Labor Day Musings

Greetings dear family and friends at the end of this Labor Day weekend, where we have celebrated laboring by not laboring! I love holiday weekends! It's been a fantastic weekend of refreshing rest and hanging out with friends and enjoying absolutely gorgeous weather. I just got home a little while ago from spending time with some of my friends who invited me over for a cookout. It was so much fun - I love kindred spirits that God gives us in our lives, don't you?

It's been a weekend filled with some reflection, so I thought I'd try to put some of my ponderings "on paper" as it were and share it with all of you. At church yesterday, the sermon was based off of the verses in Hebrews 12:1-3. If you aren't familiar with the passage, go read it and then come back and finish the blog. ;) The premise of the sermon was that God has a story in progress and are we part of it or are we just watching from the sidelines?

Our community group gets underway this week, and I've been thinking a lot about the fall. I think as believers it is so easy to just sort of "go with the flow" and not really live intentionally. I've been reminded again and again how much is at stake in this life - even when we're not aware of it. As believers, I think it is our role to challenge and encourage one another to "throw off the things that hinder us" as we run this race together. I don't want to grow weary and lose heart, and I want to intentionally walk with God every day, and follow wherever He might lead, in complete trust and with no fear. To do that, I need my brothers and sisters in Christ cheering me on, celebrating the joys, sharing the heartaches, challenging me to get beyond my fears and to live each day fully engaged in what God is doing in and around me. And I need to be willing to do that for others.

This picture is one of my favorite ones that I took this summer. I love the simple beauty of it, but I also love how that though there is an apparent path visible, you can't see where the next turn takes you. As children of God, we know how the story ends, but we don't know the path that God will put us on to get there. There can be a fear in that - holy crap, what might God ask of me? But if we know how it ends - and we trust in His love for us - then we can move forward confidently and with great hope, running the race with great endurance and expectation.

As we start a new month, let's live together in such a way that the footprints that we leave will point those who come behind us toward the One who is our hope.