People were very vocal and boisterous this morning on the bus. It is New Year’s Eve and the Christmas-New Year’s Eve holidays seem to bring the best out in some people. They seem to be free to say out loud what they feel. It took me a second to feel that same freedom. I am a reserved, shy and quite person. I never want to draw attention to myself. Now that is when I think that I am in control of what happens around me. God’s sense of humor is to place me in various situations where I am forced to stop hiding or playing the control game.
It amazes me that a classical Pentecostal that I am would be so resistant to going with the flow. I pray every morning for God to order my steps. I must have a memory lapse of that prayer or it has become a routine and not my honest desire. But it is my desire. Either I trust Him with my whole life or not; whether on the bus, in the streets, or teaching a class.
The challenge is, being open to fact that God is in the everyday stuff of life. He is concerned and involved in the between points, from point A-Z. I have said many times that God waste nothing. If I look real hard he is in everything concerning the life of a believer. We must go back to the bus.
People were getting on the bus talking loud and saying, “Happy New Year”; “Have a prosperous New Year”; and “God bless everybody.” One lady, the loudest one on the bus, told us to not take old things into the next year. In just a few minutes it was as if we were all friends greeting each other. Everyone seemed genuinely supportive of each other. It also seemed to be the general consensus that we need to leave this year and look forward to a new year.
In the book “God Hunt” the author instructs the reader on a journey in how to see God in one’s everydayness. When I think that I am in control of what experiences to have during the day or who I will encounter daily I have stepped out of following the Spirit into the way of my flesh. What is flesh? The flesh is my will, way, thinking, and controlling attitude. Ouch!
God uses the mundane, the funny, the tragic, and the unfiltered experiences in my life. He patiently strips the layers that are me with mercy, and he care-fronts me about my defects and sin. The more that the layers are removed the more I see him. I see the loving Father, the creative Creator, and sovereign Friend.
Little by little the resistance to live in the Spirit-led moment with the Father is leaving. I am open to the great exchange of Christ’s ways and thinking for mines.
I understand the passage in 2 Corinthians 3:18 (The Message) just a little bit more than I did yesterday. “Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.”
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