Now I See

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 65-67.

Opening Thought: There is the expression, hindsight is 20/20 – meaning, looking back I can see clearly. I think much in life is realized by this principle. I can’t remember what language it is, but one of the Biblical language has a word for moving forward or walking, but when you break the word down in its etymology (study of the history of words) they discover the words imply a looking backwards, as to look back to help you move forward. Or better learn from your past. Nick speaks of almost of the ‘wow’ moment, once he moved from negativity to possibility. I think people can train themselves towards this by always asking, “how can I be a better ME tomorrow?” Doesn’t me you will ever be perfect, but you are moving toward a more perfect you!    

The devotional begins with: 
John 9:1-3

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”

Second Thought: As I mentioned in my last post, I am being tested for ADD or ADHD. I had my entry level interview with the psychiatrist’s office that will oversee the testing. During the intake exam over the phone, the intake nurse was asking questions to my health and mental state. So I listed the following: “I have Ehler Danlos Syndrome, (coupled with chronic pain in an arthritic form in my wrist, hands, knees, hips and legs), some form of undiagnosed dyslexia or dysgraphia, a high sensitivity to almost every standard of food in western society, and of course the issues with attention and focus, which is why I am getting tested.”
The intake nurse then asked me what my level of education and employment status was, so I informed her of my three university degrees, and that I was working for a very dynamic church community. She paused from the exam for a moment to let me know how impressed she was that I accomplished so much considering how much I had weighing on me. I believe we have things set before us, even terrible painful things, to give a chance for God’s love and strength to be shown working through those facing challenges. Like a positive narrative running through a drama on television. It is there because a statement of God’s ever presence is more important to share than my desire to feel no pain.      

Continual Work: Sometime, we feel like we are falling behind, haven’t accomplished much or that the world is set against us. I remember feeling like that a lot after my first degree. I didn’t have my head on straight, as it were, so I tried to make a bucket list of all the things I would like to do. It only helped a bit, it made me more overwhelmed if anything. So, I changed my tactics, I wrote a Bucket Half Full List and wrote down anything and everything I felt was an accomplishment, triumph and challenge I pushed through. By looking back and seeing what I had been able to overcome, my bucket list didn’t seem so overwhelming.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: A way I can help myself today and ask myself the question, what will my hindsight in 5 years be when I look back at this time in my life. I cannot see the future, but I am often more forgiving to myself when I look back, sometimes I’m more critical because I can see all the pieces because I am not caught up in the emotion of the time. So, what will I think in five years?

Scripture time: John 9

After Jesus heals the man, the man then goes and tells people the good news. In the following verses the new begins to spread and the story is told and told again. When messages of hope go out into the world, they have a ripple effect, like a stone cast into a pond. The one thing I really like about the internet is how many stories of hope you can find. Stories of people like Nick Vujicic, stories of people saving animals, people moving from rags to people of affluence, there are a lot of stories of hope. The downside because hope stories are so regularly available, we begin to take them for granted – think they are a dime a dozen, slowly become just something to scroll by. As a result, the ultimate story of Hope – Jesus can be lost in the mix of things and people just scroll on by.     

Closing Words: As Christians I believe we need to give a dedicated amount of time to looking at our lives and considering how we can become our best selves by using what God has given us. To do this we need the right balance between looking forward and looking back, being liberal and being conservative, be outgoing and being timid, extrovert and introvert. Of course, we all have strengths to one side or the other, but we need to know the proper balance of these things because if we sit too much in one or the other, we a doomed to error.  

Artistic Close: Growth in Cycles not Lines, Rev. Jacob Shaw

A tree’s beginning is a seed,
Its purpose is seeds repeated,
We begin as children crying,
We bare crying children.

The child though, has a gift,
a gift of heart and mind;
to take its lessons from crying
and to not leave them behind.

Now we have a crying child comforted,
to grow and comfort more children,
because they once first cried out,
for the love of their parents.