POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Life is a Wonder

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Life is a Wonder

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The beauty of God’s world shows itself to us this time of year. The fall leaves that we have enjoyed, represent a canvas of the most beautiful artwork ever created.

All we can do is appreciate God as we look at the beauty.

The seasons, as they come and go, speak to us of the mystery of transformation.

As we move from to fall, fall to winter, winter to spring, we see that life is perpetually unfolding. In other parts of nature, we see this transformation as well.

God has a plan.

Think about the little frog and where it had its beginnings. It begins as a little egg.

In the fullness of time, that little egg will burst forth and a tadpole will appear. God has a plan.

Have you ever gone to a pond and watched the little tadpoles. It was always such a mystery to me that after a while the tadpole that looked like a little fish would no longer be that. It would start to grow legs, and in the fullness of time it would walk upon the earth.”

The same mystery of transformation unfolds in the butterfly. A little butterfly begins as an egg.

Then, out of the egg comes a little wiggly thing that is furry and has lots of legs – we call it a caterpillar.

Then, when it feels an inner push, it will make a chrysalis around itself. Out of that chrysalis will emerge a winged creature of great beauty. God has a plan.

What about us? What about our transformation? We may call ourselves “just a human being.” Then the day comes when we see more of who we are. We say, “I’m not just a human being. I’m a being with the Creators potential.”

We begin to see the child of God seed unfolding.

Then the day comes when we think of ourselves as more than just a weak person – we think of ourselves as a child of God as Jesus said we were.

I know, in my inner self, that the destiny of the little tadpole is to become a frog, and the destiny of the caterpillar is to become a butterfly. And our destiny is to become a child of God human being. God has a plan.

For us, we have but to look at the life of Jesus Christ to know at least a bit more about what this new creature in Christ looks like.

Jesus came to earth to acknowledge, discover, experience and be the fullness of who He was and is. I think He must have, gone through all sorts of seasons of His life; times when He felt very human, times when He felt very Divine.

Then he came to that place in His life where He was aware that He was a child of God, fully incorporating the human and the Divine.

Our hardest task will be to dissolve the critical, crippling, self-negativity that may be trapping us; where we thought we were only human.

We will need to have God’s help to do what seems impossible – to walk paradoxically in two worlds at once: inhabiting an earthly body with spiritual intent. God has a plan.

As we walk through the seasons of our lives, we will come to powerful junctures that will call us to leave behind old ways of thinking, speaking, being, and living. For God draws us, woos us, pushes us, and pulls us forward. Now, more than ever, I think we are being pulled forward to the stage where we combine our human and Divine, and we honor both. We are both, somehow, the created, and one with the Creator – at the same time. God has a plan.

This critical time of spiritual growth can be a baffling time. It is the time in our lives when things happen, and we do not understand why.

We may not understand why those pieces are configuring the way they are. We may have been doing everything we thought correctly, and then our world begins to change.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2

It may very well be that a number of people in this church this morning are in a baffling time trying to understand. God has a plan even though you may not yet understand. It is in these times that we oftentimes ask many questions.

I think this process of going through the seasons of our lives occurs over and over again. It’s not that we have one confusing time or that we have one time of major transformation. We have many. We go through that process again, and again in spiritual growth.

So, we may be at the point right now where we are beginning another cycle, and we are baffled. We ask questions from a confused mind.

But let us know, God understands, and God has a plan.

2 Corinthians 5:17 states, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

A book titled “When the Heart Wakes” talks about a time when the author faced such a time in her life, and some of the questions she asked.

Maybe they are our questions too. “Is it possible, I asked myself, that I am being summoned from some deep and holy place within?

Am I being asked to enter a new passage in a spiritual life – the journey from false self, to true self? Am I being asked to dismantle old masks and patterns and unfold a deeper, more authentic self – the one God created me to be? Am I being compelled to disturb my inner universe in quest of the undiscovered being who clamors from within?”

What are your questions? Think about your questions. Even if you may not be in a mighty crisis of spirit, you may still have questions about your life – what is happening and where you’re going. We need to ask the questions, and it is okay to question. Even if the answers may not come instantly, it is the questioning that answers are revealed.

We ask our questions, and we search. I have a hunch that when we come to the bottom line that it will be that we must commit to becoming a new person.

Thomas Moore said, “It is the major commitment of humanity – to become a whole, new person.”

Do you know what happens when the caterpillar goes into the chrysalis and forms a cocoon around itself?

I did not know this until I was doing some research not long ago on this process of the butterfly, but when the caterpillar goes into the chrysalis it becomes, over time, a yellow-gold liquid. It becomes liquefied. It is not a caterpillar as it was in olden times, and it is not yet a butterfly.

It is liquid. Out of that liquid there is a configuration of cells out of which eventually the new comes forth.

The caterpillar must have a time of waiting, a time of allowing that inner process to occur. When we are in a crisis of the spirit, and we may be moving from one stage of spiritual growth to another, one stage of change to another, we must allow ourselves some waiting time knowing God has a plan.

We, as humans, do not like to wait. We want it to happen, and we want it to happen now or sooner. We do not like to wait. We have a concept that waiting means we are doing nothing. But this waiting I am talking about is a deep introspection where we do our prayer work and meditations, where we honor all the different voices that speak to us.

How many voices do we have inside our being? Do we have voices that say, “You are crazy thinking you are more than a human being,” or “You think you’re one with God? You think you can live in the world as a child of God human being on planet earth in this time?”

We may have all kinds of internal voices pulling us and shaking us up, and we may have a lot of external voices as well that want to dissuade us from moving into that which is our spiritual destiny.

Let us remember that it is our spiritual destiny. God has a plan and created us from the beginning of time to be a child of God human being.

All the things we see, Jesus being in the past, and in our world today, are who, and what, we are becoming.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
Psalm 51:10-12

It may take a great stretch of the imagination to conceive the greatness that is coming, but that is what we are about. I think so, anyway, and I think Jesus tells us that is what we are about.

Our commitment is to become an entirely new person. Didn’t Paul talk about being a new creature in Christ?

We are going to be a new creature in Christ; a new, wondrous being. But we must allow time, and let the waiting do its holy work.

As we take our time inwardly in prayer, let us remember this, and sometimes it may take weeks or months to move through all the layers and come to the place of resolution. We may have conflict, stress, and pulling in many different directions, but the day will come when we will feel a peace in our new way of being. It will be all to the glory of God – to honor God’s Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.” Henry David Thoreau had the luxury of choosing to live part of his life at Walden Pond. He talked about this time at Walden Pond.

In February 1857 he wrote: “You think I am impoverishing myself by withdrawing from men, but in my solitude, I have woven for myself a silken web [or chrysalis]. A nymph-like shell, air long, bursts forth a more beautiful, perfect creature.”

In our waiting we are creating a chrysalis and we will burst forth a new creature.

Jesus says us in Matthew 5:48, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

We were created by perfection, the perfection lives in us, as we become new creatures in Christ perfection manifests out from center to circumference.

I would invite you to close your eyes at this point and acknowledge with me (as I acknowledge within myself) that each of us is so much more than the eye sees, or the mind declares. Let us acknowledge for a moment this wonderful body in which we live, move, and function in this world.

Let us acknowledge that we are one with God by nature. We have the seed of Spirit planted within us. Probably, for many of us, we have been nurturing, loving, and acknowledging this Divine essence of our being – maybe for a long time. Maybe we have been struggling with the either/or of the human and the Creator.

Maybe today we are willing to embrace our baffling times, our times of change with total trust in our Creator.

Even in the midst of any confusion that might bring up, let us hold the wonder, excitement, and joy of the new that is being birthed in us and through us. Our destiny is to become a child of God human being. God has a plan for us.

We know as we walk through the seasons of our lives that we do not walk alone. We have the promise of Jesus Christ that He will always walk with us, be our friend, companion, and Wayshower. He has already gone before us on this route. He already knows the ups and downs, twists and turns. We don’t have to go it alone or figure it out totally by ourselves.

He will whisper in the ear of our heart and make the road a bit less bumpy. In the fullness of time we will stand in consciousness, in beingness, in expression, side-by-side with Jesus, doing everything for the greater glory of God.

Thank You, God, for our holy destiny. May we have the courage, strength, and conviction to become a totally new person.

In the name and through the living, loving presence of Jesus Christ we pray and believe … Amen.

PRAYER / MEDITATION__________________________________________

This moment I invite you to center your prayer into your heart. For ages, the heart has been the place where we have known love; it has been the symbol of love. We are also learning that the heart is where we can access infinite wisdom of God to guide us and show us the way.

You might want to place your hand on your chest, and feel your heart beating beneath your hand. Or just sense this wonderful creation of God doing its work in us and through us.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

It is in the consciousness of the heart that we can feel, in a meaningful, and exquisite way, our oneness with God; our oneness with this very powerful energy of love and wisdom. As we go through our daily lives, it is not unusual to feel ourselves walking in a mist or a fog. We may feel ourselves groping in a darkness that we might call fear or wondering or confusion. When we feel as if we are in the fog, let us remind ourselves that we can refocus our attention to God, and there find a peace, a presence, a power, and a way through the storm. God has a plan for our lives.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

This moment let our statement of Truth and faith be: “God’s love lights my way”. We might even include a visual of a beautiful, bright, clear beacon of light that is full of God’s love shining upon our path.

It is lighting the way just enough that we can walk step by step with strength and safety. It may not always shine way down the path but will show us just what we need for today, for now.

“God’s love lights my way.” Just quietly say that, within yourself, and feel it in your heart.

“God’s love lights my way.”

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We do ask, in the name of Jesus Christ, as the hours and days unfold that we will know more clearly this mighty power of the heart – the mighty power of love lighting our way.

Thank You, God, for Your presence in us, through us, and as us. Everywhere we go, and everything we do, has Your presence in it. We sense this, feel this, and know this. We know Your light as love.

As so it is … Amen.

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