At particular times of the year, most, if not all businesses, close for a time to take inventory.

Other businesses close at times and bring in specialists to retool and repair equipment.

These businesses give up time in order to check what they have, what has been done, what needs to be updated, repaired or made new.

In these times the business is not doing what makes it money, it is not doing what it is purposed for, nor is it providing what the public needs or wants or expects from it.

Inventory.

Businesses can get over or under stocked, out of alignment to its main task and behind the curve of its progress without knowing where it stands and on what it stands.

This holds true for our lives as well…. in most every aspect.

Every element of our life requires taking inventory on some regular level. In some things it’s a daily task. In others it’s an annual check up.

But we must do this.

Has the last year been productive?

If so…..how?

What made it or led to that productivity?

It was it a failure?

Have you grown in any area?

Are you supplying yourself with the needed elements to achieve growth or productivity or success.

Did you learn anything…or make an attempt to learn anything ?

Are your relationships better?

Have you become a better …..

spouse or owner or employee or teacher.

Have you grown spiritually?

How, Why?

What were some contributing factors?

Did you seek growth and development daily?

Or at some point?

Or at all?

Did you just get by?

Socrates is credited with the statement….

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Inventory is examination.

Of a previous time. Of the stock of a business.

My encouragement would be to examine your life.

Take Inventory….of your progress, of the things you care about, spend time on and give yourself to.

Examine and take inventory of your relationships, of your marriage, of your parenting, of your effort and results at work.

Examine.

If we never do this, if we never “take stock” or engage in an inventory at some interval …we will not be able to judge ourselves, or reason out what changes or adaptations need to be applied.

Take inventory and think about what and who you are and where the “what” and “who” is leading you.

If you ever played sports you have most likely watched video or game films of your teams’ performance. Coaches show and rewind and review the action in order to reveal , to show and to coach away improper decisions and movements while complimenting and encouraging and thus promoting good play.

Review the video of your recent life.

Rewind a few plays, a few days, a few decisions.

Rewind and review why and how you did what you have done….to the positive or negative.

Your examined life can be a better one to live in.

It was the first tragedy in my young life.

The President was shot and killed in Dallas.

For the first time, I experienced death, albeit at a distance. It was a death and a funeral and a National suffering seen for the first time on television, some of it live television.

I never saw my Mother cry until that afternoon coming in from school. She sat in front of the television with my younger brother and cried.

Seeing her emotion, I knew, even more, the gravity of the event.

For three days the country was drawn to the events on television…the stumbling live broadcasts by the network news anchors, the stark image of the hearse at the Washington airport, the awkward words of mourning by the new President, the backward placed boots on the back of an unridden horse in the funeral procession, and then the live shooting of the presumed assassin in the garage of the Dallas police station.

It was the first time in my ten year old life that life seemed to stand still while we watched sadness and grief played out on the television.

It has occurred again since then…

…the assassinations in 1968

…the World Trade Center in 2001

I do not want to see another occurrence.

There was another death on 11/22/63.

It was not heralded.

It took place in England.

Clive Staples Lewis died in Oxford.

C. S. Lewis was the most influential Christian writer of the 20th century.

He did not have the adulates that President Kennedy did, but he was instrumental in the lives of many Christians and those who came to know Christ as Savior.

Lewis came to know Christ as Savior after a young life of atheism.

The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity are three books he is best known for.

He might not have been the first to say something similar…. but Lewis’

“liar, lunatic or Lord” trilemma is one of the best know Apologetic comments on the divinity of Christ.

Dallas saw an ugly dramatic event as a young President was murdered.

England saw an older Professor died of kidney failure.

I learned how to sing in
Ft. Worth, Texas from the Music Director at University Baptist Church.

Joe King was was strict, expected perfection and usually got it from all of the Choirs he directed.

He once walked out in disgust because we, the Junior High choir, were not getting it right.

He taught posture, projection, enunciation and the importance of using the diaphragm muscles correctly to project sound

He had some of us practice lying down and popping a ping pong ball off of our stomachs up into the air to understand how to use the diaphragm muscles properly.

Try it.

It works.

Sound needs to be projected to be heard.

We became a great choir.

I became a decent singer and part of that very good group.

My voice was fairly good.

I sang a few solos and duets.

My voice could waiver a bit and was not as firm on each individual pitch or note …..
as it was when my voice paired with another voice equal to or stronger than mine.

I sounded really good when I was part of a duet or trio.
When I harmonized with another …

I was a better singer.

Harmony improved me.

Harmony is unity, connection…relationship.

Harmony is the goal of our spiritual journey.

The One Who sets the melody and paid for the right to do so asks me to harmonize my voice with his and become more than I could be on my own.

He saw a very good and strong
“soloist” who would get off key and get the notes all wrong in Peter.

JESUS saw a zealous and energetic
“vocalist” who thought he had perfect pitch, but Saul was singing the exact opposite notes that Christ led him to carry after meeting him on the road to Damascus…. and changing his name, his mission and his voice.

Peter and Paul, after coming into contact with THE REAL DIRECTOR of the choir we are all singing in,
hit the correct notes,
carried the perfect pitch.

After harmonizing their voices and lives with JESUS …
they became fulfilled vocalists.

My voice,
my life….

are not what they could be attempting to solo the song intended for me.

It is only in HARMONY with the ONE
Who made me

and it is in the harmonizing of the
voice and life given to me with HIS…

that the already written music of my existence is properly sung.

HARMONY is our spiritual goal.

Harmony with The ONE WHO
not only sings with us….
but directs the eternal and
very large choir we are all singing in.

All of life is about HARMONY.

My early life was full and in perfect harmony with my parents, grandparents and my brothers.

The business I am in is better because I am in harmony with one partner who knows more than I do and another who is better at some things than am I.

My personal life is a blessing because since 1990 I have been walking in harmony with a woman God had in store for me.

Perfect harmony was intended, and present in The Garden.

It was interrupted.

HARMONY is what we were created for.

No solos.

In reading something this morning
I saw the words to a song I had heard many times growing up.

The words led me to remember where I heard them and whose voice I heard singing them.

My Father once said that the lyrics to a song would come to your mind much easier when they were paved by the road laid down by the music.

He was making the point that some lyrics to rock ‘n roll songs had a cause and effect to the listeners mind….and that the music opened our minds to the influence of the lyrics.

I grew to believe that myself.

It’s true for any type of music.

When you hear the music….
the words come easier to your memory.

Today…

the words opened the memory road to hearing my Mothers’ voice singing ….

“Take My Hand, Precious Lord”

When I was young and sat with my
parents in Church,
I would hear her voice,
which was good,
singing every song.

I heard the songs ….
in Miami at Flagami Baptist Church
in Atlanta at White Oak Hills
in Ft. Worth at James Avenue
and University Baptist
in Houston at Broadway Baptist
and in Huntsville at
Highlands Baptist.

These churches represent my upbringing
and the songs I heard being sung
and eventually learned myself…
can now be sung by me without a hymnal.

I do like the songs we sing today.

However…..

Theses were the Songs
of my spiritual upbringing.

TAKE MY HAND
BLESSED ASSURANCE
HOLY HOLY HOLY
TO GOD BE THE GLORY
GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS
and the
“almost every Sunday” invitational…
JUST AS I AM.

There are others.

My Mother’s voice
is the voice I hear…

along with hers and my Fathers’…
my own voice has lifted the lyrics to these and other songs since I was old enough at about 6 years of age to sit in Church with my parents.

“To yield in His Life an atonement for sin
and open the life gate that all may go in”

“All that I needed Thy Hand hath provided,
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Lord unto me.”

“This is my story
this is my song
Praising my Savior all the Day long”

“Just as I am
without one plea
But that Thy Blood was shed for me
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee
Oh Lamb of God. I come, I come.

That’s the Gospel ….
and the plea of Paul’s Letters
to everyone who has ever read them.

My Mother and Father sang these songs,
I heard them for 5-10 years as I sat with them…
sang them on my own for many years after…
and began to challenge myself to sing them in the Services…. without The Hymnal.

Singing these songs for years,
I should know them.

Not scripture…..
but they lift the same message as Scripture.

These songs are more than mere words and music..

they have helped form my life.

There is a message behind the lyrics.

The message lying within the lyrics
teaches various aspects of the Life a Believer aspires to live.

The lyrical messages conveyed to my mind and heart by that music allowed me to praise God
before I knew I was doing it
or understood it.

I now sing these
and other Songs
with full understanding
of what they allow me to do.

These allow me to do what the
150th Psalm calls for me to do.

I would do it …
without the Psalmists words.

Remembering these words and rehearsing them today…
led me to know that as

I saw my Parents…
and other Adults in my young world….

praising God…..

I was taught to Praise.

It was not a forced learning.

No one put a hymnal in my hand.

But the lyrics,

traveling on the back of the music

settled in my mind

led and directed my young life

and allowed me a method for honoring and acknowledging
The GOD and The Savior I came to know.

Holy Holy Holy
Lord GOD Almighty
All Thy Works shall praise Thy Name
in earth and sky and sea

Only Thou Art Holy
There is none beside Thee
Perfect in Power
in Love
and Purity.

Since I was twelve years old
I have spent significant time in gymnasiums and workout rooms.

Still do.

Bouncing and shooting a leather ball towards
and hopefully through a metal rim,
running sprints,
lifting weights,
stretching,
showering and changing clothes…
doing it again the next day.

I still do it.

I have learned a great many lessons doing this…
about the balance of life.

Working hard is essential.

Hard work is hard.

It should be.

It yields great results.

Sometimes.

At other times it leads to progress but can result in failures during the process.

But the process leads
to lessons learned
and victories earned.

I thought what I was doing early on was hard work….
but I had yet to learn
how to work hard.

I thought I worked hard.
Sometimes we suffer
for a lack of understanding.

I did.

I learned later on that I worked hard at somethings…
but did not know how to work hard enough at others.

You can be hard at work
but not be working hard.

In college I learned more about working hard than I had before.

As I grew older I actually learned how to really work hard at getting better.

I won Letters and a few awards
and had some success ….
but had I known about
and how to really work hard
at getting better
in my early teenage years,
I would have been more successful as an athlete.

I was not as singularly focused on getting better as I could have been.

I actually got better as I got older
and learned what it took
not just to play…
or to work hard…

but to GET BETTER.

This all came to my mind
last Sunday, the 26th,
as I learned that
the hardest worker
I had heard about in athletics
died on the side of a mountain in Southern California.

He died making an effort to instill that same ethic in his daughter.

When I consider what effort he put into to his athletic career…. I realized I had never put that type of effort into mine.
I knew this after reading and learning over the years about his commitment and unending hours of workouts aimed at becoming what he eventually became.

One of a very few
who could be called “the greatest”.

One of his stated goals….
from all his physical and mental lessons learned….
was to be known
as an “over-achiever”.

Most great ones do not aspire to that humble title.

But he wanted to exhaust himself and max out all of his effort.

He did not fail.

He had astronomical success.

He was so successful he became internationally recognizable merely by his first name.

He sacrificed many things in his unending quest to succeed.

I do not believe I sacrificed enough things to be as singularly focused as this young man
with whom I share a birthday.

I share a birthday but never shared that singular focus toward the exclusion of so many other things for the goal before me.

Spiritually, I have sacrificed
a good many things….
for the goal set before me.

But…..I failed to do the same
for the athletic goals
I thought were important.

I do not know if his early death is premature….in the eternal view … I don’t believe anything is.

But these past 10 days I have felt
a weight in my spirit
because of the ending of his life.

Maybe it was the tragic aspect of it.

And his young age.

And that his young daughter was with him.

I never met him.

I had no personal interaction with him.

However,
I watched and followed him
for 24 years.

I traveled to and paid
to watch him play.

There was great joy derived from watching his successes as his team has been my team since I was 12.

There was great joy derived from his successes because I had aspired to some of those things as well.

I had aspired….
but never did I ever perspire
enough to achieve anything, anywhere near what he did.

After a severe and admitted mistake in 2003…..
which he called “adultery”,
and no one calls it that unless they are approaching it from a biblical sense….

I saw him recover,
work with his wife to save his marriage,
have three more daughters…

have a better second half to his career than the first…

and after having an almost unequaled career over 20 years….

he again worked exceptionally hard and won an OSCAR
from telling a story about his love for his sport in an animated movie.

Four years ago he walked away from a lot of what he could have done for himself

to work hard at being husband and father.

It was the latter at which he was doing when he and his daughter and seven others died on that hill in Calabasas.

I pray his soul is now with The One
Who sacrificed more than anyone ever has….
and won a greater victory than any one ever has.

It was said by the Priest at his Church that he came to Mass early on the 26th….

I pray he had given his life to the One he would have prayed to that morning.

As we try to take from
and learn from those around us
and those we watch…

from Kobe I derived great joy…

and I saw what devoted, consistent.
and persistent hard work does.

And even for a man my age….
I can still take steps forward…

from a lesson learned.

In 2006 my brothers and I were in Orlando on our annual Spring Training trip.

Four days of spring baseball,
NCAA playoffs and PGA golf at
Bay Hill.

We were at Braves Field in their Spring Training facility on the Disney property.

The three of us we standing on the mezzanine watching the game and talking.

An usher with a Braves name tag on came up to us and started talking.

He then turned to me, glanced at my two brothers and asked me…..

“Okay, who did you play for?”

I said, “Sir?”

He repeated,
“Who did you play for?
“Who are you?”

I said, “ I am not really anybody”

He would not accept that and continued …
“ You’re wearing a Players ring… who did you play for?”

I told him did not play in the Majors.

He waved his hand, shook his head, laughed and walked away.

I don’t know who he thought I was.

In 2007, there was a fundraiser at the Convention Center downtown. It was sponsored by the Governor’s wife.
Several hundred people were in attendance.

As we sat at a table with several people, I saw a good friend across what was a very large exhibit hall.

I excused myself, went across the room, spoke to my friend and his wife and turned to walk back to my table.

As I walked toward my seat, two women jumped out of their seats
and one tapped me on the arm, asked to speak to me, and with a smile on her face, said…..

“Sir, I want you to know I support you and am 100% behind you.”

With a somewhat confused grin I told her “Thank you.”

She then asked if she could have a picture taken with me…and gestured toward her friend.

I answered…”Well, uh…I guess…”

She tried to put her hand inside my elbow, which I would not let her do… and her friend took the photo.

After the quick picture, I started to walk off and her friend said, “Thank you so much, and we will vote for you as long as you run”

I believe she thought I was the Governor.

I am sure her friends asked her later who in the world she had her picture taken with …when they saw the photo.

She had me confused with someone she thought she recognized.

These episodes came to my mind this week when I was eating breakfast before going to the office.

The lady who serves me breakfast most workdays told me that as I left the restaurant the day before… a man walked up to her,
asked her who I was,
and told her he thought I had played professionally for a team he followed.

Who did he think I was???

Who did he think I looked like??

I must have a familiar face which reminds people of someone else.

I can tell you what I want to hear at some point.

And it has nothing to do with looks or a familiar, easily confused face.

I hope I hear that someone thinks ….

I remind them of Jesus.

Obviously, it would be
from words, actions or behavior.

I have not looked like Jesus a lot in my life.

My desire, though,
is that some aspect of
my behavior,
my words,
my life as a whole…..

would remind someone of the One
to whose Image I am hopefully being conformed to.

And that is my desire…..
to be conformed to his likeness.

It is a compliment to have someone think you are or were someone well-known.

A compliment is merely a word.

However …..
if I can be seen,
in any way,
to be in the likeness of Christ…

that is a greater reward than any
confused compliment could ever be.

And it could have a greater eternal effect on the one seeing me… than them having momentarily met some well-known person.

It’s about what matters….

not what is merely a perception.

Hope, Dreams and Reality

My Father and Mother met at
Woodlawn high school in 1948.

She was 14.
He was almost 20 and had served in the Marine Corps for two years.

She lived in East Lake.

He lived in Woodlawn.

In their letters,
which my Mother divided up and gave to my brothers and I,
they communicated their feelings all the time.

They wrote to each other often…
even though they saw each other at school.

The letters were hand-written,
they expressed a yearning and longing for each other almost unfamiliar for young people in today’s culture.

It was not graphic or guttural.

It was romantic
and somewhat innocent.

For they only saw each other in short moments at school,
and when they had they opportunity to date.

No car.
My Father took a streetcar to see her.

And then they rode the streetcar downtown to a theater.

Then back to her house
and then he rode another back home.

It was not convenient nor easy.

No cell phones.
When they could, they talked by telephone.
In the late 40’s and until the mid-60’s
most people in those two areas
of town had party lines.

If you are over 55 you remember what a “party line” was.

When one picked up the phone
receiver off of the dial …
one may have heard a neighbor talking.

And when you talked to someone,
the neighbors could be listening in
without you knowing.

They did not have easy access to each other ….as most people, even high schoolers, do now.

Cars at 16.
Credit cards for the gas and debit cards for easy expenditures. Cell phones at 10 or 12.
FaceTime whenever it’s desired.
Emails at any and all hours.

Easy access.

There is no real longing or yearning for something one cannot access…. because everything is quite immediately accessible.

Jimmy and Peggy had no easy avenue in their young romance.

This was the reason so many young people married at young ages.

My Father married my Mother two years after they met.
He was 22.
She was 16.

She was married in August before her senior year of high school.

War was coming, he was a Reservist
and reality forced many issues.

The inaccessibility in the early relationship lead to more thought than action.

That developed some maturity that is not there nowadays.

Socially, young people now are further along….
but are less morally and ethically mature.

She wrote to him while he was in the Marine Reserves…..
when she was 17….
of her desire to have a baby boy.

That would be me……
as she gave birth to me
when she was 19.

That was their desire.
To be together, to have
and raise a family.

Going to college was not an option.

My Father was high school teammates and friends with Bobby Bowden.
My Parents and the Bowdens were both married about the same time and shared a small apartment building in the first year or so both couples were married.

She wanted to eat sardines and crackers once. My Father told her she would have to go outside because of the fishy smell. Playfully, he locked the door and she had to go to sit with Anne Bowden until the smell went away.

The Korean War had started
in 1950.
World War ll had ended a little over four years earlier.
There was war in the Middle East after
Israel became a nation.

LIFE was more immediate and threatening in its reality….
not delayed by college,
graduate school and European travel.

War was a cloud that shrouded many dreams.

As I read their letters, after she passed away, I realized their lives in those early years were full….
not of the experiences which teenagers now may go through…. but of thoughts and desires not realized.

And those letters were full of hope.

Hope for what was not yet known or experienced.

And for what was to come.

And what was hoped for was threatened by those Wars and the uncertainty of life….. which we do not know today.

When my younger brother was born in 1955, there was a threat soon after that ….that my Father would have to be deployed because of conflicts in Lebanon.

It drew them together.

Without selfish distractions.

In 1962, shortly after my youngest brother was born the Cuban Missile Crisis again brought the world to a threatened position.

Again, the bond that was forged between them early on…
sustained them again.

And further connected them.

These continual threats from the outside drew them in,
toward each other.

That had been their life….
drawing in toward each other
against the storms raging outside.

When he passed away in 1983,
at 55……..she was 49.

She never remarried.

Never thought about it.

For her life had been and was full of the Man she so greatly desired, dreamed of and thought about as a young girl and woman.

And the Man she had been drawn so close to by the forces between them…away from those outside conflicts.

I wanted to rehearse this story with all of the Bethea’s but did not do so,

as not to interfere with the good news of today for two of us.

I want us to always remember and recall the foundations of our family.

As we grow, I would encourage us to be able to know and tell stories about where we can from and what gave the structure to the Spiritual Structure and the Love and Unity
we are blest to share.

I was going to share the story about
Daddy surrendering his life to
the full time Ministry.

At 36 years of age.
with a wife and family of three boys.

He knew The Lord had been calling him since he was 19/20 years old.

He retreated from it.
Ran from it for many years.

When I was three…The Lord sent us to Miami for Mother’s skin health….
and it was there we went to
Flagami Baptist Church and met Pastor John J Buell.

“Brother Buell”, as he was called,
told Daddy there was a call on his life and he would not be a settled man until he answered that call.

Daddy resisted even then.

Brother Buell moved to Atlanta

After different things occurred and about two years later, Daddy was transferred to Atlanta.

As he was looking for a house for us… he had gone about five miles from the house and came to the intersection of Candler Road and Memorial Drive in East Atlanta.

There sat White Oak Hills Baptist Church.
On the sign it said….
“Pastor John J. Buell.”

Daddy said at that moment he knew The Lord had not removed The Call
and with a sense of resignation, Daddy essentially began the process of surrender.

After a few months of counseling …
and not telling many people for a while,
as young wives are with new pregnancies,
he waited and then informed everyone after that time.

One Sunday in the Spring of 1965,
he stood for the invitational hymn,
looked across the aisles at me
as I was sitting in another section
to his left,
he slowly nodded his head “Yes”…
because I was looking at him to see if and when he was going to walk the aisle.

He did.

He made the announcement,
made the move into his new life…
and became a great Man…
the Man he was intended to be.

That, I believe, is the beginning of our spiritual strength as a family. It was there before then…
but that’s when it grew into a
Pillar of Committed Strength.

Our individual lives as believers were made stronger and more devoted because of Daddys’ decision that day.

May we never forget this story.

And may we begin to share more of and hand down our Heritage with our growing family.

God bless you

I love you.

Three descriptive levels of FULLNESS came to my mind yesterday.

A discussion of the Mother of Jesus
holding Him and looking upon Him with wonder, after His birth….
and a song by Francesca Battistelli entitled, “You’re Here” brought this to my thinking.

The Word I read and believe in tells me that in the FULLNESS of TIME God brought His Son into the world.

I do not understand that completely.

In some ways, there was a
governmental power in place to enforce law and tax people…and get them to go to their home cities to be counted and pay the levied tax.

These things served to fulfill the foretelling of this Birth.

There was access to roads to travel, crudely, built by that same governmental authority, and access to board when they arrived, even though none was available.

So, civilization had moved toward order enough to where these things could be realized.

While Rome exercised military might and order, Greece had earlier allowed for a common language to be spoken.

These things, along with many others, can be speculated on to define the “fullness” of time.

However I try to explain it….
The Word I read says it was in the
Fullness of Time…..
so said by The Creator.

If He said it was the “fullness of time”….then I accept it.

Secondly, FULLNESS was exhibited and voiced by The Childs’ Mother as she held the baby in her arms.

As with most women at this moment,
there is experienced a profound sense of accomplishment and relief in the delivery of a living, healthy child.

She had been visited by Gabriel, the heralding angel. He told her many things about the child before it came.

Another, and most likely greater, element to her FULLNESS was that the prophesied Savior of her world was brought to life through her, and now she was holding Him…..

watching Him take his first breath,

and remembering all that had been told her.

Her FULLNESS was built on the angels’ words,
the pregnancy that followed,
the expectation of what was to come ….
and now the actual coming to life of The Baby

Who had now changed her life

Who was to change all of Life,

with His Life.

Her FULLNESS had grown from her visit to her cousin when she was told by Elizabeth that the unborn child in her womb had jumped when she had heard Mary’s voice.

It elevated her sense of wonder,
further gave credence to the angels words
and was another support beam in her realization of what was taking place.

All of these preliminaries contributed to her growing sense of FULLNESS …. completely realized when the child was born.

Battistelli’s song could very well have captured all she could say ….. “You’re Here”.

Find that song and listen.

She may have been speechless with the Joy that filled her mind and heart and spirit.

A similar speechless wonder can overcome us at times.

A young quarterback, who received his sports’ highest trophy this weekend, made his way through his speech …
but at times when he reached certain points of expressing thanks was so FULL of gratitude to his coach … and school…..
emotion surpassed elocution
and overflowed his eyes with tears,
as his attempt at words was temporarily surpassed by silence.

He was so FULL …
he was enable to find words at the moment of extreme emotion and gratitude.

For the first time this year he was unable to execute….
the sense of Joy, Gratitude and
Thankfulness temporarily overcame any ability to speak.

That’s the picture of a FULL heart.

In the FULLNESS of another time
which is foretold to come….
those who believe in and follow that
Child Who Mary held will experience a similar beyond-the-senses FULLNESS.

The Word He spoke says He will come again for us.

If we are alive, we will SEE IT.

We will be instantly transformed into
what we cannot currently fully know or explain.

We will experience this unearthly
FULLNESS
and with mouths agape in wonder and Joy
and without ability to express it……

we will KNOW IT.

Our eyes
our senses,
our hearts…

will be filled to overflowing FULLNESS.

As the time was when He first came….

As Mary was when she held Him in her arms
along with all of the angels foretelling she held quietly in her heart…

We shall be filled beyond earthly measure.

The Fulfillment of Hope.

The Fulfillment of every completed foretelling in The Word we follow.

We may indeed shout
“You’re Here”……

with Joyful Wonder
wrapped in realized fulfillment.

FULLNESS.

This may be a word you have not heard.

However….whenever you look at the Sun
you see the non-verbal definition.

The definitive synonyms are ….

shining
radiant
beaming
brilliant
incandescent
resplendent

From The Same Hand that created the orb in the sky which lights and awakens all of daily life ….

is given to us another LIGHT that awakens Joy, awakens our spirits and even the face with which we view the world.

It is the similar light that
threw Saul from his horse and into his “Paul” life….
and the walk, witness and writings which changed the world.

It’s the similar light which the three closest to JESUS saw on the mountain top when He took them there to see Him and two of His Predecessors.

It’s most likely the similar light that
beamed over Nazareth and drew the men tending sheep to a stable.

It’s also the light which shines in an adolescent’s face when it sees a grandparent.

This same radiance is seen on the face of a bride walking toward her future.

It’s seen on the face of a father seeing the first born.

As it says in The Word which guides many lives……it is The Light of Life.

The Light of all of Life.

It’s the incandescent resplendence
we will see when The One we await
returns in the Glory prophesied about His Coming.

That’s a good phrase to consider as you think on and consider His current and future appearance….

INCANDESCENT RESPLENDENCE.

And….

it can be seen in you.

It may be the radiance found on Mary’s face as she held the newborn in her arms …. remembering the words given her….
by Gabriel, most likely, for he is the one who heralds great events.

It most assuredly is the effulgent beauty seen in and on the faces of those who loved Him ….. when they saw Him on that
light-filled Sunday, after He walked out of the temporary tomb.

If The Sun has the brilliant light we see on every clear day….
and the light which is so radiant it lights every corner of our world, even on cloudy days…

imagine the LIGHT of HEAVEN
made ready for us
created by the same Hand.

Here is a secret which we all should know….if we know Him….

this radiance
this brilliance
this shining resplendence…..

is in us.

We simply cannot allow the clouds and storminess of life to shroud that LIGHT from being seen in, on and through us.

It’s in us.

If we know Him.

If we follow Him.

It’s the effulgent Light of all Life…

which lights all of life…

and is intended to Light every Life.

If we allow Him to shine as He
can….

His Light will light our life…

then the world we walk in will see the effulgent brilliance in our eyes…..

in our faces

In our lives…

as we reflect that presence
within

which is
Incandescent Resplendence
in its purest.

We control the switch.