Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Resolved

Resolved: To figure out why I can't stand to see my "round" thighs in the mirror during a 6:00 a.m. Spinning class, but forget completely about the matter by lunch time when I'm ordering McDonald's French fries.

What is up with that?

Okay, it's not every day I leave Spinning and order fat food, but how is my distain for being 20 lbs overweight so negated by the pleasure of food? Gotta tell ya, when I'm good and hungry, peeled carrots just don't hit the spot.

How can I want rock hard abs and a bag of chips at the same time? Why do I work at working out (work being the cornerstone word here) yet work so little at watching what goes down between the teeth and gums.

Hum?

The apostle Paul had it right. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is so weak.

This I have resolved, though it's not been tested. To follow my Lover to the end.

Doesn't this statement scare the wits out of you? "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold." Matt 24:12

I do not want my love to grow cold.

Fox News correspondent Steve Centanni and his cameraman, Olaf Wiig were kiddnapped and "... forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni said. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."

Tony and I chatted about this during our drive up to the city dump after purging our yard of wild bush and tree limbs.

"What would you do if a gun was pointed at you and it was convert to Isalm or be shot?" I asked him.

Of course I knew the answer. "Jesus! I'm home."

Driving up the road, safe for now in my own country, my heart told me I'd say, "Shoot me." But who knows how I'd really respond in the critical moment? I'd pray for the courage to say, "Jesus loves you. Shoot me if you must."

This is the scary thing we have to ask ourselves. "Will our love grow cold as lawlessness takes over the world?"

What will you do if the gun is pointed at your head? What if it's in your own neighborhood or church sanctuary?

Beloved, we have to wake up to the hour in which we live in. There's a holy war going on whether we want to believe it or not. Whether the news media wants to report it as such or not.

Like Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say that I am?"

Are we ready to stand? Are we ready to die for truth?

I want all the world to know Him. By love, not by gunpoint. I want my resolve to love Him until the end of the age to be stronger than my less than stellar resolve to have rock hard abs.

We battle not against flesh and blood, but against world forces of wickedness in heavenly places. Awake O, sleeper. Awake.

Dawn is upon us.

3 comments:

Camy Tang said...

Dang! Only a writer like you can take your post from thighs, fries, and spinning to dying for Christ in the course of a few words.

I pray I'd have the courage to say the same thing.

Camy

Crystal Laine said...

Rachel, I just reviewed a book called Making Peace with Your Thighs: Get Off the Scales & Get On with Your Life
By Dr. Linda Mintle
Integrity Publishers,1591454263, PB, 242 pages, $14.99. (She has humor, like you.)We all have issues, it seems. And sometimes it is gun to our heads(been there) and sometimes it's spinning for a bag of chips. (whoops, been there, too.) You have a right heart attitude, warm and pumping for Jesus.

Heather Diane Tipton said...

Ditto what Camy said. I pray I'd have the courage to say the same thing