(note: will give short assessment of events in U.S. on Friday the 13th as part of evening post)
Grateful to report that I am feeling better this evening after a very difficult day at work slugging through a 9-to-5 shift with frequent bouts of mental anguish, on and off fighting to stop tears (and avoid the tell-tale red eyes) that were seen by many customers--it was a super-busy place with all the Thanksgiving shoppers.
In my five years and three months at the job, this ranks as one of the worst for working through full-blown upset that didn't diminish until late in the afternoon.
What's kind of funny is today was management's advertised "appreciation meal" set up in the employee break room (consisting of roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, etc.) and I hardly had any appetite for it! That never happens.
I wrote last night that I knew I had to get on with finishing my book and that has given me relief. I'm ready to go for it because that's all that's left for me to do. Just tell "the rest of the story" and wrap it up.
That means I've got to focus like never before, being done, once and for all, with sinful, selfish habits of avoidance and dissipation that get in the way of everything.
Last year, if you remember, I had my quote-unquote "near death experience" of going home to Loudonville, Ohio after a 24-year absence.
That was followed by the college reunion at Ohio State in September and then, last month, my 3-night odyssey reliving of Manhattan, where I resided from 1999-2007. So there's nothing left but to just do it!
*****
From a sermon last year by Richard Jordan:
A young man graduated from Yale. He was raised in a wealthy home, had an industrious father and was expected to go into the family business and be a success and a power broker.
This was back in the late 1800s when our country was growing westward. The great building of America. This man was destined to be right at the peak of that.
Along the way, though, he got saved. There was a day when you could get saved going to Yale. After he got saved, he got in with some Believers and the mission field began to tug at his heart.
He felt a call and a desire, a passion, to go to China and take the gospel there. This disappointed his family greatly. His parents were ready to disown him.
He boarded the ship and said goodbye to his loved ones on the banks of New York in Manhattan. He got on the boat and began to sail across the Atlantic. Before he ever reached China, though, he succumbed and died due to a shipboard disease.
When his possessions were sent back home, his family went through his stuff and found a little notebook where he kept a journal. In that journal he had a statement at the top of one of the pages that said, “My Motto”. By the way, he had given away all of his wealth.
He had written as his motto: “No reserves, no retreat, no regrets.”
*****
Paul writes in Philippians 3: [10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
[11] If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
[12] Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
[13] Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
[14] I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
When he says, “But this one thing I do,” he’s saying, “There’s nothing else in life that gets in the way of this and that’s to press toward the mark for the prize,” explains Jordan.
If you ever think you’ve gotten there, you’ll quit pressing. If you ever think you’ve arrived at all there is to arrive at . . . one of the things I've seen as I’ve lived through life is you come to these little “Aha” moments where you mature.
The thing you realize in that is, “Wow, I can’t believe I was so dumb back over there,” and then you think, “Wow, you know there’s more out there for me to attain to.”
I’ve come to realize that if I think I’ve gotten smart now, I thought that ten years ago and look how dumb I was ten years ago. If I think I’m smart now, ten years from now I’m going to look back and think this was dumb, so I better not get cocky and think I’ve gotten there, because as soon as you do that, you quit and you get prideful, you get arrogant, you get self-satisfied and you get self-justifying and then it all hits the wall.
The attitude that keeps the pursuit going is, “I’m not there yet, but I’m on the way.” Verse 15: [15] Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
You think, “Well, then Paul thought he was perfect,” but back in verse 12 he says, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.”
Well, how can I be perfect and not yet be perfect? That’s the old “now not yet” thing. That’s the position in Christ and my practice in life. That’s my standing in Christ and my state in life. That’s my identity and my walk; my experience.
The word perfect; let’s be sure we understand that word. II Timothy 3: [16] All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
[17] That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
It doesn’t mean sinless perfection in your practice. You have that in Christ. This is talking about your walk. It doesn’t mean you’re never going to make a mistake. If you never made a mistake in your walk, you’d never have anything else left to learn.
So, perfection, in the context of the walk of a Believer, is the idea of being throughly equipped—completely equipped. You’re completely furnished; everything you need you have in Christ Jesus; you have it in the Scripture.