Cowabunga, I'm Christ's!
"Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." Proverbs 4:23
On the reality show The Little Couple, Will might be seen as more vulnerable than most. He, like his adoptive parents, is a little person. In one of the episodes, he falls backward and is saved from head meeting pavement – by his Halloween costume. The shell of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle he is portraying elevates him enough to keep his head off the ground.
We lose something as we pass six or 16 and leave behind some of the capacity to see ourselves in different identities. Wearing a Halloween costume to work would in most jobs be unduly distracting, but perhaps to too great an extent the adult begins to see himself or herself as the role for which we clock in at a particular time. If I am only counselor, or accountant, or doctor, or parent, or spouse, if I don't measure up at any given moment as that, I'm as vulnerable as Will's head.
Better than I Halloween costumes which we wear on one day for a limited stretch of our youth, Scripture presents Christians as more than we tend to see in ourselves. Our hearts and our hopes are guarded in keeping with Proverbs 4:23 by the multi-dimensional righteousness of Christ through which Have and views us. This is not age-appropriate pretending, nor self-distracting delusion. That by God's grace we have put on the white wedding garment of what makes Him right in the Father's eyes is our ever acceptance, irrespective of life's falls.
Life and its participants may not remind us of that today. In a given setting, and given role, people justifiably have expectations of us. Because we love and serve them as Christ has loved and served us, we will want to be measured. We will want to see progress as His grace works itself out in us more so than it did yesterday. Because many of those we love and serve do not find their deepest consolation in Him as we do, the Christian will be more ready to admit fault, and seek to find remedy. We know, after all, that our truest self, from had to Hart to Heavenly destination, is safe from harm in Him.
On the reality show The Little Couple, Will might be seen as more vulnerable than most. He, like his adoptive parents, is a little person. In one of the episodes, he falls backward and is saved from head meeting pavement – by his Halloween costume. The shell of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle he is portraying elevates him enough to keep his head off the ground.
We lose something as we pass six or 16 and leave behind some of the capacity to see ourselves in different identities. Wearing a Halloween costume to work would in most jobs be unduly distracting, but perhaps to too great an extent the adult begins to see himself or herself as the role for which we clock in at a particular time. If I am only counselor, or accountant, or doctor, or parent, or spouse, if I don't measure up at any given moment as that, I'm as vulnerable as Will's head.
Better than I Halloween costumes which we wear on one day for a limited stretch of our youth, Scripture presents Christians as more than we tend to see in ourselves. Our hearts and our hopes are guarded in keeping with Proverbs 4:23 by the multi-dimensional righteousness of Christ through which Have and views us. This is not age-appropriate pretending, nor self-distracting delusion. That by God's grace we have put on the white wedding garment of what makes Him right in the Father's eyes is our ever acceptance, irrespective of life's falls.
Life and its participants may not remind us of that today. In a given setting, and given role, people justifiably have expectations of us. Because we love and serve them as Christ has loved and served us, we will want to be measured. We will want to see progress as His grace works itself out in us more so than it did yesterday. Because many of those we love and serve do not find their deepest consolation in Him as we do, the Christian will be more ready to admit fault, and seek to find remedy. We know, after all, that our truest self, from had to Hart to Heavenly destination, is safe from harm in Him.
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