Good

I was reading 1 Timothy this morning and came to this in verse 4, "For everything created by God is good..."

How much do we really believe this.  Everyday we make judgement about people, and we decide whether they are good or bad.  In Genesis 1:31 it says, "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good."

Have you ever thought about this?  We walk through life viewing people but never really seeing them as God saw them the day He created them.  When we look around at people we make judgments based on clothing, hair, tattoos and piercings.  We determine the value of people based on their social standing; job, education, marriage, money, car, house, boat, etc.  But God sees what he created and He calls them good.  No matter what value others have placed on them.

We as the body of Christ have lost our perspective.  One translation of the word view means to form an opinion.  We view from afar.  We view to form an opinion.  A translation of the word see means to comprehend, realize and perceive with our eyes.

How many people do we walk by every single day, hour and minute and only view them but never really see them?  Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 13:13, "For they look, but do not really see..."  We need to have the eyes of Jesus.  To truly see the value, the good that God has created in people around us.  But to do this it takes time, it takes energy, it takes caring for others.

Who have you missed truly seeing today?  Look beyond the surface and dig deeper to mine the good God has placed in others.

Transition

There is an old saying that says that there are only two definite things in life; death and taxes.  I would like to add one more. Transition.  From the day we are born into this world our lives are moment by moment transitions.  We go from cooing to laughing to speaking our first word to an average vocabulary of around 20,000 words.  We crawl , then walk, and then run.  For boys we get excited about finally being able to shave but then transitioning to shaving every day. These are simply natural transitions that are a part of our lives.

There are a few that we have a hard time dealing with: divorce of parents or our own marriage failure; the death of parents or a spouse; loss of job, home, health, or finances. I talked with a woman the other day that had just lost her husband after 61 years of marriage.  These are painful and very hard to cope with.  I’m sure one comes to mind as you have read these words. They require times of grieving.

There is one other type of transition that I want to address.  It is the area of transitions that are good but sometimes we fail to grieve correctly.  Every good change in life has both a gain and a loss to it.  For example the day that you teenager becomes a high school graduate.  We celebrate the accomplishment but also must know that the days of childhood and dependence on parents are ending and the graduate is transitioning from being a teenager to a man or woman. A grieving needs to take place.  When a single person marries there is a very real loss of the independent single person who becomes one with the spouse and he/she is no longer alone.  The loss of the single life needs to be grieved in order to move on into a healthy relationship in the marriage.

JoLynn and I are in a transition right now.  We are moving on to pastor a great church in Galena Kansas.  We are excited about the opportunity that God is giving us.  But we are also aware that we are saying goodbye to good friends and loved ones in Ulysses.  In order for us to move forward in a healthy way we must grieve the loss that is taking place here in Ulysses knowing that it is right for us to allow ourselves to grieve.

We can all think of people who are still living in that moment of transition.  When we refuse to grieve and ignore the pain and the reality of the change taking place, we rob ourselves of the life God has awaiting us.

What transition do you need to grieve today?