Journey
In the beginning........all was beautiful. Some spend a lifetime trying to get back...to the beginning. Others find their way when they are young...back to the beginning. Both are on a journey.......to the beginning.The beginning...Begin....
posted by GroupLink at
8:41 PM
3 Comments:
All right, where are you trying to go with that? Some suggestions:
1) How you came to Christ.
2) How you came to Battle Creek.
3) How you came to 1st Assembly.
4) How you came to this blog.
5) How it (your life, your family, your walk with God, etc.)all began.
Hope that helps. I'll answer at least one of those questions at a future time.
God bless.
Would love to know about your personal journey to get back to the way things were in beginning - (Gen 1:26 and following)
Wow, that's a journey of epic proportions...we will never get there until the Garden (the world) is remade, I think. But we can get closer each day that we spend in relationship with Jesus Christ.
I grew up in church...literally! Now, I'm not a PK or a DK or anything like that but I have always had deeply devout women of God in my life. So, they cleaned the church while I ran the pews and hid in the balcony. They did the secretarial work while I tagged along with the custodian (who also was one of my later Ranger leaders!) and bugged him. They prepared the Communion while I ate the ripe grapes from the vine on the back fence (yep, them grapes were good but I paid for them when the Pastor found out!). So I grew up knowing the church, and eventually knowing God. I was saved at a Ranger Pow-Wow (now called SummerQuest) at the grand old age of 11 (I think, it might have been 12 though) and started to follow Jesus. I wasn't very good at it...I was easily taken off track by my friends and the world. But I read my Bible and memorized scripture and prayed daily (well, I'm sure I slipped and missed a couple of days in there) and asked forgiveness (a whole lot...as I still do today) for my sins.
When I was 14, we had a big shake-up in our church. The Pastor I grew up with retired (he was also my surrogate grandfather so that affected me a lot) and the board brought in a new pastor. This fellow (left unnamed on purpose) was one of the new breed (for 1977 that is) and was very charismatic. So charismatic that he fell to temptation...and refused to repent. I hope he has by now but I don't know. Anyway, my own family life was shredding right about then, and with the loss of my religious leader (Rabbi?), I hung up my church clothes and quit going...I was 15 and already burned out by the church and its message.
I always knew God was there/here. I never doubted that but I did choose to go my own way and do my own thing. That lasted a long time (as my mother will attest, since she prayed through it all) and included breaking most of the ten commandments...let me check to make sure--they're on my wall here at work--okay, I broke all of them at least in spirit. Since Jesus said (and I paraphrase) "If you think it, you did it" then I definitely broke them all. I'm not proud of that...I'm deeply ashamed and chastened, blessed by the grace of God to be back in the fold again. I use these thoughts of my past life to keep me focused on my future...I never want to go back to that way of life. What seemed like fun at one point became more and more evidently destructive to me, to my family, to my career, and to my soul. So, they're my lesson book, my "Not to do" list, of all that can go wrong in my life if I stray from the path.
Some of you know our story, some of you will learn it in days to come (come see me if you don't and I'll give you the short version--or the long, if you have the time), and know that things happened in our lives that made us seek God...seek Him for answers but also to seek Him for peace in our lives. That peace fully came back in 1996 and we've tried to keep it in place, with the help of God when we screw it up (often, I might add), since that time. And we've tried to follow the words of Jesus in just being there for people, to help them out and give them a hand. That's the remade world, when all people think about is lending a hand to those who need it...or even those who don't but could be touched by it. Jesus calls us to open our hearts and our minds and our bodies to be vessels of His love and sacrifice. That's how the world gets remade every day...by doing the little things to make someone else's life better...and that's why, in the end, Jesus wins. He wins for all of us, and He rules with a compassionate heart. God loves all of us and that's what we should be spreading around...love!
Hope that answered some of it...we have to wait for the rest until the final trump sounds; even as we try to recreate some little island of God here, through His guidance and assistance. May God bless and keep you throughout this season.
Jon
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