Settled in Heaven

Have you ever had a conversation that later you wish you’d have somehow taped? And I don’t mean so you could clear yourself or win a fight or some other mischief (although haven’t we all wished we had for those reasons at one point or another?) I mean, have you ever had such a Truth-packed conversation you wish you could have had it transcribed into a personal reference tool?

Can’t you just imagine it?

“Hold on just a second, friend”, you’d say with your first finger pointing and your eyes squinting and head nodding. Then putting the tape recorder on the table, “This is just such a rad interaction, I want to make sure I’d have it forever. On tape.”

Somehow I think it might stifle the moment… tape recorders just scream INTERROGATION, don’t they? Darn cop shows.

So until I figure out a way to secretly tape conversations (please note the sarcasm) , I guess I will be left trying to rely on my mom-brain to recall the highlights.

Yeeahhh…

I kind of won the pastor lottery twice in a row. When I was in high school Pastor Jason moved himself and his wonderful wife, Heidi, to Bellefontaine to pastor a mostly dead youth group in town. I didn’t go to that church, but then neither did most of the 200+ kids who showed up on Wednesday nights to hear the Word. Although he has a dynamic personality, what drew us there was quite simply the uncensored Word of God. There were no kid gloves on his teaching. When they moved to Michigan to pastor a new church, we were happy for him, just sad for our community.

Pastor Ricks is very different from Pastor Jason and yet his dynamism, like Jason’s, is not the thing that draws people to the church… its the Word. I think that’s a really good indicator about a body of believers… why do they congregate together? To be cool? To be ‘relevant’? To hear a good speaker? Or to get fed? hmmm…. that might be another thought for another post…

The point I was trying to get to (ahem, Digression) was this: anyone can read the Bible at face value and maybe even take away some moral guidelines or truths, but then there is the revelation of God through the Word that speaks to the regenerated heart of a believer. When I talk about winning the pastoral lottery, I mean getting to sit under the shepherding of two pastors who have a way of imparting the revelation of God as opposed to just coming up with a cute little sermon in which all the points start with the same letter of the alphabet. Not that those latter type of sermons are wrong or bad, just uninspiring….

I just swatted Digression on the knuckles…time to get on with the original thought for this post- what was it again? …. oh yeah…

I sat across from Pastor Ricks in the lilac colored conference room at the church for an hour or so yesterday. There was no pressing issue to discuss, really. He asked me how things were going and I meandered around the big concerns in my life, stopping at each to give a factual update of sorts. Then I told him about the Finish Line Fatigue and The Anxiety and we decided to pull up some chairs and sit with them for awhile.

He reminded me that The Anxiety really isn’t of God or mine, as I often assume. As a child of God, born again, The Anxiety, has no natural place in my life if I really believe in my heart that God created me and keeps the whole world spinning. I believe that He knows the number of hairs on my head, takes care of even the sparrows and that there is good reason for me to give up the worries for some peace.

And yet? Lately, I go from one fearful-avoidance-anxiety issue to another. I get one looming issue under control only to find something else has run amuck. Its like that game at Chuck E. Cheese with the weasels. I smack one with the hammer-like tool only to find two others have popped up somewhere else. I just can’t seem to get a handle on my life.

And in all fairness to myself, there is a lot going on.

Still, all explanations aside, The Anxiety isn’t a fun companion.

Pastor reminded me of a passage I have known since I was a little girl, but he brought light to a phrase I hadn’t paid much mind to before. And he said something when he had finished that settled a place deep in my spirit because its just True. “Kate, there are a lot of things not yet played out on earth that are already settled in heaven. Don’t fret. It is already decided. You are just waiting for it all to unfold.”

Sigh….. like, DEEP SIGH.

So soak in this familiar passage and let the God of the Universe bring peace to you as you run the race appointed to you, waiting for what is already settled in heaven to unfold here on earth.

Hebrews 12: 1-4 [Amplified Bible]

1THEREFORE THEN, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us,
2Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God