Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation.
Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together.
We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
Ephesians 2: 19-22 (The Message)
As I sit here this morning, after a long weekend of writing, editing and organizing a new manuscript, a myriad of questions continue to circulate in my thoughts.
It started when I was looking through an old journal of mine I wrote in a number of years ago, when I was trying to decide whether or not to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Many people around the country who didn’t know me encouraged me to do so, but even with all of those positive compliments, my daily journaling reflected my struggle to determine the right answer.
What was the right answer?
And even more basic for me then, and even now as I try to evaluate current matters before me, is this—who am I, and what path should I be on in order to become all I should be, and do all I should do? Where should each day begin? Where should decisions I make today begin? Where should I look for guidance in relationships—both relationships I am blessed by, and ones, as it turns out, I simply have to tolerate?
Where does direction for planning for tomorrow come from? Where do I look? There are a lot of self-help books available and more each year with presumably all the right and new answers. Where do I look for wisdom to be able to throw aside some things that are hindrances, and embrace others which may be helpful? How do I know which is which, and how they will turn out?
What are my priorities to be? What do they line up with? Should they be different than they were yesterday because of cultural or demographic changes in the world, or because of financial changes I my life; or should they remain the same—and if so, are they worthy of being embraced, or should they themselves be changed because they were wrong to begin with?
Where do I go to determine which wall, of which career choice, to place my ladder against to begin climbing? How many ladders should I have positioned on various career walls? How will I know if I was right, and whether to keep climbing or to stop and move my ladder? Should I give any credence to what the world holds out as acceptable and successful for me to follow?
The problem I realized back then, and I am reminded of now, was my focus. What should I do? What is good for me? I was beginning in the wrong place. I was never going to get to a place of peace and clear direction by focusing on me.
I realize the conclusion I am about to share is an obvious and simplistic statement, and that you probably already knew the right response, but at one time or another I’m guessing we have all been there.
Here it is. For help with all of the uncertainty and decisions I mentioned before—I should have begun with the Cornerstone—Jesus Christ. I should always make sure that the Cornerstone is firmly in place as the foundation of my life, and then allow that to direct and guide my decisions, steps, thoughts, planning, career choices and dreams.
And then with patience, I, we, should allow that living foundation to place brick upon brick in the process of building the walls of who God created me, and you, to be all in alignment with the foundation, the Cornerstone, Jesus Christ.
Just something obvious, I suppose, for us to think about today and every day for the rest of our lives.
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2013. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
