Forged By Faith

Matthew 25:41 NIV The last domino In what is this game we play of life in which we all choose to live through most days and as many nights as if most things don’t matter all that much and sadly that nor do those around us. For we seem to have found inside of us this ability, this opportunity, this excitement even concealed inside the same to remain so plain atop this plane of what is a place so filled with chances to be rather the changes that I pray we can still see this world so desperately needs. Changes that daily slip through our fingers while we’re all busy building our little ruins in the making. Each day a domino lined up too precariously close in both time and appearance unto the last, leaving them all to fall as one whenever we’re broken before the Son who we too overlooked simply because we were too focused on all that will have by then failed us. In what are to be then lives condemned to share in the devil’s destination thanks to every wayward desire, every wicked demand, e...

Matthew 25:40 NIV The least of these So many times it still seems we see only a necessity in seeking the favor, honor, friendship of royalty. We’ve become so amazed by the grandeur and awe of nobility and governance and power that we almost instinctively assume that those who hold such positions are those that we should seek to be like and to get there by showing how much we adore them. We even plaster our cars in stickers showing off our support of whatever suit happened to capture our heart and win our vote. Lost perpetually in the process of people pleasing people and that through pride and opulence as such are the very uppermost ideals held by all. Indeed, for the same lie we’ve all fallen and daily fall. It’s that one which tells us that there’s something of a hierarchy in life and that, however it may be that we and our pride may measure it, whatever the different levels may mean, it all aims to accomplish the very same thing. And that is to find for us what are those ways in whi...

Matthew 25:38 NIV Invisible opportunities And they to entertain angels unawares. And that because not everything here is as it seems as even those things that we might find normal or common or perhaps even boring may be in truth divine chances to help us both see and show who we really are unto whomever may or may not be watching, listening, learning about us through whatever we say or think or do. Indeed, what if I told you that everything we’ve ever done mattered more than might have been able to imagine? Might that cause us to imagine harder? To believe bigger? To try better? To be better? What if we did try to live this life as if this world were just a great big stadium filled with all of the thousands of people we’ll meet along the way out, each of whom is placed in our path as something of a road map in which we glean from them something gained only should they gain from us something given? What all might we give if we were of the faith to believe that everyone around us was som...

Matthew 25:35 NIV Give to receive And that unto the least of these. And why? Well, because contrary to common confusion the point of this life was never about what we had or what we hope to have. It was never about how we feel or what we then expect to happen or not so as to ensure that we end up feeling however we want. It wasn’t to look out for number one or to even consider ourselves second. No, the point of this life, especially one lived within this faith, it was for our to find ways to trade places with those who are in last place in this place in which all of life is a race that nearly everyone else is running backwards. All because nearly all of us are down here every day trying our best to make sure our lives are always the same. Indeed, we’re all trained to endure struggle, suffering, shame so long as it means that we’re somehow better for it. And don’t get me wrong, there is a certain manner that such is in truth a very good, a very helpful, a very healthy thing to do. And I...

Matthew 25:34 NIV The recompense It’s a process through which one is compensated for what, at that moment, WAS a matter of loss or harm or hurt or hardship. It’s to make amends and thus to mend that thus which was been broken or battered or beaten, betrayed even. It’s to bring healing to they who’ve known suffering, solace to those sinking in shame, mercy to those melted in misery and freedom to those who’ve simply not known much of it along the way. And that to wherever it is that this road that we all call life may lead. Which is hopefully toward that promised outcome in which once we’ve come out of this world then we finally get to enter our home and all the rest He’s said awaits within. A rest that can only make sense should these lives be trying and difficult and worrisome and burdensome and, yes, even miserable. And that simply because one doesn’t rest, one cannot rest from that which is already easy. There’s no break to take from that which doesn’t break you. We can’t comprehend...