The Mirror By the Woods

God has been speaking to me in analogies and pictures. The following is what I learned today.

I see a mirror at the edge of the woods. The woods are thick yet there is a small path that seems to lead deep within. The image in the mirror is the God I’ve worshipped and prayed to over the years. I’m not sure how the image was formed, but it’s what I’ve ended up with after many years of following Him. It’s the God that I’ve been settled on. My relationship has seemed hollow at times but God has been unwavering and I’ve been content. I would occasionally glance at the path but decided that whatever was hidden down that way was more than likely something for someone else. Things were okay the way they were.

Suddenly, the mirror developed a crack in it and I realized that although I felt like I was serving the true God, I had only been offered a glimpse of who He truly was. I looked at the path again, considering a choice.

I then realized that God wasn’t in the mirror nor was He at the end of the path. God was the woods. I could stand at the entrance to the path and still be in God, seeing part of Him as He truly is. But once I stepped on the path, the beauty, the intricacies, and the depth of who God is became apparent. How had I been content with the flat, lifeless image of God in that mirror for so many years? I was content because it was easy. Just enough of God reflected back at me so that I felt that I was doing my part and that God should probably be pleased with me.

And yet, how many times did I turn away from the God in the mirror, somehow sensing that I was looking in the wrong place?

Now that I’ve started down that path into who God is, I realized that this journey is not about me. I can’t help but be in awe of God as He reveals something new to me at each turn in the path. The deeper I go, the more beautiful He is. I now know that the plan is to lose myself in those woods—to lose myself in God.

Strangely, the mirror has disappeared.

Who Is In Control?

Galatians 5:22-23  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The fruit of the Spirit known as self-control has plunged me deep in thought as I’ve contemplated what that term in the context of Galatians 5:22-23 means to me. I have always thought of self-control as being able to keep myself from doing things that I shouldn’t be doing. However, what about the control to do the things that I should be doing? This is where my problem comes in.

In the past, I have tried to control my behavior. I haven’t done a bad job but there are many areas where I feel that I haven’t controlled things very well. These are the areas that keep creeping back into my focus when I realize that I need to get my life under control. So what do I do? I make another list, read another book, come up with some sort of chart to help me control my behavior. Why, after all of these years, do I really think that there is some sort of gimmick that’s going to work for me this time? Why do I think that I may finally have everything stirred together in the proper manner that it’s going to make that life-changing difference in my life that I continue to seek?

 What I have come to realize is that the way that I need to control myself is to recognize what parts of my own self that I need to let go of. I need the control to be willing to let go of any negative behaviors or thought patterns that will hinder the Holy Spirit from working in and through my life. This type of self-control isn’t about being controlled by myself, as in having the self-control to not eat that cookie, but it’s the ability I have to recognize within myself (with God's guidance) what part of my behavior I need to rebuke and release so that I’m no longer quenching or hindering the Spirit.

I feel that the reason that this fruit is called “self-control” as opposed to “Spirit-control” is that God will not force us to change. He will not come into our lives and automatically rid us of the things in our lives that negatively affect us. We are not created to be his robots. We are created to follow Him and to emulate Jesus with our lives. We must be the ones to have the control because only through using our self-control to move “us” out of the way can there truly be room for the Spirit to work in us to produce the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness spoken about in these verses.

Think of a body guard bringing someone important through a crowd to the stage. The body guard goes on ahead, moving people out of the way so that the dignitary can move through. Once that special person reaches the stage, the body guard steps back out of the way so that the dignitary is able to do the work he is meant to do. The body guard, however, remains vigilant to keep people away who may hinder the work of the one he’s guarding. Our purpose for being in control of ourselves is only to move the things out of our lives that are in the way of the Spirit. Once that’s done, though it will be an ongoing process, we need to step back and let the Spirit do what He’s meant to do in our lives. We must remain vigilant as well, being aware of thoughts and actions that will hinder the work of the Spirit and being ready to remove them from our lives when they get in His way.

Self-control, although it is mentioned last in the list, is truly the key to the whole verse. I always thought that love was the key because love is the over-arching theme of the Bible. But first, we need self-control to be able to recognize and eliminate anything that can get in the way of the Spirit’s work to produce the rest of the fruit in us. Only then will we be fully Spirit-controlled and able to do the work that God has called us to do.

Vienna Waits for You

Matthew McConaughey and Billy Joel. Not much of a connection it would seem, but their words have spoken to me in recent weeks and, to me, they’re connected.

I don’t know if it’s the lingering winter weather, circumstances in life, or just the fact that I’m another year older, but I’ve been feeling something deep inside. I want to say that I’m feeling nostalgic, but that seems to be looking back at what has already happened in my life. I feel that same sort of feeling, but I feel it as I look forward in life. Call it “forward-thinking nostalgia”, I guess.

I was listening to an oldies station a couple of weeks ago and the song, “Vienna”, by Billy Joel,  came on. I know the song but have not paid close attention to the lyrics.

But you know that when the truth is told

That you can get what you want

Or you can just get old

You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through

When will you realize... Vienna waits for you?

Hmmm. I can get what I want or I can just get old. Not that I necessarily want Vienna, but whatever it is I want is waiting for me. When will I realize that?

Matthew McConaughey won the Oscar for best actor this year. I didn’t watch the entire Academy Awards program so I ended up missing his speech. Because I saw his speech posted on Facebook, I decided to see what he had to say. Although many were impressed that he thanked God as he was talking, I thought it was much more thought provoking when he began to talk about going after his hero.

And to my hero. That's who I chase. Now when I was 15 years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say 'who's your hero?' And I said, 'I don't know, I gotta think about that. Give me a couple of weeks.' I come back two weeks later, this person comes up and says 'who's your hero?' I said, 'I thought about it. You know who it is? It's me in 10 years.' So I turned 25. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and says, 'So, are you a hero?' And I was like, 'not even close. No, no, no.' She said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because my hero's me at 35.' So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero's always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero. I'm not gonna attain that. I know I'm not, and that's just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.

First of all, I’m not a fan of the word “hero”. I think that it’s been over used and misused since 9-11 and the true meaning of a hero has been watered down. I don’t think I really have any heroes in my life. In this situation, though, I think the term mentor or role model can be used in place of hero. Who is my role model? 

Who do I look to as someone that I want to emulate and learn from? What better person than an improved, focused, streamlined self to have as a goal to attain? No one else will be exactly who I want to be. There will always be something in another person’s lifestyle choices that is not something that I want in my life. Only as I picture myself in the future do I see who I truly want to be. That person should be my mentor and who I am striving to be.

To some, it may seem disappointing that we can never achieve hero status since it’s something that seems to be 10 years out of our grasp at every point in life. To me, however, it’s exciting! I see what I want to become and set my goals accordingly. If I have a bad day, or even a bad year, and seem to have a setback from attaining that 10-year goal, I see it as a fresh opportunity to regroup and rethink what I want to become. And I’m still looking 10 years ahead of myself, whether it’s from a successful day or a defeated year.

At 54 years old, it may seem daunting to think in terms of ten years…and ten years beyond that. As the song says, I’m going to kick off before I even get halfway through. But that’s the joy of life! I want to have so many dreams, plans, goals, and life events that I die before I accomplish them all. I want to die in the midst of doing them. No, I don’t wish for an early death—I wish for, and plan for, a prolonged, fully-lived life. I don’t want to give up on who I am and what I can accomplish. Maybe in becoming a role model for myself, I’ll also end up being a role model for others. After all, it's hard to lead others if I'm not willing to follow myself.

Why should I just get old when I can get what I want? Every opportunity, my Vienna (whatever that may be), is out there waiting for me to discover it. Each day that I accomplish something that moves me a step closer to that 10-year goal is a day closer to Vienna…and my new, improved 10-year goal.