Life as Life

Well, life is just life.

  I mean that for as comfortable and content as one can feel for any length of time in this world,  inevitably a day will dawn, ( a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad move to Australia kind of day ) as a  reminder that life is just that.  Life.  We are not exempt.  We shouldn't want to be exempt.  We should embrace what is presented us.  But how often do we do that?

 And actually, I haven't even had that horrible of a day since I've been back.  I've only had a blah day.  The kind where I'm surly for no real good reason.

 I noted it because of it's contrast.  I've been walking on  clouds for the last month, teeming with gratitude, free of the burdens I'd become accustomed to in the previous season.

We imprint, you know.  So, when I came back, I was walking on air.  I felt paradoxically that purpose of newness and also the persuasion that I was stepping into an old pair of snug, soft slippers. Here - Phoenix - this neighborhood -it all became my 'cloud'.  Loneliness lifted, the sun shone, proverbially and otherwise.   I had that anticipated, energized excitement from being in a 'new' environment, was feeling uncommonly stress free - forgetting that a lot of that probably has to do more with it being summer vacation and a somewhat clear to-do-list, rather than the place.  

I imprinted all my joy right here. In the physical.  

So when grouchiness set in I felt confused.  I had to remind myself that I moved to Arizona, not Heaven.

And the familiarity that is making me feel so cozy?  It can present itself in less welcoming ways as well.  Familiarity is not always good.  "The word familiar is from the Latin familiaris, meaning a "household servant," and is intended to express the idea that sorcerers had spirits as their servants ready to obey their commands. "

So sometimes, the familiar haunts, terrorizes, or even just reminds.

And it's hard to discern, sometimes.  Sometimes the familiar lies.  Old habits, old mindsets, anything which we've been delivered of can crop back up to entice.

The pastor said Sunday that "our past will never be greater than our future".  God would not leave us with only the past.  We need to step with Him into the greater future. Even if great things were done in the past.

So, cozy, yes.  But let me not become so comfortable that I don't move forward.  That I become entangled in the past.  This is not my home - the physical.  The spiritual realm is where I've been called.  The comforts here are nice but the clouds will not hold me and the air I need to seek is from God.

Bad days will come as sure as taxes.  Familiarity can be a trap.  But the Good and the Truth are found in God.