“Wishful Thinking” “Missing Point” “Strike Three” “Know God’s When Come to Pass”
I was working on Job 12 and have now had two days in a row where I was not sure the path to take among the options I see. It was fun and even more of what I had hoped to engage along this path.
I spent the holiday of July 5th as if I were really on a holiday, doing nothing I did not want to do, so I did almost nothing. It has made the week or so since very manageable.
We had friends over this weekend and one of them hit the magic retire now or lose money mark and so retired. Obviously, one has to have enough in the kitty to actually retire, but with no magic date in my future, I will at some point have to understand when adding to the kitty is no longer the driver.
To some this might be “Wishful Thinking” and there may never be enough kitty to not chase after all the income needed.
“Missing Point” comes in to play now, not as missing the point, but missing one particular variable. What is the purpose of the kitty in the first place? To survive we need air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, or some such short list of things. They are all valid, but is the goal to survive? Is the goal to live? Is the goal to live well? Is the goal to live better than our neighbor?
Sunday, I listened to some of the kids from a mission trip pass their story on to their peers. In theory I could have taken the week off from spending time in the high school group, but my kid was one of the speakers, so I went. One of the key points was how poor these people were. They had no shoes, no windows, corrugated panels for walls, cinder blocks for wall supports, no internal walls, a sewer filled river, and owned next to nothing. Yet, they were surviving, living, praising God for the lives the led, cared nothing about what their neighbor “had”. So again, what is the purpose of the kitty?
“Know God’s When Come to Pass” is a reference to prophecy and is a convoluted way to help me remember the point. The measure of whether God gave a prophecy is whether it comes to pass. The unknown is when. God said the Jews would fall away. Did they expect it would happen before Joshua died? Did they think it was a continual cycle for all time? Do they understand the promise to return is not so the Jews can rule the earth for their own benefit (because it would seem they would fall away again)? Only the Father knows the whens and the whys and it is up to us to exercise faith.
“Strike Three” has taken on a context of the end from what I assume is its basis in baseball. Three strikes is good outcome in bowling, or at least the type I was taught in college. This is most likely in reference to when I finally decided to move on with my daily “devotional” readings. But it feels more like a turn the page on a few time wasters I have been carrying with me. I feel more like me and I feel more like the me I want to be. It’s a journey, but clearing out the bad leaves more time for more good.