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A Small Season

So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ. Colossians 3:1-4 (from The Message)

I am challenged to live the Christian life by some wonderful writers with their own blogs. The idea of blogging has caught my attention as a way of sharing my thoughts with someone old enough to put their dishes in the sink and wipe the crumbs from their face without being reminded. Perhaps I too can step into cyberspace where people wonder, challenge, ponder and sharpen their thoughts with the backspace button, the keyboard and the spacebar. Jesus used small things to teach great truths. True yesterday and still true today. If I look, I can learn extraordinary things through ordinary events.

A few years ago The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkerson took the Christian community by storm. Jabez cries out to the Lord in 1 Chronicles 4:10 “…bless me and enlarge my territory...” I was not among those who prayed that prayer. God has indeed blessed me during my walk with him as a Christian but as for “enlarging my territory” …He seems more to be squeezing me these days, fencing me in…confining...removing. I think He calls it refining.

In the past year God has taken away my church family, my ministry, my friends, my town, my wordly significance. I have lost precious time with my beloved husband who is working longer hours and traveling more. A job change has moved us away from people we know and love…away from people who know and love us.

My life and influence are small. The week consists of Bible at mealtimes with the kids, a trip to the grocery store, story hour at the library, math lessons, language arts, a good read-aloud and church on Wednesdays and Sundays. A high excitement week includes treasure hunting at the thrift store. Celebrate with me! Last week we came home with a stuffed parrot and a large purple hat! (Sometimes the smallness closes in on me.)

These days when I open my Bible the small people catch my attention. Those who folded in on themselves like Tamar. Those who looked to God and were delivered like Rahab and the Woman at the Well. Even the big guys…Paul, Joseph, Moses, David... all had small seasons. Through their example, I know God does not mean for me to grow smaller in my small circumstances. He means for me to seek Him, to serve, to grow, to persevere. I may have less these days but it is for the purpose of maturity and in the end I will lack nothing.

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