40 Years of Becoming.

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Forty years ago
a dinner guest reached across my grandmother's dining room table
and asked me if I wanted to be born again.
I said "yes."

My grandmother was horrified.

If you read these Friday emails
you know that I have not had
the conventional
Christian experience.
I naïvely took the Bible as true,
and was hungry for the Holy Spirit.
These were the ingredients for
adventure,
triumphs,
tragedies,
challenges,
persecutions,
blessings,
and defeats.

A lot happens in forty years.

I have never been alone,
even in strange places with no friends.
I have left mother, father, houses and lands,
and I have seen God give me a new family.
Jesus has always been with me.
He is good.
He forgives.
He is more committed to me than I am.

I have not gotten it perfect,
or even right at times.
I have fallen back into sin
and addiction.
I have had to come back to Jesus in tears.
I am being healed,
transformed,
and changed into His Image.
I guess,
like the skin horse in the Velveteen Rabbit,
I am becoming real.

Becoming real only happens
when you embrace the truth of who you are,
and surrender to the Holy Spirit.
It is a never-ending process of becoming.
Jesus in me
is transforming me into his likeness.

And the things I am learning,
in the process of becoming,
work for others.
God wastes nothing.

Maybe forty years means
I am moving into the "promised land"
or something.
More likely,
it means tomorrow I wake up,
ask God what the agenda is
and again I take life on his terms.

All things are possible
if you keep believing
and keep going.

Thank you Jesus.

He Never Fails,
Christ

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