MY RETURN TO THAT POINT IN TIME

I have gone through many phases in my life; I have tried on many personas. I went through many life styles, many ideas, many ways of being, and many dreams.  What I have found to be true is that I always come back around to that one point in time when the real me came face to face with the real Jesus; that one point in time when I had nothing and he gave me everything.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”  He gave me nothing but himself and in that I had everything I needed.  That is the point in time I always find myself returning to and I always breathe a sign of relief when I return.

Life gets full of shouldas and couldas, dos and don’ts, and chasing after the wind.  That life is the way of the world, but it finds itself alive and well in the lives of many Christians as well.  Striving to succeed, adhering to an agenda, and trying to be all you can be by doing all you can do, and running out of steam.  It turns out that the shoulda, coulda, dos and don’ts come from a multitude of voices outside of me.  Those voices latch on to some inner tendency and ability or some need to achieve within me, and I find myself at the starting gate ready to ride.  I do what I can do, accomplish what I set out to accomplish, and in the end feel that “Is that all there is” feeling and find myself in an empty fog…again.  And that is when I come around again, full circle, back to the beginning.

This past return was the result of a project I got interested in.  I did a lot of studying, learning, and listening about these possibly being the last days that had been prophesied by the prophets and taught by Jesus.  These teachings and prophesies appear to be manifesting themselves in today’s news events and it makes for a great study.  The key point for me is not so much the hows and whys; it’s the final point and deciding factor in it all.  I have come to believe that the line drawn in the sand will be knowing and acknowledging who Jesus Christ was and is.  I believe he is the Son of God, God come to earth in the flesh, just as the Scriptures say he was?  The answer will cost me everything on earth but it will give me everything in God’s kingdom.   It’s like going into a final exam with the answers in my hand.

Now my focus returns to that one point in time when the real me came face to face with the real Jesus Christ and responded to that experience with a simple yet strong desire to get to know him, love him, enjoy him, and follow him.  That simple yet strong desire to, “reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ in whom are hidden all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col.2:2,3).

It is the first admonition Jesus gives as he is preparing his people for the final days.  “Remember the love you had at first and do the works you did at first”.  “This is the work of God, that you believe in whom he has sent”

(John 6:29).

That point in time I keep coming back to is where I did that work.  It is home to me and I want to remain there through all that is to come.  I can think of no other place I want to be.