Loss
To grow up in Christ is to be able to face loss. We learn this at a dinner party. Jesus is there. Lazarus is there. He was dead, now he’s alive and eating dinner.
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling; what they want, what they believe and what they fear. And even why they make the mistakes they make. Empathy is also how we recycle our own heart-hurts turning them into opportunities for connection with others
Curiosity
To grow up in Christ takes curiosity. Moses was a felon on the run from Egypt. But now, he’s a husband, father and gainfully employed in his father-in-law’s livestock business. Life is good. That’s when everything changed.
Maladjusted
As we grow up in Jesus, we get a glimpse of how we have adjusted ourselves to a world in open opposition to truth, peace, love and justice.
Settled
To grow up in Christ will make you settled. See Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. The devil makes three attempts to lure Jesus away from his identity and purpose.
Time
“…we expend time to gain space and the things of space..…” “But time,” he says, “is the heart of existence.” “The higher goal of spiritual living…is to face sacred moments.
Dangerous Oddness
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you.” Those are Jesus’ directives to us who call him lord.
Love
Either we bless ourselves or curse ourselves by our choices. Either we bless ourselves by deciding to be coachable by God or we curse ourselves by being heedless to God.
Expectations
I know prayer and faithful action are their own reward, but expectations seem to matter with God. Expectation is the first-born child of faith, it is “the substance of things hoped for….”
Tested
Jesus suffered, abandonment, rejection, betrayal, abuse, grief and finally murder. He even wondered if his suffering meant that he was “forsaken.”