The Game Changer

This week I helped my husband build a retainer wall. The sixty pound 

stones were too heavy to move from pallet to wall so I moved dirt instead, loads of it. Sometimes I appreciate mindless work for the physical exercise 

and time to think. Except when my thoughts wander back to my B.C. days. (Before Christ entered my life.) Before long I'm shaking my head at some of the choices I made, the selfish pursuits and failures. Stuff I'd rather forget. 

Then a realization hit me. Before we accept Jesus as our Lord and God as 
our Father,we don't have His Spirit and counsel to help us. In fact we have 
the opposite.  In John 8, Jesus tells the Pharisees and unbelieving Jews 
they are of their father, the devil, because they rejected Him as the 
Messiah. Wouldn't that apply to all of us before we come to know Jesus personally? Seems pretty clear and helps explain a lot of those B.C. experiences though it in no way excuses us.

And then Jesus saves us and presents us to His Father as a new member 

of the family. As I shoveled dirt into the wheelbarrow I marveled at the 

incredible difference between being a child of the devil and a child of God.

Do we miss much of the transformation available through that transaction simply because it's so astounding? Some of us only accept what we can understand and build our live around that. Yet God comes into our lives to make all things new.     

We leave the father of lies for the Father of Lights. We get to know and 
love Him through His Word and become like Jesus one tiny, miraculous change at a time. Salvation: The ultimate game changer.  

  

Disconnected

Last week my cell phone met with disaster. The details are irrelevant and a bit embarrassing. Let's just say I found it in the laundry room again, way too close to the washing machine and all that water. Thankfully my husband let me use his upgrade 
so I could order a new phone for minimal cost.

Fed-ex doesn't deliver on Saturdays in our little town so by Sunday morning I was 
still living the disconnected life. Sure I have a home phone and email but not being 
able to reach others immediately by cell phone or text left me feeling uneasy. 
Especially early that morning. 

I drove across town to meet a friend at 6:45 a.m. I parked at the designated spot and watched for her car. After 10 minutes I began to worry and wanted to call or text but 
for the first time in 12 years, I didn't have my cell phone with me. Feeling uncomfortably disconnected, I assessed my options. 

• drive home and call her (that would take too long)
• find a pay phone (do such things still exist?) 

Did I even know her fairly new number? With everyone's numbers programmed in 
my cell I just click their name or code. Problem: When the phone died it took all the 
those numbers with it.  

A few blocks away I pulled into Safeway and smiled to see an old-fashioned 
pay phone on the side of their building. I read the instructions, dialed what I hoped 
was her number, dug out two quarters and viola`, connected once again.

This experience sparked a renewed appreciation for the gift of prayer. No device 
required. Continuous reception wherever we go. And God not only listens for our 
prayers, He treasures them (Revelation 5:8). Our heavenly Father so loves to hear 
from us, He encourages us to pray continuously (Romans 12: 12). 

In this age of cell phones, email, facebook, and twitter, people constantly 
communicate with one another. Whether we're in the checkout line at the grocery 
store or hiking up a trail, we're almost always reachable. Technology grows more 
proud of its accomplishments every day. Yet for the Lord this isn't a new thing. From 
the beginning God provided a way for us to stay connected with Him. Thankfully, He 
is never more than a prayer away.

Are We Looking in the Right Place?

I shouldn't have answered the phone. That left me ten minutes to drive 

across town for an appointment. Doable but first I had to find my cell. 
Did I leave it upstairs? downstairs? In the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom? No. Without a minute to spare I called myself from the home phone, 
hoping I'd turned on the ringer.

The faint musical ringtone led me to the laundry room. Oh yeah, I remembered starting a load of laundry that morning and setting it on 
the dryer. 

As with my cell phone, we find things easier when we know where to look. 

That's even more true of spiritual treasures.

Several women thought they knew where to find the Lord after the 
soldiers crucified him. As they walked toward the tomb they wondered, 

"Who will roll away the stone for us?" But they found the stone moved 
aside and the tomb empty. Astonished and perplexed, they didn't know 
where else to look for Jesus. 

"Why do you look for the living among the dead?" the angels asked. 

Two days earlier the women watched Roman soldiers crucify Jesus. They 
saw them pull His dead body from the cross and seal it in the tomb. Yet 
they didn't realize Jesus rose to resurrection life early that morning. 
     
       And everything changed when that happened.        

       We tend to look for the living among the dead too. 

Reading through Romans I remember, oh yeah, the day I accepted Jesus, 
I died to sin and became a new person by God's grace. The discouraged, selfish, failure died. Each day Jesus beckons me to step out of the 
tomb's shadows and walk new paths with Him. (Romans 6:4) 

"Get a life" is an outdated term but something we still pursue. We hope
our efforts and accomplishments will warrant an approving nod from 
others. But as we look in wrong places and wander down wrong paths,
we grow weary.

The Lord reminds us we've become new in Him. We're no longer bound 
or beholden to the self-defeating loser we were apart from Him. (Every
one who rejects Jesus is a loser regardless what they attain in this life.)   
      
Whether we're searching for car keys, cell phones, or a misplaced life, 
it helps to know where to look. In Jesus we don't only find a life, we find
the abundant one He designed just for us.