Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: FINISH (05/26/16)
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TITLE: The End | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ramona Cook
05/30/16 -
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Not all endings of course are joyful, they are anything but joyful; losses of all types, a marriage gone awry; the death of anything present in our lives on a daily basis; a job from which we had hoped to retire; and yet, the same response is required of us as is for those other kinds of experiences, we keep breathing and walking until the river of time takes it forward beyond our today.
Recently I have been changing, ending the way I am willing to indulge people in my life, I want to put an end to constant disagreements.
I am realizing my own, end of time on this earth, as a nearing fact: time is more serious to me now, and I am not willing to struggle with what I term as stupidity.
I have always been a care-taker, and while I am more than willing to indulge anyone's incapacity, and to assist them joyfully in any need they have; I am very unwilling to argue with my teenage grandsons about school, work, and smoking pot; I am tired of the debate in my Church about sexual orientation. It is easy enough, we can all agree, when we all agree with God. What is there about which to spend time and energy debating?
I reflect on wasted years and wasted effort, and do not wish to experience repeated wasted hope for changes from people who do not intend to change.
Apparently I cannot hang out in that pattern of thought without wasting time in negative frustration. II Timothy 2:23
Another version reads: "But refuse (shut your mind against, have nothing to do with) trifling (ill-informed, unedifying, stupid) controversies over questionings, for you know they foster strife and breed quarrels."
So I have asked God to speak to me and to give me a mission to complete before I close my eyes at the finish-line. But I must be alert to the enemy of my soul and not allow myself to be embroiled in useless efforts, nor yet with arguing unreasonable subjects with anyone.
Written in The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, May 26, 1738: "My soul continued in peace, but yet, in heaviness of manifold temptations. I asked Mr. Tolschig , the Moravian, what to do. He said, " You must not fight them, as you did before, but flee from them the moment they appear, and take shelter in the wounds of Jesus." *Abington Press, ISBN9781426797521
I do not see this advice as flight from the fight, but rather as flight to where the victory resides.
Paul spoke to us about "fighting a good fight" and "winning the race," and about hearing form Jesus at our finish-line , "Well done good and faithful servant..." Matthew 25: 21
Isn't this the thing for which we all yearn?
Time is so short, we know it, but do we really redeem it as we are told to do? Ephesians 5: 15 - 16
There are only 1440 minutes in 24 hours. Eight hours to sleep = 480 minutes; eight hours to work = 480 minutes; and that leaves only 480 minutes for everything else we do.
There is no time to waste wondering or looking for answers, when the Word of God is clear. We know that God says to obey the Laws of the Land, and we know also about His views on all kinds of sexual indulgences; we know His views on a host of other practices, and our lives will produce a crop of righteousness if we are determined to persevere; that is "per SEVERE."
For he who perseveres to the finish-line, wins the prize;
I Cor.9: 24
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