you do know Him, expect to see this next year, as you walk with Him, a year which draws you ever closer to our Lord.
So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 NLT
