Creative Genius

 

 

As you browse nature’s aisle, your senses are awakened to its enticements. Like a visit to a home improvement store, you see a painter’s palette beyond imagination. You dream of how such picturesque beauties of wild flowers and honeyed branches could find a place in your daily life, not just the occasional visit. The fields are filled with flower carpets in the delicate and the bold; splashes of bright oranges poppies explode into view. Your sensations are most surely overwhelmed by this sight. God is clearly an uninhibited artist; his selection of pigment knows no limit. Yellows, oranges, reds coexist beside greens, browns, purples, and whites.

But you may ask why does a Creative Genius take such delight and precise care with such seemingly insignificant items? They are here today and gone tomorrow only to be replaced by others equally or even more beautiful and fragrant. These fantastic gems last so little time, yet He thoughtfully and carefully dedicated His attention to them. Can we do any less?

 

The best and most complete answer is that God wants to be seen and known, but even more so, He wants you to know how much He loves you. He goes about his job with a tremendous joy and a supreme finesse as He places each wild flower, the blue columbine, and cacti even in the arid air of the dessert. He places the succulents and the trees for the birds to build their nests near the beauty of the green mountains.

What purpose can beauty serve if it cannot draw us to rest, to contemplation, and to conversation with its Creator who has created a symphony of sight, sound, and smells? He has left His calling card and hopes you will give him a ring, so as you peruse the aisle of this world improvement store, let  each blade of grass, each petal of flower, and leaf of tree, sing  “Oh how He loves you!”
 

An Enraptured Shopper,
MJ

 

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,that we should be called children of God and that is what we are!

1 John 3:1

The Gate and the Pen

Jesus emphatically states that he is the gate to the sheep pen. What does He exactly mean by that? In my own life, I believe I’ve come to understand what Jesus means when he says we can come in and come out of the sheep pen and find pleasant pastures. In Psalm 16 , God has promised that the lines will fall in pleasant places.  We will have a good inheritance. Other versions of the same scripture says the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, and I have a pleasant inheritance. Both versions suggest that it is God who holds and maintains on lots.

It is God who chooses our relationships, our families, the very parameters of our existence. To be at peace with this truth, one must inherently believe God's intentions toward us are indeed good. There, our lives begin and end: the very parameters or boundaries of the lines of our existence are set because of God’s inherent goodness and love for us. We must believe as Psalm 145:17 God states that God is loving in all of his ways and is kind in all that he does. If we doubt this central fact, we will not be pleased with the boundaries that God sets for us. Instead, we will be typically angry, resentful, and fearful.

Jesus as the Good Shepherd serves as the gate that allows us to go in and go out freely. Begin to reflect on the fact that God offers us the freedom to come in and to go out of the  pen at our own discretion. God gave us free will but also the rules we need to protect ourselves.  The wall in the sheep pen is there to protect us.  In terms of our emotions, the  gate allows others access to our hearts and our emotions. As we open the gate, we allow people to know our intimate thoughts, but in order to gain entrance, a person must first pass through the gate who is Jesus. Hopefully, we will allow Jesus to be the gatekeeper he wishes to be and allow only things and people who decides to enter inside of our hearts for He has best interests at heart.

A Fellow Sheep,

MJ

A Big Fat Chance

Carrying extra weight is like wearing a large and extravagant, me enough to conceal a person from chin to foot.

If necessary, even the eyes may be hid. The weight of the coat provides security for its occupant even while it imprisons. But what one doesn’t see is  that  underneath that heavy object is a frail human being, one who is cowering from the blows life has dealt it.

Paralyzed by fear of repeated beatings, this step-child hides behind this fortress of fat. Chipping begins on that fortress by the Master Craftsman-part Potter and Carpenter, He begins to remove the fortress bit by bit until the person emerges.

 Imagine if you will, snipping a section of that fur coat, which really represents  pain, fear, and shame more than lust, greed, a lack of self-control. Now, you see that hidden waters begin to flow, more trust is developing.  The healing touch of Christ brings peace and wholeness. The fur collar comes off- you see the face and the whole mouth is there to view.

Then an inch or two off the hem, one can walk. The sleeves are taken away- one is free to move. Then a foot is taken from the bottom of the coat year after year, and suddenly one discovers that one is no longer wearing a coat, but a jacket. Remove the fur trim. Shave it off. It looks more like a vest but still stifle; it constrict.  Your heart is covered and that is all that matters.

Finally Jesus offers a light-weight wind breaker- it is incredibly effective against the harsh elements of life, but one can’t even wear two coats at the same time. What to do?

He is wise enough to realize that one would have never exchanged the Teflon fur-lined coat for the fragile piece of cloth, but now one is as close to bare as one will dare to be, and so He offers it  just the same.

There may be many such exchanges.  One may demand to have  the vest back but eventually, one will enjoy the freedom of Jesus’ windbreaker or one may true to add a discarded remnant of the old coat to the new assemblage, but Jesus will have no of it. He will stop you- because He loves you.

A Vest-Wearer,
Mella