Dear Faith Family,
I read a quote this week about the difference between growing up and getting older. As you read the words below, listen. Listen for and discern the echoes and Spirit of those "seven letters" which have taken our attention lately.
“Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed."
— Maya Angelou
Growing up into who God has created us to be as uniquely named individuals and his collective priestly progeny is an exercise in finding "out what it cost us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And...to succeed." That's a pretty good summation of the message from Jesus to the churches, to our faith family.
Have we not recognized in these letters that Jesus' apprentices are learning the cost of loving him more than the ways and things of the world they inhabit? What it costs to lose and to fail and to dare to hold fast. And living together with Jesus through affirmation, admonition, and promise; learning also to succeed, to "conquer."
The journey from new birth to life forever grows us. We don't merely get older; we mature, we change. And this change happens as we "take responsibility for the time [we] take up, for the space [we] occupy," as "the church in Dallas."
Am I taking responsibility, or just doing "adult" things?
That's the question Angelou's quote and Jesus' address has me asking today, and praying that we would be ones who don't just grow older, but grow up.
I’ll leave you with one more quote to reflect on this week:
"beloved, since you are waiting...be diligent to be found by Jesus without spot or blemish, and at peace...grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."
(2 Peter 3:14,18)
Love you faith family! God bless.