Finishing

Holding firmly the reality that we had at the start.

The start of many a venture is filled with idealism. Brave ideals. Towering concepts. Eternal values. These fuel many a start up venture and enthuse runners at the starting gun. Companies, institutions and families explode from the starting block with great commitment and fervor. Years down the line we see stragglers, victims fallen by the wayside, panting participants valiantly struggling just to keep going and many entirely missing from the track, victims of exhaustion, disappointment and depression.

One wonders if an ideal is hardy enough for the long haul.

Hebrews 3: 14 asks us to hold on not to an ideal, but a reality that we had at the start.

How did we start our race? Was it based on an ideal, a concept, or a reality? This will determine the outcome at the finish line.

Our start often determines our finish, but for that we need to hold on to the reason for our starting at all. Its motivation has to be a flesh and blood reality that enlivens our days and enthuses our miles over mountain passages. A concept may not be good enough.

Thankfulness

Praise flows to you O Lord

As the rivers hurry to the seas

Continual, perpetual gurgling motion

Tumbling thrilling rock and greisen

Swelling flood and icy floe

White laced rapids and eddies go

At this sodden passage on its way

Earth sidelined applauds

The rushing echo of its spray

Our lives are rivers, rushing home,

Time the carrier, flecked with foam

On my journey, rock and rill

Harried passage, vale and hill

May the measured mileage of all my days

Be to you eternal praise

HOPE AND THE MIRROR- MY PERSONAL PRAYER

1 Cor 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.

Our perspective often colors (distorts) our vision. We do not realize the distortion for what it is because we are able to only see out from our perspective. That is why we need others, and more importantly, a standard to measure our perspective from. That is what the word of God is for us. But how often do we use it prior to pronouncing judgments? We are often quick to speak, slow to listen and instantaneous to castigate. Counting to ten may not help either. As long as our perspective is not examined, waiting for years also may not change critical attitudes entombed in layers of encrusted habit. “Therefore, having such a hope” are words that lie hidden as clues in verse twelve of this chapter. The word hope is a clue to the removal of tinted glasses we peer out at life from. What is our hope? What is our hope for the people, for situations and for events? When examined, we may realize we don’t hold out much hope for people. We assume they will never change, or just change for the worst. We deny them the chance to also come under the liberating rays of truth and grace. And it is there that our perspective is locked down and our eyes cloud with a gray pall that never leaves us. The greatest deception is that we can remain oblivious to our own blindness. That is why in verse 14 it says, “their minds were closed.” Tagore poignantly writes a prayer, which rings true…

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

That heaven can only be achieved if our hope is heavenly. And hope, the Bible writes, “does not disappoint us…” so at the end these three remain.. faith, hope and love.

What should I do?

Acts 22: 10 What should I do? Paul was zealous in his persecution of the Jews based on his convictions. Till he heard a voice from heaven that caused a paradigm shift in his thinking. His response is what gets me.. “What should I do Lord?” There are “aha” moments for all of us, when heaven comes down and touches earth for a brief spell. We all go “aha!” The reality check is what we do after. May our “aha” moments translate into obedience to the light we walk by.

Stop Talking

Proverbs 20:19 The one who reveals secrets is a constant gossip avoid someone with a big mouth.

Our mouth is the most uncontrolled organ in our body. How accurately the Bible focusses on this otherwise unconsidered organ. We have sessions and whole medical departments dedicated to all the other organs in the body, but nothing for the mouth. With it we bless, with it we curse. It speaks what the heart is full of, which is often most uncomplimentary to the speaker without us even realizing that we are shamelessly baring our soul to bewildered hearers. “Stop talking” is good advice, rarely heeded.

A weaned child

Psalm 131 I do not get involved with things too great or difficult for me.

Our world is constantly clamouring for more. More attention. More things. More programs. More money. David surely had more than enough on his plate. His spirit did not seek these things out. He was content to calm and quiet himself with what he had. A spirit of a weaned child, content in the lap of his mother. This spirit will free us from the slavery for “success”. Sure a mans reach should exceed that of his grasp, but that reach should not leave him dangling in mid air.

CARELESS OBEDIENCE

Psalm 119:69 The arrogant have smeared me with lies, but I obey your precepts with all my heart.

Smear campaigns. Misunderstood malignings. Character assassinations. Attributed arrogance. Misinterpreted maliciousness. Engineered lies. Awful assumptions. These seem to be very much the subject of human dealings. Any social circle seems to have its share, with varying proportions dependant on the decadence of its people. What is David’s response? Careless obedience. Focussed faithfulness. Single minded abandonment. Quite often our energy is fruitlessly dissipated in futilely flying in the face of the accusations and assumptions made against us. How much more productive is careless obedience.