How Long Can This Go On?

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.  See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;  that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. Hebrews 12: 14-16

Having been over a month since I have had a moment to continue where I left off, I had to revisit the details of where we were.   If you want to review it click this link.

The first question in the random list was: How long can this go on? Length of time under pressure is indeed one of the first culprits which weakens us enough to take pause, when we are heading toward a crisis.  It isn't the first thing which happens; usually we have made attempts to under gird and manage our discomfort, but we get frustrated and worn out. Reminds me of the Happy Train analogy we use: Our Happy Train is scooting on down the track and at first there is a bump, then a metal sparking sound and THEN a disastrous flailing of bodies and loose objects slinging around the box car?

Most of us can do well with a bump or two.  We are even able to adapt bumps into our everyday life without too much disarray.  However, what happens when we are a bit frazzled from "life" and the ride is bumpy for hours? Add to this: everyone around you being pesky, only to have  the screeching metal sound shrill the airwaves in a grand crescendo!  How would your comfort level be in this moment?

Habakkuk wrote, that it was not of the Lord that we weary ourselves in vain. What does that mean to you? Do you think God desires for us to weary ourselves to the point we are disconnected and tolerating life? What are we pursuing? What are YOU pursuing? Most of us ARE pursing peace....but is it more rightly having what we want, which makes us happy and we deceive ourselves that we are experiencing peace?  Even if we are achieving this goal at the moment and no one seems to be grinding the gears of our Happy Train experience, we must realize we've seriously bypassed one of Gods major train stop.

God allows things to go on so that we understand what is going on.  The reason I went to Hebrews to address this is because in chapter 11, we were given the great cloud of witnesses legacy.   Esau, we are told, sold his birthright to get what he desired to happen.  He may have had peace in the moment, worldly peace, but he was not pursing peace with others; it was only about what he wanted.  Do you think Jacob was on a Happy Train Ride? What about their parents? Were they happy, did they have peace?

The Christmas Hymn, link above, speaks of peace and goodwill toward men.  This is the peace Hebrews 12 was speaking of, not the selfish peace of getting what we want.  Sanctification is the only means of experiencing a peaceful journey through life - How long can it go on till you make it? Till
Christ comes again!

Fortunately, as we begin seeing others and caring about the weight of our own wants upon them, God gives us all the mercy and grace to BE different all along the way.  This year give something beyond a perfect present, give notice to how you have treated others to get where you are and what you wanted.  Give a sincere apology for wrecking their train at times and ask how you might be able to help them find their way back.  If possible.......

When we begin living out the long lives we are blessed with in this way, we might feel less days of "How long can this go on?" and more day filled with " How much longer do I get to experience life?"

For God so loved the world, shouldn't we join in?

Merry Christmas to all and to all a marvelous night,

Kisses,
Candace

© 2016 by Candace Huffmaster / Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc ®

The Problem Is Not That We Have Expectations

As I study scripture, my thoughts merge and the topics emerge.  However, it is never concise, with all the loose strings neatly tied into a place. Which ever way I look, there are more scriptures to go deeper and wider than I could ever hope to comprehend fully.  This is why I could never get bored with attempting to get to know God and understand fully what a relationship with Him is really like.

Sometimes I think about how difficult and a struggle it is to have a fully satisfying relationship with something I have no ability to really see.  And how I am supposed to run to Him first, but I cannot feel His arms around me.  These are the things which cause us to fear, yet we really do believe in Him - but I cannot not say without fail.  Do you think God gets angry or does not have sympathy for us, knowing how desperately difficult it is? Actually, I think He is brought so much glory as we keep attempting to experience Him, no matter what the entire human race may think - it's a mute point.

Today I was studying "knowing" things and Love never fails kept coming to mind. For several months I have been meditating on knowing and being known.  It should not have surprised me when the verses I came to spoke about knowledge and love never failing.  Love NEVER fails, 1 Corinthians promises. I know love and sometimes it really does fall short of God's expectations.  When we want to be loved we sure know how to expect it from others: patient, kind, rejoices with truth, bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Then we have the love is not list, just to clarify in case someone thinks there is a loop hole.  (Do not worry, we will be covering how we want to be let off the hook later ;)

We have been thinking about how long and far things are, so you must be prepare to plunge into Never.  Never means: not ever at anytime.  I thought back to the other verse I have been meditating on: the end of a thing is better than the beginning and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.  To which I thought, how can I expect a wonderful end when I do not really know how good, good can get?  Doesn't it seem odd?  How foolish we are to think God blames us for not getting something we have no comprehension of; not fully anyway.  This is why He promises, we cannot get it through what we know or what we have experienced....Expect So Much More!

Then I thought about life and pain.  Sometimes we do not want to find out what is ahead, or go back because we do not want to experience something painful.  But then wonderful wise Ecclesiastes came to mind - but the end is so much better than the momentary affliction.  If you do not attempt to get beyond it, you won't experience the great things.  Life is not easy; but easy is not a good life.  God wants excitement, laughter, enjoyment, fulfillment, zeal.  Think about powerful things and how if they are not in the hands of a skilled craftsman bad things can happen; emotions are the same; fury, lust, greed, insanity etc.

When we cannot handle a powerful thing, we cut it off.  Sometimes, we mistakenly call that peaceful or relaxed. But it is not, it is nothingness, detachment, isolation.  That sounds like misery to me when my heart craves peace, serenity and rich relationships.  Knowing these are the very hopes God has for the future, I thought again about "Love Never Fails". I also thought about all our painful memories and thought about God having an eternity of memories to deal with, as well as a universe of unrighteous people who hurt him.  So I studied more.

What good would it do God to destroy a bunch of broken, messed up creatures? All that would do is wipe out the ugliness along with everything He loved.  At the end of that there would be nothingness, no hope, no happy, no sadness, just a big God with an enormous empty space and a God sized love to give into nothing.  How sad is that?

God had to do something with all His righteous need for justice and since wiping us out would not satisfy His rage, anger, jealousy and all the stuff He wanted to stop remembering.  Christ said, I'll help you.  I am perfect and together we will never fail.  So God allowed it, Christ received it and together along with the Holy Spirit we can have a better ending than what we know of.  I cannot tell you how any of this will end because I have not gotten there yet.  But I can tell you to read the bible, after all it is His beginning, end and eternity.

I have so much more, but will stop for today.  I pray you think about all this and know...God is real, Christ is true and the Holy Spirit is with you - Expect more from God not less; more from yourself than you alone can do and hold others accountable, but not in a shameful way.  Let's raise the bar, Christ was raised from the dead! That is a pretty high expectation, don't you think!

Happy Easter Family,
Candace

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Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc.®