I got up early this morning, around 3:00 a.m.; I am preparing my material for a lesson that I will be presenting soon and wanted to get some thoughts on paper. I opened my shutters and looked out my front window and saw my peaceful neighborhood, with scattered streetlights and calm homes resting with no care. I start to wonder how we can ever properly perceive the battle that we are engulfed in, when everything around us takes us out of the foxholes and away from any battleground, providing only peace and prosperity. How is it that we remain the militant kingdom in a battle for our lives?

I often talk in my classes about the “chance of birth”. We do not choose the earthly circumstances of our own births any more than we choose the circumstances of our own deaths. We spend much time during the days of our lives talking about the external things of our lives; we speak of choosing our own destinies, controlling our own directions, choosing our own paths. But, in reality, the most fundamental experiences that impact our lives are not chosen or directed by us, nor do they define who we really are. We are born on the day and in the geographical location that chance has provided us. Our spirits and hearts are housed in earthen vessels (I Cor 4:7) that have an outward appearance that we may like or not like, that have elements of beauty, characteristics, and attributes distinctive to us but not changed by our own wishes or desires, as Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:27, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” Our experiences and circumstances of life are mostly determined by opportunities afforded to us due to these fundamental beginnings. We speak languages, pursue courses of education, work in places, and even marry people that are part of our earthly experiences and situations.

“Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” (Matt 18:21).

Peter’s question makes so much sense to me. Wouldn’t life be easier if we could keep track of the offenses of others until, eventually, we could just write the person off altogether?

The other day at work, I was listening to a “fireside chat” between one of the executives where I work and an author. The author was sharing some interesting statistics that his think tank had pulled on the surprising similarities of priorities between political parties in the United States, even though most of us would feel as though the divide has never been greater. He ended up sharing that this is because humans apparently are notoriously bad at determining what the majority of people believe, and this is typically due to the inputs that are in our lives. We base many of our views around what others believe on the loudest and most frequent inputs in our lives. His application was to question the audience on what the loudest and most frequent inputs in their lives are – social media? the news? etc.? He then questioned if any of those inputs may have ulterior motives.

I’ve said for many years that although, of course, I know Jesus saves my soul, in many ways becoming a mother saved me, too.

Do you ever wonder about the encounter of Jesus and the woman at the beginning of John 8?  Though Jesus had been teaching now for some two and a half years, my guess is she had not been around Jesus much, if at all, before this morning.  One would suppose that she has been dealing with life, life burdened with the tangle of webs woven with sin.  It is evident that she, over the course of her years, has become entwined with the complexities of earth.  

As a Christian, my effectiveness is directly tied to my involvement in achieving God’s desired effect. The Bible is full of illustrations revealing the small role an individual’s life can play in God’s plan; we are all different parts of one body with Christ as our head (1 Cor. 12:12-31, Eph. 4:11-16), and we are stones in God’s temple with Christ as our cornerstone (1 Cor.3:10-16, 1 Pet. 2:4-5).