Slow

This has been a slow blogging year. I find that to be frustrating for it's not a lack of thoughts or topics or things that I can share. Rather, it seems to be the distraction of other things in my life that keeps me from writing such things. Also, more often than not it's that my thoughts are so large that to try to sum them up in a reasonable blog entry is more than I can attempt! This is a busy season of life, one that's full of some of the most incredibly wonderful things I can even imagine and also one that's bringing its fair share of challenges and even sorrows. I suppose in many ways, it's just a snapshot of anyone's life at any given point!

For me though, it has manifested itself in an extended blog vacation. I'm not particularly fond of that but I'm also not particularly sure that it's going to end anytime soon. For the truth is that the real world is holding all of my attention right now and it's not leaving me a lot of time to share with those who know me online! For good or for bad, I just thought I'd share that it's not because I've lost my muse but rather that my life has grown and changed and I'm just not sure where exactly this blog will fit in.

In the long run, I guess that time will tell. Time always tells! ;)

Blessed

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and has made the Lord his hope and confidence.
~Jeremiah 17:7

The hour is late and my eyes are growing heavy as I sit under the solitary light in a cold office on the second floor of this Boston church I've grown to love over the last several years. I am here in this room because I'm supposed to be studying, preparing for an exam that I must take soon and for which I'm not currently prepared. Yet my thoughts are not on these expected actions. I don't care right now about what I'm supposed to be learning.

Instead, I'm drawn by the words on a simple plaque. They are written in gold, shimmering under this soft light: Jeremiah 17:7. I love these words because their truth is so simple and full of abundance. There's no promise of worldly gain or perfect lives or really any specific things save one: that we should be blessed.

Think of that! The blessing given by the hands of a mighty loving God. Is is not enough that we should be able to trust the Lord at all or that He should be worthy of our hope and confidence? These things alone should be abundantly satisfying for any of our moments. Yet God is not a detached character, leaving us to fend for ourselves and asking us just to trust Him with no action on His part.

No, He promises that we will be blessed. Not only is there such peace in actually trusting Him but we're also promised that there is blessing to be found in the doing of such things.

I know I'm tired. I know that it might be a miracle if I pass this test. Yet somehow all of these things and many more pale in comparison to the beauty and peace and joy that is my relationship with Jesus. For He is truly good and He has blessed me beyond comparison. His blessing fully outweighs any cost that I might pay in following or trusting or hoping in Him. What an amazing equation, based on the abundant love of a faithful God. I am overwhelmed.