There’s this little boy, who is gone now, he grew up, and became a man. When ever I say to (its my youngest son by the way) When ever I say to Ashton,
“I wish you coulda met that little guy, you’ve really missed out” Then he says,
“Dad, you know that I’m him, right?”
And its so true, that boy hasn’t changed, except that now he’s a man, with a beard better than mine, he’s massive, and has a much better start than I ever did. That’s to God’s credit.
Lately I’ve been feeling discouraged. By lately I mean this morning LOL.
As I contemplated its cuz I have a prayer burden or two. The underlying question for God is, “Why don’t you do something?!?!” What’s this all for if things all remain the same?!?!
Is this a case of an eclipse? Has the moon, so close to the earth that its able to block out the Sun? I’ll be right back, and illustration has come to mind…
Now, I am not worried about the fact that this has been illustrated by others, Its not my point to be profound here, I’m exploring my emotions and state of mind, and the state of my relationship with God.
You can see in that first illustration that the SUN and the problem (the red dodgeball there) when compared objectively, can be seen in their true perspective. The man standing there I’ve drawn your attention to his field of vision, its the darker blue there.
In this next frame here, I’ve moved the problem, and it blocks the view of the Sun.
I am writing this blog post in real time, and truth is unravelling as I explore it with you. You are my reader, and part of my own ‘therapy’ is writing. I wonder if I am over it yet, but in times past I would write to specific people, and they would be my muse of the moment. And then I’d send them what I’d written, with eager expectations of their input, and more times than not their reaction is to wonder why I’ve flooded their inbox with spam LOL… as I evolved, I’d let them know that I was musing, and sent it to them “just in case” it might mean something to them also. Its how I focus my thoughts, and flush out the other stuff. A deliberate parallax view. But its also a conversation. Arguably its with myself, but I sincerely believe its God interacting with me. He’s at work here.
So, while I was drawing my two pics I got a text message from a very good friend and brother of mine. Cheryl was hovering over my shoulder in a rare moment of interest in what I was writing about. She’s allowed to be disinterested. Her interest or disinterest, anyone’s actually, doesn’t validate what’s going on in my heart, or what I’m writing. So I’m here, tapping away, clicking and dragging, I read to Cheryl what I’d written so far, to explain the pics I was making, and she helped me edit some confusing bits to make the reading less effortful… so there we were communing with one another, and my buddy Art sends me a text wishing us a Happy Anniversary. We both were shocked. I picked up my phone to ask my friend how he’d gotten so confused as to think it was our anniversary, and I looked at the bottom corner of my laptop screen to check out how long it would be to our ACTUAL anniversary, and realized pretty quickly that low and behold, we actually were married 23 years ago, on November 27, 1999. We both laughed so loud and hard! We phoned him, and he was a bit incredulous about what we had to tell him. He’d just reminded us of our own anniversary. After he hung up, he ministered to us with a song, The Little River Band’s Happy Anniversary
Wasn’t I just writing about parallax? Wasn’t I just musing about how troubles, and in the case of me how OTHER PEOPLE’s troubles, keep me from appreciating the true picture?
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Romans 1:21 NIV
I’m going to take my lovely wife out for lunch now, and then go pick up my wonderful young man, Ashton, from work. Maybe I’ll come back and give you an update 🙂
BUT before I rush away, its right there in that verse… focus on God, bring him into proper perspective, let nothing come in between you and God… put that small red rubber ball ‘the problem’ out from between you and God. That’s beginning to Glorifying God, and thankfulness must quickly follow. As we acknowledge what God is doing right.
Amen
Running Down Vimy 