For Christmas yesterday, I felt inspired to don my poet's cap, dip my pen, and whirl some words on the page. Inspiration doesn't guarantee perfection (just ask Thomas Edison) so this morning I changed lines and rhymes because everything I write is a work in progress. I often re-read and edit entries on this blog long after publishing them. Editing may mean tweaking a word choice or correcting punctuation, but sometimes it means deleting whole paragraphs and starting again because what made sense when I wrote it reads like gibberish later.
"Classics" are works that stand the test of time and millions of readings. They're more often written in painstaking stages than in sudden, passionate outbursts. Each of us is a manuscripts under God's inspired Hand and He writes only classics. He fills us with His breath, His Spirit, His inspiration but our sin nature guarantees gibberish in need of heavy editing. He calls us, His living words, to step fearlessly into His embrace where He loves us unconditionally while His everlasting Arms shape us into masterpieces who'll stand the test of time.
Dear Father, we're blessed to have You care enough to edit our lives and make them more useful for Your purposes. Love through us and all our imperfection. Drive out fear of punishment and reprisals to free us to love as You've called us to love. We want to live in the embrace of Your Everlasting Arms. Delete from our lives what doesn't make sense. Capitalize what's important. Help us make You the theme of everything we do.
In the Name of Jesus, Inspiration of the Ages
"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:15-18
"The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemy before you, saying, "Destroy him!" Deuteronomy 33:27
"But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation." Psalm 13:5
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