Can You Still Bow

One of the greatest challenges in the life of the Christian is continued reliance on GOD, especially when it feels like He is not reliable. This was written asking, if over the long haul, can we still bow before Him in loving devotion when the issues of life get extremely hard. Ultimately we are challenged to look beyond the present in order to see the bigger and eternal picture of redemption.

Can You Still Bow?
Looking back, back on the highs and lows, on the indescribably wonderful, and the unutterably, unimaginably painful; after life has set before you a smorgasbord of delights, and tried to force feed you the rotten fruits of someones sour attitude; after you held your babies and buried your sons; whether you've stood in the limelight or been shoved into the shadows; captured a dream of felt one oozing through your fingers; near the end of all this, all they call life, can you still bow?
If not, I dare say, you have accepted a view of life that is too short, too small, too earthy. For one day, in a moment, in the twinkling of your eye you will stand on the lip of eternity, and gasp at the view that puts all things in their proper place, on the head of a pin where a million angels dance in the presence of GOD. Where the best this life had to offer will be lost in the grandeur of HIS presence. Where the worst instantly becomes precious because it taught you not to lean too hard on what seemed solid, but wasn't.
In the light of the infinite, from the perspective of the never-ending, all this, all they call life, will be so small as to fit with room to spare on the head of a pin, where a millions angels dance in the presence of GOD. Now, near the end of all, all they call life, can you still bow?
Copyright, Gary Little, Dec 11th, 2007

Cords of Love

I wrote this to read during Abigail's Wedding in March of 2009

What are these strange, invisible strings, Deep & hidden cords that bind lives together? What force compels a son to leave his home to start his own, And a daughter to kiss her mother, to become a mother? What mysterious threads attaches one life to another? Where did they come from? What are they made of, and why do they cry when severed?

Unseen but undeniable, Fragile as glass, yet stronger than iron, More gentle than that first kiss, More ardent than the last embrace that renders two lovers, are these sacred bonds that link lives together. Common as air, rare as mercy in a world where attachments are but for convenience, Two lives united by this heavenly thing shine as one beacon in the darkest and longest of nights. What holds us together - this thing we call love - is but the nature of GOD, And before you were born, GOD cast out HIS cords, and bound you with what we call...love.

The Lives and Times of Steadious and Erraticus

I am not certain when the thought first occurred, whether last night or around 4:30 this morning but I am finding this question (and the answers) challenging me this morning. "Am I going about my life, ordering my day as one who understands he is included in the group of people that the Apostle Peter refers to in 1 Peter 2:9-10?" By this I mean, as a Christian, one belonging to God; as a son; part of a royal priesthood, is my life structured, lived and lead in a way that makes my calling & identity clear? The first person, by way of example, who comes to mind is the Old Testament prophet Daniel. It seems, regardless of circumstances that he kept to his core beliefs and disciplines, and he did so without expecting a certain result or secretly requiring, as repayment, that GOD make sure everything turned out well. Plainly said, Daniel remained faithful to GOD regardless of circumstances, and his lifestyle and some predetermined outcome he had did not have to converge somewhere in this life. What a stark contrast between his life and mine! The best way I can think to describe the difference might be in the title of this posting "The Lives and Times of Steadius and Erraticus."

Questions:

• Do I know how to live as an authentic believer in these challenging days?


• In light of the chaos around me can I become a man who knows how to live in that peace that surpasses understanding, and whose life attracts others to it?


• Am I willing to pay the price that enables me to lead a disciplined life that honors and glorifies GOD, without leveraging my disciplines to get the results I want or think I deserve?

Note: The photo was taken summer at Sea Girt Beach, NJ during while visting our son-in-law, daughter, and two grandchilden

He Waits On The Edges of Fields

Below is a something I wrote in the morning on the last day of a Men's Retreat. There was a light dew on a field I was looking across, and an easy breeze moving through the tops of the trees. The sights and sounds made me wonder if GOD waits for us to come away from the insanity of life to seek Him out and to listen to what He has to say. I took this photo a couple years ago. It seems to fit.




He Waits On the Edges of Fields
He waits on the edges of fields,
The hearts and thoughts of men;
From where He whispers and lingers,
Listening for those who will hear.

Quiet and hidden from eyes,
But to seers He comes into view.
First a slight rustling
In the tops of the saplings,
Out at the edges of fields.

Come away from the din and commotion,
Away from the seat of self-will.
Out to the edges where so few will venture,
From the fakes and facades at the center.

But no path through the grasses is beaten,
No dirt is laid bare from a way traveled so.
For the stuff and the dreams and the chase at the center
Keeps men from true peace
At the edges of fields.

“Come unto Me...” is the voice that is wooing,
A call that to most is but rustling of leaves.
But the wind is the Spirit,
And the saplings line the borders,
Where He waits at the edges of fields.


Gary Little
September 7, 2008

The Attack and Burning of Michael Brewer

The attack and burning of 15 yr old Michael Brewer has my head spinning. Beside the heinous act itself I can't help but wonder if anyone is connecting the dots. We've now raised and trained 2 or 3 generations under the guiding light of an ideology that says there are no absolutes in life. Under the banner of progressive enlightenment, nothing can be absolutely right or wrong because everything is relative. There is no absolute truth and so there can be no definite foundations for morality, a structure that guides a society seeking to be civil, or support culturals that add to the benefit of other healthy cultural expressions. Life under this ideology can be nothing but random, a relative "free-for-all". If it is true - that there are absolutely no absolutes (say that out loud 4 times), how do we as a civil society hold these 5 teenager accountable for what they did? What did they do wrong if everything is relative? What if they just hold a different view of fun than you do or that life to them holds a lesser value? Can they be called criminals, and if so by whose definition?

Is anyone connecting the dots? How absolutely hypocritical to absolutely insist that absolute do not exist, that every person is free to think and act according to his or her current set of standards, then to haul others to court for violating someone else "rights". If everything is relative - no one has rights!

A society that denies the existence of absolutes must live in the presence of absolutes while denying they are there. Example, the physical sciences hang-on the reality of certain known absolutes. NASA could not get a crew to space (and back again) while denying the existence of absolutes laws. To embrace the existence of absolutes in one area while blindly denying them in others can be nothing else but a lifestyle that says, "I do not care if my choices are harmful to others. I have a right to think and act as I choose." Odd though isn't it, that when the relative choices of others violates a right we claim to have, we do not hesitate to scream "Unfair!" and grab a lawyer to defend our rights.

Is anyone connecting the dots? We are now reaping a crop from seeds sown decades ago. Anyone who has ever planted anything knows that a crop takes time to come up and that a single seed will evidually yield a hand full of fruit, and that fruit will bear seeds that will produce more of the same.

Gary