EVERYWHERE I GO I FIND THAT I'M THERE, TOO

Do you ever wish that some magic wand would let you continue to live while, simultaneously, you would discover it was a different you?  In other words, don't you find it strange that we can be so very critical of others when we are equally displeased with ourselves?

Some egos believe we are better than others.  Other egos are the reverse.  I'm both.  I often meet myself coming and going on the same highway.  It's very possible that I can wave at myself as I and the other me pass one another.

Everywhere I go I find that I'm there, too.

One me has great ideas with ambition to match.  The other me which rides in the car with the me me is riddled with hesitancy; even disbelief.  Thus as two opposing winds blow, an inner storm of sorts begins to brew.  Should I?  Shouldn't I?  Could I? Couldn't I?

A clue to the troubles this duality brings on is simply (and I'm sure you already see it) that I remain at the center.  Good comes from one me while evil proceeds from the other.  This is an across-the- board dilemma for humanity as well as huwomanity.

This, then, leads to one of the things I love about God.  He has us covered.  He didn't wink at my sins.  Rather, he caused his Son to become them on the cross.  The one me, the junk me, died on the cross.  The other me, the new me, was raised to walk a new life when I was baptized.  I became a new person.

To be a Christian does not mean that sin has subsided.  It does mean that God has paid the debt; the growing debt, the continuing debt.  God wiped the slate of the old flesh me and continues to mop up after me.  The new me gets to live in the imagination of God's glory.  It takes faith to accept this.

So it is, I believe, about you as well.  We are of kindred spirits.  We like the likable parts and so dislike the aggravating portions.  We are so alike in the human contraption.

There is such hope!  We possess true reason to lift our heads and move forward.  When we are baptized to have our sins washed away while at that moment receiving the Holy Spirit, it is then that God perpetually rinses our blemishes.  We come out squeaky clean.

Everywhere I go I find that I'm there, too is no longer the case.  With Jesus living within me, everywhere I go, He is there, too.  Life...real life...is not about me/us.  It is about Him in us.  It is this for which we strive, wish, even hunger.  We want to be more than we are...an improved version.

We will never get there...ever...on our own striving effort.  He will get us there.  By faith we let Him into us.  By faith He does more with me than I could ever do with ten mes.  And this is His calling.  Let go and let God.  Believe.  Believe that He can and that we can't....unless we surrender so that He can run the show.

Happy New Year!!!