Risk It All Claude!

I am motivated by the visual. To me a picture is truly worth a thousand words, or more for that matter. This fish in this picture is so much like us. He is living encased looking out from a place of confinement while at the same time in the midst of a beautiful reality. This poor fish can look at the surroundings but never touch the surroundings. Let's call this fish Claude. (That was the name of my deceased fish in Abu Dhabi. He lived a good life. :) ) Claude can live a life vicariously through what he sees yet never enter into the reality of LIFE because he is existing and not living. How sad is that? Better to put yourself in a dark caged room and admit the reality of your existence than to live in the midst of beauty and life and truly cease to exist. How sad to conform to the limited reality of your existence and slowly fade into nothingness.

I look around at Christians. I look at Claude. We can talk a good game. We can live through others and call it our own. We can talk talk talk. We can create a vivid reality of who we think we are or wanna be. We can use all the right words but look at the situation. Claude is confined and miserable. He can see freedom but not touch it. Are you like this? I bet some of you are. My advice to Claude and to YOU.

Risk it all Claude! Get out and live! Once the Lord spoke something to me that has stayed with me for a long time. "My people fear life more than they fear death." How sad to be living in the midst of the promises of true freedom and yet never really live. To look at the waves and not touch the water. To see the effects of the wind but to never really feel it touch your face or blow through your hair. To see the sun shining but to not feel the actual warmth of it touching your face. Need I say more? I truly hope you are getting the picture. Are you?

Jesus spoke in parable and was an enigma. Enigma means someone or something that is often misunderstood. That is me. Truly, that is me. People don't seem to get me or they presume to know me which they really don't. Those who are close to me know me. My ups and downs. My ins and outs. My good days and bad days. I was a lot like Claude. I lived through other people vicariously and in a life of fascination, imagination and imitation. Until one day, I said "Enough is enough." (Okay can you hear God speaking so far? No "thus saith the Lord' in this one.........just plain talk.) Okay back to my thoughts.

Enough is enough. Either I believe Him or not believe Him. Either I live in Him, walk in Him and BE in Him or why am I even saved. Appropriate verse is below.

John 8:36 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. NKJV

He, Jesus Christ, has set me free to BE. Simple and clear and concise is that statement. We as Christians are supposed to BE the most expressive, creative, free people on the place of the planet. Are we? That is for you to answer. To shake the bonds of complacency and conformity, you have to take risks. And having watched Steel Magnolias, I remember that accurate statement. 'THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER.' Amen and amen. But OUCH. Risks will often come in the midst of choosing freedom and you will often feel that you are going to lose, to die, to be forgotten, and so much else. Yet, risks are meant to propel you into a realm where you are walking in the reality of His life and His freedom. Where you touch and feel and walk and talk and hurt and cry and laugh and shout................BUT YOU LIVE.

Do you live? I hope so. I live. I laugh, get angry at times, cry, shout and FAIL. But I live through the mistakes in my live. I live in Christ and by His grace I am healed and do the impossible in Him.  My life is not over at 56 but just beginning. I am throwing caution to the wind and walking into a great adventure in Christ. Amen. Don't avoid hurt or pain. Let it form your life by His salvation into a thing of beauty. Forget what people think about you while at the same time loving them. Forsaking their opinion for focus on Him and Him alone while at the same time listening and caring. So my advice to Claude and to you...............Risk It All................for Him. Now look at this picture. Get the picture?