Recharging

I took today off to recharge. I realized yesterday that it had been nearly three weeks since I had been home in the evenings or had some “me” time. This morning I hit a wall and knew I needed a couple of days to get away from work and do some things for me. I slept in and ate lunch with my parents, sister and Blake, my soon-to-arrive nephew. I went to the grocery store for something to put in my empty refrigerator. And tonite, I went for my recharging walk around the park and am settling down to read! A quality day off and I have another one tomorrow!!

I am starting a study of Hebrews for my personal study time. Since I seem to struggle with living in true faith, I decided that it might be a good book to journey through again. The author is skilled at exhorting others to faith. I realized how much I really loved the very beginning of Hebrews. It gets you right from the beginning. Read this: v. 1-3a from the Messageparaphrase:

Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature.

Doesn’t that just grab you? You will notice my emphases to two areas: God addressing or speaking in various ways over the years and Jesus as the perfect mirror of God’s nature. The first speaks to my need for God to be mysterious and not confined to our small understandings (or more often, our misunderstandings.) God has chosen a variety of ways throughout history to relate to God’s people. His general revelation occurs in so many ways – many that we sometime discount. I was thinking of that tonight as a friend was sharing about a culture in Africa in which very few individuals are Christian. Someone who works closely with them shared that he has never known any believer to come to faith in Christ without some dream or vision. Isn’t that beautiful? How God faithfully, creatively, and appropriately reaches out to us in “language” that we can understand and respond to? It reminds me of a song by my favorite song writer, Nichole Nordeman, titled “Who You Are”. Read part of the lyrics:

“Every teacher, every preacher with the very best intent
found new ways to hide the mystery, replaced by common sense
and to know You was to keep You in my pocket so easy to hold.
I know I can’t explain You, I would not even try to, and yet it’s clear that You are here beside me.
I marvel and I wonder, so near and somehow still so far. What makes You who you are?
I’ve tried to draw these lines around You, a definition or an absolute.
But I could not be satisfied with black or white; there is so much more, there is so much You.

There is so much You, expressed in so many ways. But the way we love the most, and the way that is stamped with Your nature is the Son, Jesus Christ. Help us, God, to not lose the mystery of who You are and to not cease to introduce the world to You through Your Son.