Everything We Have Comes From Him

I'm in the midst of a several day slog through a lot of work deadlines, which in actuality is part of a longer series of months where I've been pushing at a pace I know I can't keep up much longer.

My mind is tired. I am running out of creative ideas (both teaching and writing). I am running out of energy and hours.

My heart is tired. We have friends going through the unfathomable sadness of accompanying one of their children through terrible illness that looks as though it will end soon in death.  I have turned twice to news reports in recent days about the persecution and killing of Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.

My mind and heart are also bursting with love and gospel goodness, which in the midst of all the heartbreak and heartache feels ever more precious each day. We have been loving our nearly teenage daughter through a ton of very hard questions about God, life, Jesus, the Bible, and the world -- incredible questions that come faster than we can possibly answer (her mind works at such an amazing pace sometimes). I spent part of the morning trying my best to answer questions from a seven year old who told me he really wants to see God.

Tonight I was glad to come across these words from the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 in The Message:

"Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

What a rich treasure God has given us -- all of us who weren't much when we were called, but who by God's grace have been given everything we need, including a clean slate and fresh start.