Saturday, June 23, 2012

Wind

(Wyoming prairie)

Wind blows away
Here and there
Where it will
Rustles leaves
Whispers grass

And so am I
if I am walking
in the way
He's given me

I do not choose
I do not plan
I do not set the way
I simply go

Go gently
Go strongly
And maybe nobody ever knows
where I come from
where I'm going

Like the
wind blows.

"'The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.  So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.'"  John 3:8

Monday, June 11, 2012

(extra) ordinary

Ordinary. . . that's what life is.

usually.

It's studying U.S. History to try to CLEP a class, plugging information into a database, searching for seemingly nonexistent information in said database, sending letters, shaking off umbrellas, delivering mail, working out, going to bed, getting up, trying to stalk the sticky-note trail to remember where you left off yesterday. 

(sticky notes save my sanity and the sanity of everybody around me, but when they're almost everywhere, it's hard to remember what's really going on here.) 

But, what if we were not just ordinary?
What if we were extra

We have extra--our God gives us the resources of the universe if we will only ask.  But common sense and everything in nature tells us that extra is meant to be used.   Our having extra means

we can give extra
we can love extra
we can be extra

Extraordinary

Thursday, June 7, 2012

wisdom

(lupine in Wyoming)

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." (Jim Elliot)

What am I giving up today?  What are you giving up?  Is it what we think of usually--money, time, maybe the thrill of an in-and-out relationship or the prestige of a well-paying future (or current) career?  Or is it something more common--

pride of thinking you're better than another
choice to go where you know God hasn't called
old hurts
refusal to accept God's grace and forgiveness as meant for you
fill in the blank

Yet, what are we gaining?  
These things we hold onto, they will disappear.
What He offers, just for the taking, it stays forever.  
Forever.  
Only a fool says no to that.