Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“I have learned and been inspired to believe the unbelievable more from the hearts of children who see their Creator as He intended to be seen, rather than as portrayed through the mouths and manners of educated, vision-dulled, practical-thinking adults.”
Anonymous
The mesmerizing movements of the morning breezes around me carried an excited message of renewed hope for what can be a memorable new day, new week and New Year of possibility.
A message perhaps that causes us for a moment to pause and discover that the unbelievable is believable.
It just seems that way this morning. It seems that it ought to be that way every morning. It seems that the God Who created it all would want it that way all the time.
Maybe it’s because I woke up this morning with a smile on my face thinking of my two granddaughters and their hands-up-heads-up optimistic approach to life. It’s an optimistic attitude which needs to last for their lifetimes. Or maybe it’s because I saw a picture last night of our Son as a six-year old believing he really was Huck Finn, instead of just dressing up like him for Halloween years ago. At times he still acts that way.
Or perhaps it’s because my glance just fell upon a book on the shelf, entitled “Dangerous Wonder” by Michael Yaconelli, inviting us to recapture the joy of a child-like faith and an open and honest relationship with God.
Maybe it’s because deep down inside we know that is the way it should always be for our children and grandchildren. And maybe it’s because, deep down inside, we wish that that was the way it was for us once again, or maybe for the first time—living out a child-like approach to our relationship with the God who loves and created us.
And my question for us today is this—why shouldn’t it be that way for us today and for the rest of our lives? Why couldn’t it be that way? We may need to forget for good the sour-faced “sucking-on-a-dill-pickle” example of some of those in our past. We may need to admit and cast off the message of inconvenience that our lives were to others, which they made sure we knew by their words or actions. We may need to forgive and move on, and make sure we don’t give the message to our children and grandchildren.
We may need to simply claim anew (or for the first time) that the God who created us also planted the seeds of “believing in the unbelievable” within our hearts. That the God Who created us wove a “hands-up-heads-up-optimism” into our being. The same God Who created us and created us in His image. We may need to remember again that the God Who created us, walked on water, parted the Red Sea, healed the sick, returned people to life, died and then rose for us.
And why did He do all of that and more? So we would wander through life defeated, afraid, in a listless stupor from nine to five, and on half-empty? I hope not. It’s not the way He meant for it to be for you and me. Not on your life! And certainly not on His life!
The life He came to demonstrate for us to have, and to which He calls us to every day, is a life that is underscored with an all-out, child-like belief in Him; a life which embraces a belief in all the possibility of our lives.
A life that remembers that when Christ came for us, and walked in this world, He proclaimed—
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8: 12 (ESV)
Look, I don’t know what you went through yesterday or during those times so many years ago. It matters, but only in that it is a part of the past. We can learn from it and keep it in its proper place—the past—or we can repeat it in our lives and the lives of others.
I don’t know what you’re facing today. But I do know that the God Who created you and me makes the unbelievable, believable. I do know that the God Who created you and me, created you and me in His image. And I know that even though we may have walked, are walking, and will walk in darkness at times—He is the Light of the world, and therefore the darkness will not last.
That God has a plan for you to go with Him through the life He has set before you embracing a child-like faith, believing in the unbelievable with a “hands-up-heads-up-optimism” toward all that you and He will face together along the way.
And Jesus said—
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Wow! Now that’s a promise to claim. Believe it!
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2015. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.