Forged By Faith

John 15:20 NIV In this life, in this place, in this way, I am last. Because that’s right where I need to be. I’ve no business being out front pretending to lead anyone toward anything, not knowing all that I’ve found following my lead all these years. I’m not worthy of being listened to, learned from, applauded or even noticed. Because none can gain a thing should I worry about living inside such a way that insists I’m who this world needs. Nor can anyone profit from my pretending a prophet with some perfect parable as to the workings of life, some word not already said a million times before. No, there is indeed nothing new under the sun, and so here inside this serving the Son, I’d be a fool to expect something new. And yet we so clearly do. We walk this line as if it’s wide enough for the variance our preference might prefer. We pretend this path possibly painless, hopefully profitable, perhaps even at times popular and appreciated. And within all that we can see clearly what we don

1 Samuel 12:24 NIV It’s not when in life we find ourselves afraid that tells the truth of who we are but rather where such fear is found. Because the simple truth is that fear is a part of life. Though we hesitate mightily to say it, show it, share it, we are all terrified of a great many things in life. Fear of failure, not measuring up or being enough. Fear of more mistakes being made making for more regret up ahead. Fear of missing the importance of these moments which seem to be flying by faster and faster anymore. Fear of losing something, someone leaving, some dream evading. Fear of disappointment either as assumed from others or wrestled with inside ourselves. We’re all afraid in life of something at some point, at many points. But again, what defines our life to the very point of how we end up living it is where that fear is found and what we do with it once we’ve found it. The tragedy is that we’ve come to assume we’re supposed to run from it. Not supposed to be afraid. Can’t

Luke 19:40 NIV Voices may indeed become at times silenced, but know this, He doesn’t need us to share the message. He’s just giving us the opportunity to live for something worth dying for. The reality is that as pasts repeat inside the present and promise still a probability on into the upcoming, we may indeed find days again when those in and of the down here sternly remind that we needn’t speak of the Gospel nor in Jesus Name, and further insist we take such opportunity to remain silent on such severity. Indeed, this world has made clear and will continue to usher all into the understanding that they don’t like this truth for which we stand, by which we stand, upon which we’re standing. And indeed, as done in days gone, they may prove themselves violently unwilling to stand for our standing for Him. But despite the world threatening to force the issue, though we do have, will have the opportunity to shut up and go away, that doesn’t mean we have the ability. Because the beauty in al

2 Timothy 4:5 NIV Seems anymore that we see only the storms caused by the hatred within rather than the souls caught inside the chaos of what life has always been. I’m honestly not even all that sure as to why we still seem so surprised by the sights and sounds anymore. Life has long been shouts and sirens, someone somewhere screaming about something that someone else is doing or not doing or doing wrong that shouldn’t be done. Yes, life has been that way for as long as I can remember, just a collection of varied calamities of a billion individual lives lived as if lone constructions so disjointed and divided that everything we do will be wrong to someone. Perhaps it’s just that the contempt isn’t really concealed as well these days, but truth is that we should have known days such as these were coming. We were warned so as to not be alarmed or caught unprepared. As to why then we are is a matter for another musing, but for today, I think we need to look at what we’re losing within let

Matthew 9:37 NIV Who will go? Who will stay? Who might dare follow into the fray the Way which brought the life that demands, that deserves the truth spoken in love as only the Spirit can do, can be? Because we wake up again once more in this world so much the same as it was the night before, only the distant idea that an even dimmer darkness awaits just ahead of us. That is the only way this world knows to go, deeper into the depravity, deeper into disrepair. And yet it’s within such disintegration that our obligation should become in us an excited opportunity to finally see His leading us to do what He’s called us to be. That’s what this world doesn’t understand, a reality that even we seem to struggle with at times. This isn’t a calling as if a phone complete with voicemail in case we don’t feel like picking up some days. This isn’t a hobby enjoyed on weekends or in rare times of boredom with nothing new on TV. We don’t turn this off as we weren’t the ones who turned it on. No, He b

Romans 10:17 NIV As if Andy Dufresne, seems all I’ve left of life is a wall against which to work with freedom waiting on the other side and nothing but time to get there. God does strange things out here inside this fringe upon the hem of a world apart from home. So many almost maniacal mindsets mixed with and manifested within these seemingly misplaced missives making a way for me to be again who He made me to be, a hope marching me toward a mission meaning more and more as mayhem sets in. Seems anymore that nary a second slips by without a thousand thoughts leaving me almost as if grasping for straws praying that none get lost here within my inability to keep up with all He’s teaching me. This faith brings this new existence as if it’s a sudden resurgence of every dissipated awareness not seen alongside the sins I seemed to choose in those many moments that all added up to leaving me here in this hope of a new opportunity to be what I always should have been but never had the courag