Friday, January 19, 2007

Genesis 47 & 48; Psalm 10; Luke 19

My brain feels like a bowl of spaghetti.....the sticky kind, where you can't pull one noodle out without it attaching itself to another....not bad just not neat....nothing 'feels' neat.....


"The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action. Once you become informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray. You realize that nothing is as clear and simple as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing." -Bill Waterson, "Calvin and Hobbes

Genesis 47: 25 "You have saved our lives," they said. "May we find favor in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh."

The choice they made…….the choices we make now……thinking we know…..?? to buy things we cannot afford, using money we don’t have, counting on the here and now when the future stretches out before us …..the bondage is the same…the choice is still ours…..and the parable of the ‘minas’ reading it differently this morning….again the choices each one made….makes…knowing the truth???

Luke 19: 41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Still weeping at the choices we make???

Truth will set us free, but first it will make us sick--to the point that the Great Physician's restorative touch is the only cure.
The truth sets us free by helping us to become people of courage who never pretend.
If I am hiding in the dark from God, not being open before him about the things that are going on, you can be sure I'll try to keep you in the dark as well. I might attend the meetings, participate in the discussions, and go through the other motions, but nothing of importance will happen. That is because I will try to keep a similar distance between you and me to what I maintain between myself and God.The way to peace begins with accepting the truth of myself--the whole truth. Any bit of me that I refuse to accept becomes the enemy...
To accept the truth of my own brokenness is unbearable, if not impossible, without turning to Christ. If my vision of myself is not purified by the mercy and compassion of Jesus, I have to get dishonest, camouflage my warts and present to you a self that is mostly admirable, fault free and superficially happy... The peace that comes through accepting the whole truth about myself is rooted in Christ" who has reconciled all things in himself. making peace through the blood of the cross." Brennan Manning, in Reflections for Ragamuffins

5 comments:

Bruce said...

I love Calvin and Hobbes. Thanks for the words today - I'm feeling real spaghetti like lately.

B~

Jada's Gigi said...

Thank God He has reconciled ALL things in himself..and made peace through the blood of the cross!!

Melissa said...

It's a question of what truth we choose to follow. Truth will shatter darkness and it is always painful...I spent what I didn't have today and you writing about it reminds me that I should be thankful for my abundance and not focus on the things of this Earth!

Pam Hogeweide said...

To accept the truth of my own brokenness is unbearable, if not impossible, without turning to Christ. If my vision of myself is not purified by the mercy and compassion of Jesus, I have to get dishonest, camouflage my warts and present to you a self that is mostly admirable, fault free and superficially happy

i love this. and i love b. manning who is an author i have only recently discovered.

thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting. from the looks of your blog it seems we are both being stirred by the same Spirit...

Laura said...

Interesting thought..this whole idea of feeling like spaghetti. The more I have thought about it, the more I have realized that that is exactly how I feel. My mind is all stuck together with so many thoughts running through it that it is hard to make sense of it all. I used to be a very black and white person and now it seems that I have been invaded by shades of gray. Thanks for the post!