- Not The Only One!
- Post # 155
- 3 Oct. 24
- “New Birth”
- Howdy,
- Thanks for dropping in and hopefully following along. I have to tell you that the first thing that pops into my head when I see the word New Birth is an old R& B band from the seventies . I don’t know if they were a one hit wonder or not, but I can honestly only remember one song of theirs and it was called “wild Flower”. It was a beautiful ballad that was flowing with hope and inspiration in the midst of challenges. I know that renewal is usually closer related to the spring of the year. The God factor calls us to a fresh renewal each and everyday in conjunction with His mercies being new each morning. So , let’s just think outside of the box, just a little and for right now.
- This medium along with some other interpersonal activities has allowed me to connect and have contact with people that , I probably wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise. Some have allowed me to tell and share their stories and sometimes disguised anonymously☺️ , but we all carry the common bond of being broken. Our hurts and wounds vary; but none of us get a pass, nor are we first in whatever it is, and one thing for sure , we won’t be the last. ☺️☺️ I haven’t encountered any one single individual who is just knocking it out of the park. However, I have met many who are good at faking it☺️ . It almost wants you to be that proverbial fly on the wall to see just what they are hiding ☺️☺️ We all have places that we excel, be it on the golf course , academically or in our vocations. However we all posses that one area in our lives that brings us pause, and maybe a little guilt , shame or embarrassment. It just seems that we weren’t designed to make it through life firing on all cylinders ☺️☺️. It can be a health issue, a challenging marriage, or just an unending financial struggle that seems to go from bad to worse. I can’t even begin to imagine a door way that would be wide enough to allow our heads to pass through if we were actually all that and a bag of chips ☺️☺️
- This juncture often has me thinking about the apostle Paul. He spoke of a thorn in the flesh . He was an incredible person of immense learning and deeply held convictions. He was a person that was set on a track to be what we would refer to as the “one percent ” . He was a person who would have checked all of the boxes in life as to what the world points towards as being a huge success. In today’s terms he would have been an elitist ☺️ . He was highly educated, knew all of the right people and he was from what he thought was the right side of the tracks☺️☺️. He may have been a little smug, and very similar to a boot camp experience, God just stripped all of that away. It’s the taking away of pride and so many things that we use to see ourselves as better than others. It’s not that those things are inherently bad in themselves, but they don’t usually have us leaning or seeing things with an eternal view point. So I guess that makes us short sighted or having some kind of tunnel vision☺️☺️. If you have ever met super confident people then you may have noticed how resilient they can be. Almost like they weeble and wobble, but they don’t say down ☺️☺️. It’s a little bit like having a strong willed child. So in spite of God just stripping it all away , Paul needed an additional reminder of where he had come from and where God was leading him to become.
- My understanding is that God gave him a thorn in flesh and we don’t know exactly what that was, but it was something to keep him humble and from becoming prideful ,but more so than anything it was a reminder to stay connected and dependent on God. I don’t believe that God so much gives us thorns in our flesh as much as life just happens. I just said that none of us run at a hundred percent of proficiency, and I believe that certain things in our lives serves as the very same compacity as a thorn in the flesh . These things can be our kids☺️, financial in nature, or something with career or health issue. Just about all of us have some splintered relationship that we would just rather not deal with.☺️ While these things may vary and fluctuate from person to person, I believe that the one single underlying truth is that it’s something that should draw us in and lean in on God with. Certain things in life should just keep us connected and dependent on God with, such as you should never stop praying for your kids regardless of how old they may be or how successful or not. This world is after our children and it wants them in the worse way possible. Much of it is in misinformation and the propagation of lies and untrue things to confuse or dilute their identity and the call upon their lives.
- Yet this is about new birth and it comes in a few different forms and it’s really not about us trying to reinvent ourselves as much as it is about embracing the journey and learning along the way. There is something to be said for maturity and I think that it’s another one of those things that we take for granted and not appreciate. First up, everyone doesn’t get there and there is a difference between maturing and just getting older and they aren’t a synonymous thing. ☺️ My in-laws were already divorced when I met my wife. My mother in law had a great deal of energy about how her ex seemingly to blossom after they were divorced. He did things with other people that she had wished he had did with her. He had grown and seen things in a different light and she resented him for it. Probably a lot of other dynamics at play that I’m unaware of, but in a way , it was a little bit of a new Birth for him.
- There is and should be more to our stories than we got hurt and our big take away is just to never do it again. I think to me it’s like waving the white flag of saying that whatever it is was , has won. So! You didn’t get the promotion at work and you didn’t hide your disappointment well ☺️☺️. You had a crummy marriage because you chose to overlook all of those red flags, that were just popping up all over the place. You got on the bathroom scale and it laughed at you as it was going in the wrong direction ☺️☺️. I want to say, just never give up, because there is something positive around the corner for you, which is going to represent a new Birth.
- There is also something about the gift or ability to slow down. When we slow, we see things that we were once to busy or moving along to fast to recognize them for what they were or to see them in the proper light or perspective . It’s probably a two prong vision as we physically slow down, but there is an unwavering reflection of stopping to take note of how you have done thus far. I wouldn’t really refer to it as a half time because it usually occurs somewhere late to the middle of the third quarter 😅 ☺️. I believe that it’s just more than the things that I enjoyed and the things that I would never do again ☺️. It’s a seasoning thing and even the really tough things, you have gain insight on how you would have handled them differently. It’s more wisdom over confusion and perhaps just a smidgen more of empathy that allows us to step outside of ourselves and into someone’s else’s shoes. It’s more than that it’s the ability to be able to zoom out and get a better glance at the big picture. It’s the ability to be able to enjoy the smaller and simpler things in life. We are definitely about self preservation, but there is an enhanced awareness that everything is not about us, ourselves. Maybe it looks like less ambition and the constant striving , to being able to stand firm in the storms of life, bending, but not being uprooted, tossed and blown in a hundred different directions. It’s the acknowledgement that kind of strength only comes from God. There is always something to be said for not being able to take ourselves so seriously ☺️☺️.
- Sometimes someone will put forth a thought, an idea or something that’s sounds revolutionary, or a little radical. I know that it’s a speech writer, but there was something that struck me that way when George W. spoke about a kinder, gentler, and more compassionate conservatism. We are so far past that twenty years ago speech that now it just sounds like pie in the sky☺️☺️. However, how could that simple concept just revolutionize our personal, one on one every day relationships. When you interview couples who have made it thirty-five years plus or beyond they seem to single out the same four letter word over and over again towards their success and longevity and that word is ” kind” or kindness. It may sound just straight up shallow, because of course we know that we are supposed to be kind and especially to the ones that we say that we love , and it’s just amazing as to how often that is just not the case. ☺️
- There is something known as the ” perfect storm”, and more times than not it refers to something negative coming together for some catastrophic to take place. Here the thing, it doesn’t have to be. What if we mix slowing down, with realizing that everything is not about us, and not just sprinkled with kindness, but completely smothered in kindness….what would that look like? Nothing major or super hard to accomplish, but just taking the time to be more aware. I think one of the funnier things in life is selective hearing. Men get a bad rep for it, not that we aren’t guilty of it, but I believe that it may be a little bit more of a two way street than we give credence to ☺️☺️. The ability to listen and hear what’s being said, is just huge, and it’s just possible that it can be one of the best and biggest gift that You can give someone. Information exchange is just a furious process in this day and age and all to often we fill in the blanks because we assume that we know what someone is attempting to communicate. Do I dare say it’s just magical to be heard, truly heard and then understood. Not what you thought that they were saying, but the actual idea behind their words , regardless of whatever they may have been. It’s the act of being present in the conversation. The specialness of it actually comes into play when you can recall the conversation later, it really let’s them know that You were listening and that it was important to you because it was important to them.
- Still, where is this all going? It’s so often about the simple things that we over look or neglect. The run on about being heard can actually be a spark to renewal and revolutionize an ailing relationship. It could be the catalyst for revival and renewal for something that by all accounts is on life support ☺️☺️ . I can’t begin to express how far kindness will take us when it’s genuine and sincere, not just checking a box. How many times in the course of a day are we exchanging words with another person, maybe a child, without any eye contact or acknowledgement that we aren’t just interacting with some form of AI?☺️🥲. I recently heard a man expound on so many things in life that are just wrong and messed up , and how we spend an excess at dealing with surface , superficial symptoms and not the root cause. New Birth is about taking something that is desperately in need of a repair and making it new , a new Birth. We like to freshen things up, whatever it may be, a personal space maybe at work or home. We try to freshen up our relationships, or spice up☺️☺️, and of course ourselves with new fashions, hair cuts and colors and some gravitate towards the cosmetic stuff as well, but regardless of how hard we try at some point those things are going to need a do over again.
- How do we revive or freshen up something that’s in disrepair or really horrible shape? Well, we live in a consumer driven society, so the obvious answer is to throw it out and replace it with the newest and latest model. Here is a really sad thought, but do we have that same mindset when it comes to people? I just go out and get new and better friends , a new husband, new wife, new and different whoever. The pastor at church said something that I didn’t like…he’s got to go☺️☺️. Sad, but often a reality of just how broken we are and have become 💔. I ask the question of how do we? , and again sadly I believe the answer to that question , is that we can’t ! . We can’t fix what is broken. It is that story of one blind person leading another blind person, that’s not going to end well ☺️☺️ .
- Well…is this our cliff hanger in the story and the answer is absolutely.? Who , how or what can save the day? Is there a resolution , redemption or just the endless amount of trying to* defibrillate when there is no juice going to the paddles.?☺️☺️. I want to say that this is all leading up to and obviously pointing towards God. God is the who, the cross is the how , and the what is the salvation that He purchased for us and offers as a free gift. I used the word obvious, but that’s far to often just not the case. There are just countless people both inside and outside of the church that just miss this very basic truth. I know people who I desperately love and their pride will not allow them to receive God’s free gift. They are busy with the good deeds road, which is actually a dead end road. God both gives and offers a new Birth and it comes in the form of a heart transplant . Heart surgery is always a radical response to something that is even so much more dire and radical and that’s to save a life.
- A body without breath in it is dead, and that is God’s vantage point with us. God see us as the walking dead ☺️☺️ . We may not look like the TV show but the reality is the same. We are born as spiritually dead people and God doesn’t want us to stay in the coma induced state, so He offers us a new heart which puts breath into an old body which produces a New Birth . My understanding is that this is what constitutes a second birth or to be born again. I don’t want you to get hung up on the semantics of it all, but another movie illustration right here at the end, ” The Matrix “. It’s a visual that paints a picture just like the walking dead analogy, and don’t miss what is being presented here. We have a sin problem and we have absolutely zero chance of addressing that for ourselves. God did it, and His explanation point was ” IT IS FINISHED “. No need to strive when it has been accomplished on your behalf. Your New Birth awaits you.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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