A time for every season.

So, it’s the last Friday in July, pushing itself into the first weekend of August. What are you going to do with these days of warmth and family? Of salt sea and summer beaches, of icecream sundaes and kids’ sand castles?

On TV, the talk edges toward Back to School Sales.  What happened to spring? How did summer get so far behind us? What dreams and plans are not yet put up in our pantries, or half thoughts only — our journals still to be filled? Time moves ever so quickly through the happy days of barbecues and water sprinklers.

What fruits. or wheat or tares, did you grow inside that personal garden you were determined to plant this sweet summer? What gifts did God whisper — blowing some seedling thought toward your heart-plot? You remember — that time you took just a moment from the hurly burly and listened to the still voice of Spirit in the seawheat wind; it was maybe just a tickle of a thought, maybe a touch of forgiveness for a hurt long ago, a new pattern of finding joy in the tracks of life’s sand, perhaps even mercy and a love of your fellow man — just that hint of a miracle in some fresh insight, new to your inner ear, heard under heaven’s blue sky and God’s eye.

There is still time! The sun is high and the fields are green. The ground is lush and ready. PLANT! You can do a bit of weeding and leave the rest to God. He will water with SUCH a water as you have never known, the Spirit will form and fuss over angles and truth in being, and Jesus will keep it safe through lightning storms and snares of wolvish predators.

Whatever your age, now is this summer of your life. Glorify it! Glorify in it! Set those summer seeds while yet the earth is warm to your sight and your barefeet can take delight in the playing.

This good earth, these good life passages, this good faith that sustains you, hold it lightly. It will not leave you. Fold your days around the faith-seeds, mustard or lily, what is gifted is yours. In the quiet inspiration on the summer wind, own that miracle  — inherent life — that inward arcing out to birth and growth — creation heavenward — a gift from God.

This is the last Friday in July. It is time for planting. What are you going to do with these days of warmth and family? Of salt sea and summer beaches, of icecream sundaes and kids’ sand castles?

God bless your planting!
http://blog.maplestreetchurch.com/a-time-for-every-season/

Playing games with the Holy Spirit. Tictock: Clock is running.

So, He said to me, “Do you play chess?”

Not well enough to play with you, (I thought but dared not say) but I was young and invulnerable and so I ventured,  “OK, I’ll try a move or two.”

He said, “I’ll be white, but you can go first.”

I said, “No fair; that was your first move!”

And He just smiled.

I didn’t want to sacrifice the pawns, much less the beautiful knights or triangulating bishops, (too many people pleasing relationships at stake you see.) So I focused on the castles, but then decided that was pretty risky: Even young, brash and prideful has to keep up with the Joneses to some extent — and have a good mattress for a firm foundation. That Spirit was a crafty player, using up all my options — cutting right straight through my justifications.

All that was left of course were the King and the Queen and I knew I needed them. “So, hmm…” A body can’t just go around giving up partners in crime and idols of clay. I mean, all that look in the mirror attitude was getting abit much.  But that Spirit, he just — waited me out.

I paused for a decade or so and muddled around with the rest of the generation, testing theories inside my own pictured head. Bound to be an answer out there and I would find it. It’s my game afterall. — Or maybe not.

When all my strategies were null and void, I sighed and said, “OK, I know the game; I like to play, but I lost the rulebook along the way:

I choked abit on this one, but there was no way out and Sartre was long gone with No Exit. So, I bleated, “Tell me the forfeit that I must pay.”

The Holy Spirit looked at me with those inside eyes and — breathed. Strange and freeing the breath of life,the breath of truth, the Comforters’ soul touch.

I laughed at His checkmate: We both knew the game was over,

but Life had just begun, and the neat part was that we had both won.

The lost ache, the chaos, the justification game of life itself — our collective fall and panicked race to cross the finish line first, to find home base again and make it ours alone, to win our destiny crown — flipped paradigms cleared my sight and right there, back  in perfect place was the door and the life to forever, not so hard to see afterall — once we stop playing games; inerrant of source and master made, the moves are steady, sure and pure.

With sacred gps, God’s dead reckoning — direction at the ready — passages, jumps, turns and sacrificial pawns — rise within the kingdom’s win — Home again inside New Jerusalem’s jeweled walls.

Rev 21:21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.’

http://blog.maplestreetchurch.com/playing-games-with-the-holy-spirit-tictock-clock-is-running/