Sunday, May 08, 2016

The River of Life and the Shoreline of Reality



These are the things I think about when I am on a boat all day.... as a red-tail hawk tips his wings toward me... as a white oak kneels in prayer... as birds feed their babies in little round mud houses on the bridges... and as spiders build mosaic masterpieces in anonymity...

What follows is my prayerful plea of the day....... please read and consider.....

WHEN you become detached from the shore of outside objective truth…. a slow drift of decay begins and you find yourself in a small whirlpool of illegitimate concepts, notions, self centered comparisons, judgements, and reflections. Everything pulls your eyes to the center. The circle becomes tighter as others are collected in your spinning skepticism.


The rush of waters refreshes you as you spin faster. Your discourse with your company provides laughter and support. Your swirling whirlpool is in a fast current , but that is of no concern. Your companions make you laugh which drowns out the shouts coming from the shore.


A rope passes through the group. As it is tossed back and forth… it is unraveled and rejected as meaningless. No one casts an outward glance.


No challenges or questions changes the direction or slows the current….. Any possibility of reality is inside your rapidly spinning pool of deductions, words, agreements, and disagreements. You lock arms in solid support of final judgement. There is unity within your mind and within the group. Cheering and singing ensues!


Yet despite pleading and shouting…. Despite numerous attempts to reach out hands, and limbs, and lifelines…. Your whirlpool of perception finally drops off in The Waterfall of Reality….


THE LESSON FOR ALL FINITE HUMAN BEINGS?


YOU have to fight your perceptions and presuppositions…. You have to find a healthy self suspicion… you HAVE to seriously consider those things that cut contrary to your course of inclination.


YOU MUST NEVER dismiss offers of a lifeline…..


The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.


The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.


The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.


I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,  and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,  that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.


...among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.


God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.


Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?


And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  


Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.


The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Rushing waters are everywhere… including the very lifeblood  beating through  your heart….  Pray that the eyes of your heart may ponder this  today.. The grandeur of God, His glorious love, and His wide river of grace.


Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24 ESV)

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