04/12/11 The dogwoods are blooming

The dogwoods are blooming Lord

And seasons going by

Signs of time slipping through my fingers

Like a stream of water – unable to be held

Beautiful blossoms of white and coral

Blowing in the soft wind

My hair is not yet grey

Steps are lively yet

But there begins to be an ache

In joints that have long served me

Eyes once able to see true

Now blur without the aid of glass

And yet the dogwoods bloom

The heavens bring forth rain

Winter slips away at last

Uncovering a carpet of green

Dotted with every color of the rainbow

Flowering their praise to God

The dogwoods bloom

The year goes by

The census taken

I am still here

And I can’t help wonder

Why

I love the dogwoods

Magnolia, daffodil, and tulip

Come unbidden to my fields

Adorning that which You have dressed

More regally than any monarch

A temporary magnificent ball gown

The cobwebs and dead leaves of winter

Have blown and washed away

I sit on my porch to enjoy the clean air

And smell sweet green, yellow, red, and blue

Yes the pleasant odor of these colors

Blossoming all around me

So not for me, but I enjoy

This praise to You my God

Would that I too could rise again

From the winter of my life

And spring up in beauty again

To give You adoration long due.

The dogwoods are blooming Lord

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Alright this was one of the quotes you had mentioned today:

From Irenaeus “The glory of God is ‘man’ fully alive”

Have been reading “Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, actually just on chapter one and this is what is coming out of me...

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Just sharing my thoughts

None of which are that original.

Just stuff that comes out of communing.. ya know?

And by the way, the fight, you know the war we fight?  

Well that’s not a fight to get ‘stuff’

It’s a fight to get back to God where we belong

To be who He made us to be

And to live as Kings and Queens just the way He created us to live.

With love, honor, kindness, and authority.

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The dogwoods are blooming Lord.

Is this the life I was intended to live?

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The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full

                        - Jesus Of Nazareth (John 10:10)

We and the world, my children, will always be at war.

Retreat is impossible.

Arm yourselves.

- Leif Enger

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Time passes.

The war continues.

Like a waking dream we all function within the parameters of a life under siege.

Time has erased the focus of it.

The earth – ever fruitful in spite of the onslaught – continues to produce beauty for the praise of our Lord.

But we, we who are in the battle, we who are the object of the attack, 
we who bare the image of the Almighty, 
we fade.

Like sepia photographs, though lovely, true color is distorted.

Life has become a fog of daily routine and chores.

Or even worse, an ever deepening search for the elusive happiness which is held out in front of us like a carrot, never quite within reach.

And the band played on...  

Yes, it did. 

And the music was sung, dances danced, life was lived.

Well. 

Not real life. 

Not glorious contented awesome communing connected life. 

Not the life we were meant to live.

Why?

We are at war.

The dogwoods are a ruse.

Of course SOMETHING must rise up and give glory to God.

And since we have buried our collective heads in the sands of self delusion, they bloom.

We are at war.

We were born into a world at war.

The battle is still waging.

And the band plays on.

Insidious notions of peace and comfort have crept in.

Too lazy to make the effort to even see, much less fight.

Too self absorbed to care.

One, and only one person is what matters to us.

That wholly encompassing grandly publicized ever illusive but always celebrated “I”.

So many lies

So much subterfuge

So much garbage

Heaped into the minds of us all.

What wonder that we – other than a precious few – don’t realize that the war is still waging.

We’ve managed to believe this grand terrible illusion.

With the help of the enemy.

But it is of our own choosing that we believe the lie.

For we do not want to war.

God created us in His image.

He bestowed upon us His glory.

The enemy could not win the war against Him.

So he has gone after the image-bearers. 

Us.

And his greatest and most effective weapon against our Father, against us, has been this lie.

The lie that has become the fog that we live in.

The delusion that we are not at war.

He has convinced us to lay down our weapons and effectively surrender.

Yet.

There is a Hero.

There is One that brings hope.

Who sheds light.

Who gives us water to drink, not the foul dank sewage water that we’ve become accustomed to, 
but clear light thirst quenching life giving water.

Along with a map, compass, directions, and all the necessary provisions.

And who brings us our much needed weapon to use against our enemy.

John 1:4

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men

John 6:48

I am the bread of life

John 4:13b-14

"Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;

but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."

John 7:38

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Matthew 10:34

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

We have a sword.

But to use this weapon requires us to step away from the illusion. 

Step out of the fog. 

Be courageous and put on our full armor.

And we have to choose to fight.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,

for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Ephesians 6:13-15

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Begin with Truth

Add Righteousness, Peace, Faith, Salvation

And the Holy Spirit – the sword, the word of God.

(is it just me or is this scripture describing these three elements as ONE?)

 ~Sword,Spirit,Word~

The dogwoods are blooming Lord.

It is a bitter sweet reminder to me, of both the delusion that we believe things are ok, 
and the glory of praise given - in spite of the bitter battle being waged - to Almighty God. 

Praise to our precious loving Father who desires nothing more than to bring us back to Himself.