Celebrate Your You-niqueness

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 77-79.

Opening Thought: There is a tension with who we are as individuals and how we belong to our communities. We all have this tension. We struggle to know what makes us uniquely us, and we struggle to find a place to belong. Both goals we hope will gives us meaning, purpose, and stability in spirit and body. Today’s reading from Nick Vujicic was a humorous look at how we see this play out during the emotional extremes of adolescence. Nick points out that even the rebellious kids, who want to seem unique from the general crowd of society, will often congregate in little groups owning their own uniqueness and creating a in group of their own. The tension of individualism and community living out. This is perpetuated by our fears and doubts too, although it is good to have an individual identity, our fear and doubt will cast a shadow upon those who don't fit into our definitions. That's where the Gospel becomes so important.      

The devotional begins with: 
Proverbs 139:13-15

For You formed my inward parts:
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous and Your works,
and that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  

Second Thought: One of the fundamentals of the Judeo-Christian archetype that I thoroughly enjoy is the depictions of God’s invested interested in every person. There is certainly also a Godly investment into community, for sure. You don’t have the nation Israel and the conversation elements of Christianity without a major focus on community, but there is still a solid concern for the individual. I think in a healthy relationship with God, meaning a humbling experience before your creator, you can find a good balance between personal development and communal development. When that Gospel that tells you that God gave His Son for the world, but also specifically you, it can really put things into perspective.      

Continual Work: In the ministry of all believers we are all responsible to act in a particular way, love God and to love the neighbor as we would ourselves; as a result, we are commissioned to build-up both our own person and our community. If you feel you are too caught up in one portion or the other, i.e., your spend all your time helping the community, and you cannot handle ever being alone with your own thoughts because without community you have no interests, gifts, personal identity; then it is safe to say that you need to develop your individual identity. Or vice-versa. Find that balance and see how God can work through you.  

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I am always struggling with personal identity. It is just part of my identity in its own way. I spend a lot of time thinking, and often over thinking. I analyze everything I do, which I find great for my calling and work, but for my enjoyment of self, I find it challenging to be invested into anything that is not productive. I think that is why I enjoy religion so much, it is stimulating to my personal interest and all work and play with religion, (as long as it serves God’s will), is productive. However, study of religion and faith is great, but God also created me with more than just my mind and spirit – but hands for labor, a voice for conversation, a spirit for creativity and a whit (which sometimes works) for humor. I need to take breaks periodically from study and offer time to live out the gifts God and uniquely placed within me.  

Scripture time: Proverbs 139:1-6
You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
 You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

I believe that not only does God forms us in the womb, but God never leave us from that moment. I yoke this belief with me, (and I say yoke as it is a tremendous powerful gift in belief, but it comes with the burden of belief – a wonderful burden to say the least), and it keeps me on track. When you feel and recognize God as with you always, you move from moments from isolated prayer time, to an ongoing prayerful experience. It is like the classic WWJD bracelet being written upon your mind and heart, asking you to not only wonder what Jesus would do, but sit in prayerful conversation with Christ – each and every moment.       

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close: a little meme to encapsulate a good feeling