Unbalanced

You know those exercise contraptions that look like a half ball that a person stands on to improve their core strength and balance?

Yeah.  Like that.

You can't relax when you're standing on something like that.  You are constantly wiggling, wobbling, bobbing, falling.   You are unbalanced, off-kilter, out of control.  Perhaps with practice you finally feel you have it all together.  But really, a slight breeze or friendly nudge from a friend and Whoops! there you go.

The only way to really be sturdy is to grab on . . . to something or someone.  Or step off.

Sounds like life, eh?

Life is a wiggly, wobbly, bobbing sort-of adventure.  We are forever unbalanced, off-kilter and out of control.

And if we're not . . . if we think we've got it all together and under control . . . we only need a slight breeze or nudge from a friend (or snide remark or fried engine or overwhelming loads of work or death, disaster or disease) and suddenly all we want to do is step off.

However, "stepping off" of life is not a livable option.

So . . . we grab on.

Unfortunately, most things to grab on to are standing on their own half-balls of unbalance.  That doesn't work so well.

There is One, though, who IS balance.  But we don't grab onto God's hand to be balanced.  We grab on in dependance.  Our self-sufficiency is replaced by complete dependence on the All-Sufficient One.

Life just doesn't work unless we're reaching out our hands . . .

for Jesus . . .

for Life.

The Gift

It's December so you know what that means . . .

my four-and-a-half year old is ready for his gifts.

"Oh!  I love Christmas!"  "Why?"  "Because you get PRESENTS!!"

Great.

In this month's Lutheran Women Today magazine (Dec. 2010), the Bible study is about gifts of the Spirit.

"Gifts of the Spirit" as opposed to "spiritual gifts".

The gifts of the spirit are "any ability one has to help build up the body of Christ." --Seyenkulo & Seyenkulo, pg. 31

So if your generosity helps build up the body of Christ -- that's a gift of the spirit.  If your laughter helps build up the body of Christ -- that's a gift of the spirit.  If your gentleness or writing ability or witty banter or plumbing skills or sense of humor or encouragement or accounting abilities or sweetness or baking or mad guitar skills help build up the body of Christ . . . . you know it:  gifts of the spirit.

Our call is to listen, follow and obey God.  Our call isn't to do good or try to fix the world -- it's to wholeheartedly obey God -- even in the little things.  Maybe especially in the little things.  (Because it's the little things that make up a big life.)  Instead of figuring out "how can I serve?"  Maybe we should be crying out, "Lead the way God!  I'm yours!"

It seems to me that the gifts of the spirit are the manifestations of obeying and following God.

We wake up in the morning with a fresh, new day stretched before us.  We look up, smile and ask, "What do you want me to do today, God?"  We hear one of numerous possibilities.  (take a shower, pay the bills, snuggle your children, shovel the driveway, shovel Mabel's driveway, do a dance, walk to work, take a friend out to coffee, make that phone call, write that letter, play with your children . . . la la la).  So we do.  And our action uses gifts we have -- talents, skills, abilities, knowledge, time, energy, wisdom.  These gifts build up the body of Christ.  It might be our own children or family . . . or it may be a stranger across the world.

Listen to God.  Obey God.  Follow God.

The actions that follow are gifts . . .

Gifts that we open             but are not for us.

Gifts for the common good . . . for all of God's children.

Gifts of the spirit are not something we strive to use, but that we automatically use when we obey and follow God.

Gifts.  From God.  For God's people.

Now.  On to my four-and-a-half year old's list . . .