This month, I turn twenty. As a cause for celebration, I
thought I’d share 20 faith points to show you the God I’ve come to know and
love these past 20 years. So here it goes:
1. Take
time to enjoy the flowers, whether it’s the sunflowers that have graced
Statesville these past few weeks or the flowers of friendship enjoy the beauty
of God’s creation any and everywhere you go.
2. Enjoy
the art of getting lost, sometimes you find God when you lose the roadmap.
3.
“Remember I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”- Whether that age
is 20 or 95 remember that God is with you, present and working.
4.
Sometimes God’s silence is the best antidote to our pain. God is working even
in the silence; find God’s presence even when you don’t hear God’s voice.
5. Enjoy
the theology of kids. Even if it’s the theology of the Muppets or Mr. Rogers,
kids have so much to say, and their beautiful messages are sometimes misheard
or misinterpreted.
6. If God
wants you there, not even the armies of this world can move you. God is the
ultimate job security, enjoy it, you can’t get that at any other company.
7. Enjoy the stars: They are
twinkles of heaven present on earth, even Peter Pan knew that something better
was beyond the second star to the right!
8. God is
love. Anne Lamott says it best, ““You
can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out
that God hates all the same people you do.”
9. If someone asks you to mentor
them, drop everything and do it. God calls us to help people learn and grow.
Too many times we forget that we are training up the next generation of people
to take our place.
10. Learn from the saints that have
gone before us, “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.”
11. Teresa of Avila said this:
“Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ is to look on the
hurting world. “
12. Never lose the art of sending a
card or letter: The early Christians communicated this way, why should we stop?
You all encourage me weekly with your messages; they have lightened my heart
and given me inspiration to write.
13. On that same note, sometimes God
works best when Facebook is off. Enjoy your Sabbath.
14. Jesus came, lived and died for
you… There’s not much I can commentate on that, enjoy it, live it, love it.
15. The cross of Christ is one that
requires us to carry it as well. Even Jesus needed help getting to Golgotha.
16. Worship is community based, I
love everything about worship, and every Sunday when you sing hymns, hear a
sermon and take communion, remember whose you are and who you are called to be.
17. Enjoy your church, as hard as
that can be sometimes. Whether your church has ancient architecture like Duke
Chapel, or is a church that was built in the last year, learn to love in spite
of the failings of a human institution.
18.
Kenneth Leech says this about prayer, “The best preparation for a life
of prayer is to become more intensely human.”
19. Don’t give up when the going
gets tough. Louis L’Amour says, “There will come a time when you believe
everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”
20. Finally, and most importantly
love wastefully, love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. Love like
there’s no tomorrow. Love, love and then love some more.
I’m confident these points will get
me through the next twenty years, enjoy every moment of this life. You only get
one go-around, make it count. Thanks be to God.
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