kingdom travelin'

In my travels last week I took time to see two beautiful and historic train stations: Los Angeles and Seattle. Here is the waiting room in King Street Station (1906) in Seattle.

And here is one of the waiting rooms in Union Station (1939) in Los Angeles.

Back in the day these were nice places to wait for your train.

Waiting.

We’re often not so good at waiting. The ability to wait must be cultivated. It can actually be quite good for us.

I sent a reminder to some young friends recently. Some of us not-so-young might profit from it too:

“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalms‬ ‭27:13-14‬ ‭ESV‬‬)

Someone wondered if their notifications were going to their spam somehow because they hadn’t heard from the blog in a while. I said no, I’ve been through a quiet season. There’ve been no notifications because there’ve been no posts.

Took the photo somewhere over to Rockies as I flew home from Seattle yesterday.

Scripture is like an endless stream of refreshing water cascading over a fall.

I’d finished the various weight machines that I’m using to strengthen my legs and thus ease my weary knee. Having been on the treadmill for 20 minutes I realized I was thirsty and chugged down half of my 500ml bottle.

What I should have been doing was drinking along the workout – or so they tell me.

This is, too often, the way we treat Scripture. We wait until we’re thirsty. When in fact, we should be drinking regularly.

Hear the Psalmist:

“but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” (Psalms‬ ‭1:2-3‬ ‭ESV‬‬)

May we intentionally drink our fill so that we do not thirst.

We all wrestle with could’a, should’a and would’a, three feeders of regret. The idea of regret relies on our feeling that we should or should not have done something. When we sit in regret we are dwelling on what we should or should not have done.

This can, and often does, develop into shame, that place in life where we think we are bad because we did (or did not do) X. I’m convinced that the Enemy uses shame way more often than we realize.

For the disciple of Jesus there is a problem with this thinking. Our standing with God has nothing to do with what we have or have not done. Our standing with God is based completely on the finished work of Christ.

So when we regret, when we dwell in our regret, we are looking at our own work rather than at the work of Christ. We might even say that we are putting Jesus back on the cross.

The moment we are convicted about something we should, or should not of done, we must run to God. We confess. In some (many?) cases we should contact someone else and ask for forgiveness. But ultimately once we have done this we are no longer to live in regret. Condemnation is gone for those IN Christ Jesus.

The prodigal son, as depicted in the photograph above (of the painting that hangs in the National Gallery in Washington – one of my favorites on my visits there) sits pensively among the swine. He just needed to get up and run to his father.

Yeah, that’s it.

Run to the Father, whose Son has made the way possible, whose Spirit is calling and whose arms are open wide.

http://bible.com/r/Xk