love hopes all things....

Love hopes all things…

It is easy to be negative right now with economic tensions, moral decay, and seasonal distresses. Some people are just naturally more cheerful than others. We tend to want to hang with those who are upbeat more than the dark and down! Are we captives of our disposition or is there hope for change? As we move closer to Christ being formed in us I am convinced our disposition should improve. I want to briefly explore a few principles that point to this promise.

1 Cor. 13:4-7

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.


We find the suggestion here that walking in Love makes one hopeful. The hopeful person believes things will be better Even if circumstances don’t improve this person trusts they will come thru ok. Love produces a positive mode of endurance whatever life throws at us!

Phil. 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things

Here we have practical instruction on how to avoid those dark places of mental captivity. I will avoid a lengthy unpacking as the passage is pretty much self explanatory!

mickey mooney
www.networkvine.org

empty locust shells....

I now know they are called cicadas but as a kid we referred to them as locusts. They would emerge from their subterranean caverns and deafen the landscape with their screeching. The little brown carcases were abundant on trees and porch posts. I remember that we (as children) were somewhat timid about those threatening "bugs" firmly attached to the big hickory in the back yard. They looked so real. They had legs, bodies, heads...all of the tell-tell form of a vicious creepy-crawly. We would eventually learn that the "locusts" were long gone and had merely left behind their shell. The shell was just a empty form and the life that it once contained had moved on.


I find that, in Christianity, it is possible to remain drawn to "empty locust shells". We tend to gravitate to practices that once held life but now remain only a testament to where God once was. Recently, while contemplating the content of a meeting that I might facilitate, I found that each visit of the various potential approaches would bring a sick "dread". To be frank, there was no desire to move forward with the meeting. That absence of desire began to really trouble me. Had God "benched" me because of all of my past failures? Had I "benched" myself out of laziness, burn out, or simple disinterest? Crying out to God day and night seemed to bring me no closer to the answer. Then, when I least expected it, the answer came. One evening, laying quietly, I began to contemplate my relationship with God. I know He speaks to me.....He has ever since I was a child. I know He has always sought me out and drawn me to Himself in spite of my failings. Those two unmistakable realities are strong foundations for confidence. He began to assure me the We were OK! As I lay there I began to see the image of a "locust shell".He was showing me that the particular situation that was causing me such distress was just a "locust shell". He began to show me that He was going to protect me from Locust Shells. Jesus once warned that a time was coming when men would "hold to a form (locust shell) of Godliness but deny the power there of". My personal journey, it seems, will continue to be away from form. I must discover where Life is and follow.

mickey