I had a conversation with a good friend earlier today, a Christian brother, and we talked about the nearness of the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ...my friend of the 'there's no indication of when that might be' variety, and me of the 'surely it must be soon...come Lord Jesus' variety. We have these conversations often and they are always edifying.
He asked me a question, the exact words escape me, but the essence was...'why do you see this and others do not?' I answered first that others do. I was holding a half-filled bottle of polar water and used it as an example. Suppose, I asked, that someone offered to fill the other half of this bottle up with gold in its liquid state....impossible of course but the example survived....then suppose that I poured out the water and he gave the same offer? In theory I would get twice as much gold.
I added that if the Christian mind is half-filled with the baubles of this age such as entertainments, that Christian should not expect full discernment in return. This conversation from earlier today may have led to the previous post on sports of only a few hours ago. Sports and other entertainments once dominated my life, and I knew nothing of God's ways then. It later merely shared a room with my Christian faith, and I subsequently thought that I knew a lot....but I was mistaken.
I once abused alcohol rather severely. It's been 37 years since I had more than one beer in a day but have enjoyed that one beer very much....every time. I used to be immersed in sports but enjoy it more today through a few minutes of reading a newspaper than I once did while letting it dominate my time.
How much liquid is in your bottle right now? How much room is there in your heart for wonder and awe as God reveals more of Himself to you?
He asked me a question, the exact words escape me, but the essence was...'why do you see this and others do not?' I answered first that others do. I was holding a half-filled bottle of polar water and used it as an example. Suppose, I asked, that someone offered to fill the other half of this bottle up with gold in its liquid state....impossible of course but the example survived....then suppose that I poured out the water and he gave the same offer? In theory I would get twice as much gold.
I added that if the Christian mind is half-filled with the baubles of this age such as entertainments, that Christian should not expect full discernment in return. This conversation from earlier today may have led to the previous post on sports of only a few hours ago. Sports and other entertainments once dominated my life, and I knew nothing of God's ways then. It later merely shared a room with my Christian faith, and I subsequently thought that I knew a lot....but I was mistaken.
I once abused alcohol rather severely. It's been 37 years since I had more than one beer in a day but have enjoyed that one beer very much....every time. I used to be immersed in sports but enjoy it more today through a few minutes of reading a newspaper than I once did while letting it dominate my time.
How much liquid is in your bottle right now? How much room is there in your heart for wonder and awe as God reveals more of Himself to you?
