Conduct Unbecoming


A good friend who read my last blog Shaking Like a Leaf made a valuable comment that I will never forget. He noted that those leaves which hold on, afraid to fall - are dead. And they must, in fact, let go. Resistance is futile. He then pointed out that although I may feel "dead" at times, I have been grafted into the Tree of Life and must never lose hope. No matter what emotions rage within, the truth remains that I am alive! There is no need to fear and no need to let go. This friend also sees me as an angel with a broken wing on the mend. Although I am no angel, his point is well taken. I am "on the mend".
 
Another friend who received my recent Christmas letter in which I lamented my age, among other things, candidly commented, "dude, that letter was depressing!" 

Thank God for my honest, loving, caring, valuable friends who will speak the truth in love!

I am determined  by God's grace, to achieve my 2012 New Year's Resolution: to live the life of faith I claim. A faith in the God Who gave His life for me and to Whom I gave my life 24 years ago. The God Who has never let me down. The One Who guides me, loves me conditionally, and gently nudges me in the direction of His perfect and pleasing will.

 My son has a tattoo quoting Romans 12:2 "do not conform to the pattern of this world". Like Christmas cookies which all look the same, we so easily conform to a pattern which is unbecoming to our faith. We can get all tangled up in lives that look lost and hopeless, and nothing like slaves set free from bondage. What do those who have been delivered from hell look like? What do we live like? Talk like? How will the world recognize us? If we've truly been transformed, we are not cookie cutter designs taking on the shape of those around us. We do not conform to the pattern of this world, because we are in it, but not of it.

May my life reflect the God I know and love. May His light permeate through me, regardless of how I may feel on any given day. Not because of what I've done but because of Who He is.This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:16, 18-19

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