Anticipating the Unknown

As i look into the eyes of a new year i find myself filled with excitement and anticipation. In shaping time and space the energies of the old year are almost used up and i am looking forward to new energy for the adventure and projects of the new year in time and space. Looking through the pages of God's conversation to us He says, "We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise." (The Message) This is where i want to find myself come January, shaping time and space in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory. How am i going to mold and shape space in my life this way? How am i going to change my lifestyle so as to live in these wide open spaces. Later on it says that "we cant round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit."
Shaping time with God's love in mind, shaping time with relevance in mind, shaping time with the needs of others in mind, shaping time with forethought and destinations in mind, shaping time in mind. Shaping space with simplicity, shaping space with thought of how my space impacts my world, shaping space with how i fill the space impacts the relevance i have in this world. Looking at how this shaping is to be lived in the atmosphere of the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory.
In looking into the swirling mists of the new year i see the potential and the opportunity of how my space and time can make a difference and cause clarity in the lives of those around me. I can see how my shaping time and space will affect my immediate culture and the dreams of those i bounce off and impact. The shape affects my dreams, direction, destination on the journey through the new year. I am looking forward to starting the new year with a new determination to take hold of my dreams on the journey.
As i work through these processes of planning shape i have to keep in mind that i am working in these open spaces of God's grace and glory.

Passages of Wonder

Sometimes direction in our world is consumed with surviving the culture in which we exist. The culture almost becomes like the atmosphere which we breath and we can't get away from it. Also culture is so difficult to mold and shape from a single entity but it does happen. Each person can carve out their own special ecosystem with that system only impacting a very small sphere of culture. I guess though there can be some impact on attitudes in that small sphere of culture. The other variable which in some ways is dependent and independent of culture is the effect of our relationship with God, our spiritual impact on our world. I wonder how this spiritual relationship can breath life into our culture and into all the different links we have with this complex material/spiritual world. In each of our separate ecosystems our converstation with God will have a concrete and permanent effect on the world around us in such a way as to change us and those around us thus impacting the atmospere which we breath, the culture around us. As I write and think I see how our relationship with eternity can have a great impact on our culture as we are not restricted to a small inert space when we relate to God. The tentacles of our thought and prayer can reach around the world, can reach into the most diverse hollows and closets of time.
This idea of impacting our time is kind of like the emerging conversations from the cold of winter. As the conversations get longer there is a melting of the cold and the emergence of spring, of hope, of change. Sometimes we come into the conversation looking at life as closed and neat and through the passage of wonder find that the conversations of life are open and messy, with continuing adventure and mystery. This is the point at where God enters and impacts our conversation, when our journey is filled with the messiness of adventure, mystery and growth. The unknowns of the future then fill us with hope, realizing that God has planned for us much more than we can see or know at this present time. Grasping the future challenges us to change and grow.