First Thoughts Daily Readings Feb 7, 2008

Morning: Psalm 147:12-20
Habakkuk 3:1-10 (11-15) 16-18
Philippians 3:12-21
John 17:1-8
Evening: Psalm 102:1-28

The Christian faith for sure is a journey. It's one I have not taken alone, but one God alone has set me on. I look back over my faith walk, and though it seems sometimes I'm stuck on some median strip or at some crossroad for ever, when I pay attention I see I have moved closer to God in this journey, and I've moved farther away from what satisfies just my human sensibilities. I am not in the same place I started. That's obvious when I see the many places I've lived, and the people I've met along the way. Indeed, I have moved on, more than once, leaving behind friends, jobs, homes, family, churches. But I'm also in a whole other place spiritually than when I began. Moving on spiritually for me has always involved letting go of something - or someone - dear to me.

But in each move was the perfecting of God's plan for me, incomplete at each juncture, yet taking greater shape in the letting go. Looking back to the unsettling, to the goodbyes and new adventures, and even in the moments I seemed stuck, God was fashioning in me the prize of my heavenly call. I see now that is what a living faith is about - movement, drama, and upheaval, and heavenly prizes. That's how Habakkuk saw God's movement in creation and in life's battles - cosmic, divine, dramatic, anything but benign or stagnant. Faith moves mountains and faith moves the faithful. When we come to Christ, He offers a wild journey that moves us out and up, and away from what hinders the Kingdom, and moves us toward God and God's calling. We can stay the course with Jesus, or we can stay on the median strip forever, wondering what this prize is we're afraid to seek, and thwarting the work of the Spirit in us wherever he is sending us.

every day I have to decide to hold on to Jesus, and step off the curb. And I'm sure it will continue to be a disturbing ride, dodging traffic to press on, even if it is exciting. Paul reminds me of this: ¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. ¹⁶Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

The journey is not on the median strip. Let's hold on to Jesus, let go, and step out in prayer and faith on the road God has laid out for each of us. Our heavenly prize is Jesus, who binds us together on the journey, now and in eternity.