After Easter Will You Follow Through?

As we prepare to celebrate another Passover, many people enter into this season of Lent with good intentions.  They give up so many things for 30 or 40 days or however long suits them.  From the time I was a young Christian I could never understand why people made a big deal of it and I still don't.  I never said it but I always thought, "Doesn't God derserve your sacrifice everyday & not just during Lent?"  If whatever your 'fasting' from or giving up bothers you that much, shouldn't you give it up altogether?  God wants your attention all year, not just during this season.

How sad it has become that we make this one time a year such a big issue when sacrificing our entire lives all year long should be such a big issue.  But I guess no one sees it.  I often think about this issue whenever I listen to "The Altar & The Door" written by Casting Crowns own Mark Hall.

"Carless, I am reckless, I'm  a wrong-way-travelin-slowly-unraveling shell of a man.  Burnt out, I'm so numb now.  That the fire's just an ember way down in the corner of my cold, cold heart.

Lord, this time I'll make it right, here at the alter I lay my life.  Your kingdom come but my will was done, my heart is broken as I cry.  Like so many times before, but my eyes are dry before I leave the floor, oh Lord I try.  But this time Jesus how can I be sure I will not lose my follow through between the Altar & the door. 

Here at the altar, oh my world so black & white.  How could I ever falter what you've shown me to be right....?"

Strong words that cut so deep to the very soul or they should at least.  Especially if you are living your life as a daily sacrifice to Him.  Maybe next time when I think about how hard I try to sacrifice daily as I see others just casually for once a year coast by for 30 or 40 days, I'll get up the courage to ask them, "After Easter, will you follow through?"

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you:  Take your ordinary everyday life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.  Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead, fix your attention on God.  You'll be changed from the inside out.  Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it.  Unlike the culture around you always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."  Romans 12:1-2 (The Message Bible)

The Poor Man's Diamonds

I live close to a quarry and now that the wather is warmer, I get to take wonderful long walks each morning (after my brood is in school of course) with my two best friends - "Goodness" & "Mercy", who follow me everywhere I go.  I traveled amongst still knee high snow drifts left as heavy gifts by Old Man Winter during the week of February 8th.  Today, to my amazement I saw huge chunks of clear rocks.  Just abosulutely beautiful to the eye and sparkling bright in the last of winter's sunlight.  I could not resist but to pick one up as they were everywhere.  So by the time I was home, my pockets were full of rocks.  It slowed me down a little but I was only thinking of the look on my son's face when he sees them.

I thought to myself, "My son the scientist (one day) will surely treasure these gifts."  The road I travel is less than three miles and can be steep in some places.  Nevertheless, as I listen to Chris Tomlin & Casting Crowns bellow out tunes, I ponder the road in my life that God has lain before me.  I think about the sacrifice He made as I head toward celebrating another Passover.  How thoughtful He was to put me before Himself & lay His blood on the door posts of my heart so that the angel of death would pass over me.

He too, sees beautiful pieces of quartz laying all around and chooses them.  He picks them up to carry them to show His proud Papa.  Some of the pieces break or shatter on the way back home as the road He travels is too rough for them and they cannot withstand it.  So they don't make the journey.  Others, become refined from rubbing against other pieces He has placed in His pocket and indeed at journey's end are even more beautiful than when the journey first began.

I want to be like the latter.  So that when He presents me to His proud Papa he can say, "She wasn't this beautiful when I found her, but oh look Dad how the journey has made her gisten and sparkle.  I am so glad I chose her.  Even though I carried the weight of her sin & shame, I knew you would be proud when you saw her."

These little rocks may not mean anything to a jewler who searches for the most precious stones to be sold at auction to the highest bidder and the wealthy.  They may seem to be just a poor man's diamonds but oh how they remind me of God's people.

"Many are called but few are chosen."  Matthew 22:14