Still Here!

Hi Folks,

Thought I would put up SOMETHING at least to show I haven't completely wandered away.  I've had a bit of a rough time this winter (duh!).  I have been working most of the time, but when I get home I'm pretty much done, done, done.  After a chain of three docs and two outpatient hospital visits, we seem to a have a pretty good lock on the likely cause.

I have a bit of surgery in my future, likely next month, and hopefully will be on the upswing after that.  De and planned a cruise vacation almost a year ago and, with the help of some "temporary fix" meds and a few activity changes, we will be able to enjoy our vacation before my surgery.  In the mean time, I hope I can start sharing a bit of the spring homestead plans as time and energy allow.  I also hope to start making some blog visits and see how you all are getting along.

Col. 1:9-12,

Mark

In the Gap!

I'm a little late with this one, but I still think its a good thought so here it comes, late and all...

Here we are in the gap between two celebrations:  Our celebration of Christ’s Birth and start of a new ‘Calendar Year’.  Most of us are hoping to finally close the gap between the start and end of the ham or turkey, and hoping the gap between the start and the end of the pie will hold out a just a couple more days.  Most of us are in the gap between finishing the business of 2015 and starting the business of 2016.  Often times we have a gap in our daily routines that is replaced by different routine:  Meet the family here, get this clean before the folks come tomorrow, drop of the kids for a party there, go, run, smile.  But the gap doesn’t last forever.  In a few days the gap will close and will be behind us.  We all get to start a New Year.

But also during the gap we also usually get a few rare moments to reflection and think back over the year, and often we don’t like everything we see.  There are always good things and memories we’ll treasure forever, but often time we see other gaps. 

• We see the gap in the time we should have spent with our family instead of at work.
• We see the gap in our patience we’ve shown with our children or parents.
• We see the gap in our character where we chose not to do what we know was right or judged someone wrongly.
• We see the gap in the time we know we need to be spending in prayer.
• We the gap between the times we could have shown God’s love and when we just walked away.

We see the gap between who we have chosen to be and who God intended us to be, and this gap won’t go away in few days on its own.  Oh, I can work on my patience and reallocate my time but nothing I can do will ever close the gap between who I am and who God intended for me to be.  That gap is there because of sin.  It’s ugly, it’s shameful, it’s in my life and it’s in yours.  That sin also creates a gap between God and ourselves.   Because of that sin, we live in the gap.

Paul expressed it well in the 7^th chapter of Romans:

¹⁸For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  …

²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (NIV)

During this season we should take the time to celebrate the answer to Paul’s and our question.

1 Pet 3: ¹⁸For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, (NIV)

Romans 5:⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.(NIV)

God loves us so much that he sent His Son to die to close the gap created by sin.  The same love that led to the Baby in the Manger we celebrate at Christmas, drove the Man to the cross to purchase the new beginning we all crave all New Years. Christ love has filled in the gap.

Happy New Year to All!

Col. 1:9-12

Mark