Forged By Faith

Colossians 3:4 NIV gives up the glory Or at least the common pursuit there toward as is pursued here by all in what’s long remained basically the same place and in somehow the same things. For within this place such things as riches and fame and even being well thought of have long been the goals for which all have gone. All of us have chased after such prizes as power and popularity and prosperity. These are the very things that this world tells us daily we should want as, to most still, they’re things that most think we need. But only because they’ve too been told that they do. What if we don’t? I don’t know, it might be another one of those altogether inevitable processes in life that we all experience as we get older and, though in my mind I’m still 20-something, it kind of hit me last night that I’m now closer to 50 than I am 20. Hit me when a friend asked me if I was going to our high school reunion. Realized that it’s the 20-year reunion. Been out of school (at least the last pa...

1 Peter 1:13 NIV takes ready’s call For after all, it’s been ringing within the halls of our hearts since long before our lives here got their start or then us our start at living them however we have since then. And it just makes sense then that the same voice sending the same message via the same quiet undertones across what are phones that ring in only a tone that is only known to only our soul must then have something to say that so too hasn’t changed despite all the times we’ve tried to or felt we had to or simply didn’t even realize that we’d begun to. The last being the most common of them all. And that’s all because we’ve all become so entirely affixed to the fixing of our lives in what is a world that sells us both all the lies that tell us all about all the problems, failures, flaws and follies that they think we have and, oddly enough, all the tools and trophies with which to fix them. And, being the hopeless romantics that we are anymore, we’ve all become entirely willing t...

Titus 2:14 NIV identifies our identity And realizes that all this time it’s simply been waiting for us to stop worrying so much as we all sadly have about all that we think we need to have and have come to want and for whatever reason once chose to do. Now granted, all of those things do play a part in defining who we are as they all are all these little parts and pieces that have, at times, been held inside our hearts and seemed to even maybe have offered us peace, hope, joy and purpose. Even if albeit in pieces. But that’s the realization that we’re all going to realize someday. Or it’s at the very least a part of it. It’s that within this life as is being lived by all of us who are alive here now, the very best of anything we’ve ever had or held or hoped we could was destined to be only diluted, divided, endangered, indifferent. And that’s because everything here is bound forever to an inescapable transitory nature. And we all know this perfectly well because all of us have in life ...

Titus 2:13 NIV works through the waiting Not only because that’s simply what we’re here to do, a fact rather easy to prove in light of all we’ve all the ability, the opportunity, the understanding and (hopefully) willingness to, but also because, well, what else is there to do? What else are we to give all this time we’ve been given to? What more might mean more than our doing more than we’ve already done, becoming then something more, (hopefully) something better than we’ve been before? Honestly, why would we still have a life if not to live it doing something within it? Doesn’t make any sense. And yet it sadly seems increasingly obvious that many here do find themselves of the ability to find sense in the senseless. So much so that there are a correspondingly increasing many who have managed to make careers, find fortunes, even find fame and friendships within the doing of nothing. At least nothing all that good or meaningful or even productive. I mean truly, do we need more influenc...

Titus 2:12 NIV learns of a life in “no” Which honestly comes at quite the surprise considering for all our lives we’ve all lived through eyes that knew only of “yes” and “please” and “thank you sir, may I have another?”. Because those are the keys which have always seemed to open every door behind which we’ve learned to believe that all the best of all this life always waited for us to find a desire to feel as though we needed it. That life itself was something that sells upon shelves in stores or is offered on pages in magazines or flashes exciting family scenes on our tv’s telling us all about all the benefits and side-effects of some new something that’s taking the world by storm. Indeed, we’ve all lived our lives one ShamWow and a roll of Flextape away from utter perfection. This is in fact why such infomercials were invented. It’s because the makers of their products sold within them, usually even offered us in payments paid in installments so that we can go ahead and receive the ...