Musings

This is my first entry in the year 2015, and I am making it to inform my readers that there will be a change in the perspective of this blog. In the past, I have approached life from a general perspective with a veiled tint of my religious beliefs. No longer will that be the approach that I will take. No, I have discovered that it is easier for me to be who I am without trying to be politically correct. My background and life are intrinsically pinned to my Christian beliefs, and those beliefs are somewhat conservative while being conscious of the various beliefs that our world possesses and proclaims. Even among those of us who call ourselves Christian, we have so many viewpoints of how we should life successfully.

I am an historical Baptist. That is the denomination that I have always espoused. My father was a Baptist preacher and church pastor. My mother was always a participant with him in the churches that he pastored, and she was his most ardent supporter. They taught me the fundamental things of life from the perspective that I must seek guidance from and depend upon the one true and living God. This can only be done by believing that our God exists despite the fact that we have never seen him. Yes, I said him.

That is the perspective that I have been taught and personally teach others. While our God has the ability to become and be anything that we need, He is not an it. Based upon the Holy Bible that we primarily use, which includes on the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament, God is referred to in the masculine gender. God is referred to as Father by Jesus, His one and only Son. We can claim an intimate familial relationship with our God because we are His children, chosen from among the multitude of people who have inhabited the world that was created by our God. While all the earth belongs to the Lord, including the people who occupy it, not all can claim that He is their father.

The older I get, the more I look like my earthly father. People who knew my father recognize that I am his son. They say that I sound like him, that I walk like him, that I act like him, and that I remind them of him so much. My Daddy was a wonderful man who loved his family and tried to live as best as he could so that God could be glorified in him. While he did not accept sin as an acceptable way of life for anyone, he expressed the love of God that was demonstrated by the sacrifice of His son. He never beat me over the head with our faith, but he made sure that I understood the need to surrender my life to the control of Christ.

That surrender came about because of the prompting and presence of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I am reminded daily of the need to push my will to the back burner and allow God to order my thoughts and actions. Each day is sweeter than the day before as I travel this road of life. It gets easier as I allow God to move me along the stream like a leaf blown by the wind upon the surface of a flowing stream. Not only is the wind responsible for that movement, but the seeking of the waters of that stream to become a part of the vast openness of the ocean is responsible for keeping it moving. Obstacles can appear along the way, but the breeze can either direct it around the impediment or even blow hard enough to lift it over what is holding it back.

Life has become so much easier as I allow God to control my movement and progress. I am moving ahead to embrace what is prepared for me. How I navigate the course is up to me as I surrender to the will and way of my heavenly Father. I’m convinced that I can do all things as I surrender to His control.