Aimlessly running?

Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride. (Ecclesiastes 7:8)

Most of us like the 'finishing' better than the 'starting' part. Why? It means we have reached an end and if the starting was hard, the finishing could be a reward of sorts. We view the finish line as somewhat of a relief, while the starting line can be filled with all manner of anxious thought, fears about what isn't known, and hard steps. We might not be ready for the 'starting line' today, but when we 'begin' something with God, we are sure to appreciate the reward at the 'finish line'.

The parts in between the start and the finish are what require us to have patience. Maybe that is why it makes the start so hard for us at times. We don't want the 'middle part' of the journey as much as we want the 'finishing part'. The stuff that happens in the middle part of the journey is what makes the journey worthwhile, though. It isn't just the finish line - because all the stuff we learn along the way is found in the middle part - the finish line just marks the 'reward' of the journey.

Some have said reaching the finish line is good, but it is what we do AFTER we finish that matters more than anything. I would like to challenge that a bit because it is what we do IN the race that matters. The steps we take 'within' the race determine our finish - either with grace and well-being or with unfulfilled dreams and purposes. Steps taken in obedience 'within' the race will not be easy, nor will they be overwhelmingly clear at times. Yet, those steps of obedience will help us finish well.

We aren't always cut out for the race ahead of us, but when we step up to the starting line, we had better be ready for the entirety of the race. A runner prepares for the race. What we do today in terms of our quiet time with Jesus, time in his Word, and moments of contemplating his purposes for our lives can be viewed as our 'preparation time' for the race he calls us to run. Without this all-important preparation, we run without purpose, and aimless running is not a race! Just sayin!

At the starting block again?

God gives a hand to those down on their luck, gives a fresh start to those ready to quit. (Psalm 145:14)

There are times we all feel like quitting, when all we want is a fresh start, but have absolutely no way of figuring out what a 'fresh start' would really look like. Many have heard the words of Vince Lombardi, "Winners don't quit and quitters don't win." Another quote goes something along the line, "Quitters are good losers." So, we keep plugging along, hoping not to be labeled as a quitter, yet desiring nothing less than a fresh start. I think God may look at us, realize our desire to quit, that insane desire for a fresh start where others say no fresh start is possible, and then somehow begins to meet this despondency with his provision of that 'fresh start' we all desire. Robert Ingersoll once said, "Happiness is not a reward - its a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - its a result." There are indeed times when we think we will never be "happy" - but look at the quote again. It is called a "consequence" - an outcome of something we do, or perhaps don't do in life. Most of the time the best thing we can do is to make a "fresh start" with what we have been given. We take the pieces we have left, pick them (and ourselves) back up, and move forward in obedience. Thank goodness for the "fresh starts" we get in life! If it were not for these, where would we each be? I know you and I probably would not be chatting each day via this blog were it not for many a 'fresh start' in my life!

God GIVES a hand to those down on their luck. It is a extension of his grace that "turns the tide" for each of us. No amount of self-effort is the answer to really getting the "fresh start" - it is a matter of God GIVING us the fresh-start. Whenever we think of someone "down on their luck", life in shambles and chaos abounding, we think of an individual enduring a whole lot of suffering because a whole lot of bad things are happening to that individual, and perhaps even those in their lives that are reaping the side-effects of that chaos. Look at what Ingersoll said - Suffering is not a punishment! So, what is the intended result of suffering? We may not want to hear this, but often it is to make us open to receiving! 
God didn't want us to suffer, but we made wrong choices and the consequences are there. God uses the results of our suffering to open us afresh to his GIVING touch. We are probably the MOST open to his "giving" when we are experiencing our greatest sense of need - in our suffering! We need to embrace need as an opportunity for a fresh start - for our hearts, minds, and wills to be open to the fresh touch of God. Quitters don't win and winners don't quit. A valuable idiom indeed, yet flawed! Here's the flaw - winning often begins when we finally do quit! Sometimes we can be so wrapped up in the efforts of trying to NOT quit, missing the very point God wants us to see - we need to lay it down! Don't keep holding on - in letting go, we EMPTY our hands so they can be refilled with what God intends for them to be filled with! It is only empty hands which can be filled!

A fresh start actually begins with an end to what we have been doing. When we come to an "end", God stands ready to GIVE us a "start". Vince Lombardi also said, "The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have." Sometimes the best we can do with what we have is to lay it down - to let it go! When we finally yield it to God's touch, we find the very thing we possess may be the very thing which "possessed" us - consuming us in ways God never intended. This isn't the first post in recent weeks about laying down what we don't need to hold onto any longer - and I don't believe that is by mistake. God has a message for each of us - let it go - finally, completely, and with intention. Want a fresh start? It begins today by us emptying ourselves so we might be open to receive exactly what God intends to GIVE us in order to launch us into the "newness" of a fresh beginning. Just laying it down...

I started out bad, but I am not ending that way!

We started out bad, being born with evil natures, and were under God’s anger just like everyone else.  But God is so rich in mercy; he loved us so much that even though we were spiritually dead and doomed by our sins, he gave us back our lives again when he raised Christ from the dead—only by his undeserved favor have we ever been saved—and lifted us up from the grave into glory along with Christ, where we sit with him in the heavenly realms—all because of what Christ Jesus did.  And now God can always point to us as examples of how very, very rich his kindness is, as shown in all he has done for us through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 2:3-7 TLB)

Yesterday, we began a study in this passage. If we want to deal with the residue we have in life, we need to recognize WE started out bad, but WE don't have to finish the way we started! The truth of the matter is that none of us is truly all that different from the other - we all have a sin nature and we all need a Savior. God's love is what actually begins to differentiate us one from another - for it is his love that makes us truly unique. It is the richness of God's mercy that fills those empty spaces where sin had filled us with nothing of any value. It is his love that empties us of those burdens sin so quickly placed upon us, weighing us down with a burden we were never created to bear. 

How we start may set the course in our lives, but it doesn't have to determine our final destination - the outcome. We do need to start somewhere, but if we must start again in order to change the course of our lives, there is no harm in that "restart" or "reboot". In fact, I have had to "reboot" a few more times than I might like to admit - and sometimes without really recognizing I had somehow become corrupted in the path I had taken! Restarting just means we make things fresh or new again - the old gets left behind and the new is free to take its place.

In every "restart" there is a recognition that Christ hasn't been the one in control - we have been. This recognition is what brings us to the place where we ask for grace and sink deeper into his love than we ever have been before, instead of sinking in the mire of wrong decisions. It is where we evaluate what we have been trying to accomplish and then recognize it hasn't gone all that well! It is Christ's ALL that overcomes our limits. This is something that may take time for us to learn, because we want to do it all and then seek God's help!

The sooner we recognize we cannot do it all, the better it will be for us. Why? There is "much" we can do - obedience - but we cannot "make" the end result as it should be. We lack the wherewithal to change things within our own character just by trying harder. Truthfully, we humans try way too much and then seek forgiveness for all our trying! There isn't anything wrong with admitting we haven't a clue how to get to where we want to go - in fact, stopping to "ask for directions" may just be what we need the most in order to accomplish the course corrections we so desperately need!

If we all start out poorly - sin being at the root of all we do - then we can pretty much be assured our end will fall short of righteousness. If we admit at the start that we need to have God's help to root out this sin, then we are open to receiving God's righteousness in place of our "bad" nature. Where God's nature is exchanged with ours, that is the place of "correct" beginnings - not "corrected" beginnings. As humans, we make a lot of "corrected" beginnings - starting again and again. As inhabited by Christ, we make "correct" beginnings for the one who lives and breathes all righteousness is working within us to help us take the steps in the right direction. Just sayin!