January 11, 2012
Personalized
Many years ago my husband gave me a Christmas gift of a ream of
expensive personalized paper and envelopes. The printing is in script and the
letterhead not only has my name and address, but it also includes my phone number.
I’ve been so selective about using the stationary only for important
correspondence, that here I am 30 years later with envelopes that are yellowing
and letterhead with a telephone area code that no longer applies. Spiritually
speaking I’m wondering how many of us have personalized gifts from God that
we’ve kept sitting on a shelf collecting dust and turning yellow with age because
we’re saving them for just the right occasion.
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Gail;
-----I think we’ve all thought a bit about how ethereal life is. We each know our own life by the more recent situations we’ve personally experienced, the knowledge we most use, and the feelings we get from myriads of events long past and the people with whom we interact. Some people have big lives full of experience. The lives of other people, like myself, are little and pip-squeaky. Many years ago I wondered what some people knew that I didn’t by which they got such big lives. Today, I know: nothing.
-----A big life doesn't come from knowledge. It comes from many experiences, far ones, near ones, bad ones, dear ones. They are its bricks. But the bricks do not come to us pre-made, and there are no local life building-supply stores where you can just go get them. You have to make them.
-----I get flustered sometimes because we can’t just snap our fingers and have something like a chocolate malt, or a coconut cream pie, or a bar of gold just appear on the table. God can. We must accept the fairness of the disparity. That means we must have materials out of which to build things. These bricks we make for building our lives are no different. They require materials too. Time is a material. So is place. There is not much that can be done to increase or decrease either one of those, although place can be changed. The significant material for making bricks is ethereal, too: opportunity.
-----Opportunities are interesting. Some come seemingly from nowhere. Others come from sources we certainly know. Some come and go so fast they’re gone before we can respond to them. Others come so slow we’re not even aware of them till they’ve gone. And very often its ok for an opportunity to go by unexploited, for opportunities are not only for the good, many are for the worse. All the same, an opportunity is just an opportunity until it is seized and made into a life’s brick.
-----What is interesting is that people with big lives have big opportunities, and lots of opportunities, too, big ones and little ones. It seems for the rest of us that any ole passing opportunity is a pretty big deal, because we just don’t see that many. And opportunity is what’s needed for using the gifts God gave us.
-----So it would seem comfortable to blame it on God for not putting us into a life of big and plentiful opportunities. And God is somewhat responsible for such; He is the potter. But He is not the only maker/builder in our lives. We were created in His image. So we also are maker/builders. And even though we can not make opportunities directly, like we can not snap our fingers and find gold under our pancake, neither can we snap our fingers and make opportunities. But we can fashion from the opportunities we have the kinds of situations and experiences and acquaintances and interests, etc. - the bricks of life which themswelves make opportunities. All we have to add, then, to time and place and a couple opportunities is desire and ambition to make opportunity producing bricks. And Shazaam! The right occasions are happening all around!
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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