Epiphany!

The purpose for me embarking on this journey into the blogosphere is to bring a daily dose of our global reality but then siphon from it the human and spiritual meaning and lessons for the reader going forward. It is my hope that you will feel my heart in my words.

 

Those words above have brought me back to a reality that was fueled by something my Pastor said in his sermon this morning. In the Book of Psalms, it tells us clearly in several of the Psalms that if you are a believer in God, then how you can not praise for believing is about praising and therefore praising God is about believing His Word, right?  The answer is, RIGHT!

 

Here is what has come so clearly to me and before I depart for church in a little while to do another cantata at 3 pm and as my wife is asleep, I wanted to get my heart into letters. I began this blog journey, 260 of them ago now, to, as the paragraph which is the dashboard of my blog, Prof Jim Today, provide a  dose of global reality siphoning from my chosen topic to reflect the spiritual meaning and lessons as I view the topic at the time.  What I have realized is that I have moved too far to the side of connecting dots, the coloration of my commentary is too dark when, if you look hard enough, you can always find the sunshine in the darkness of what seems an ever darkening world.  I am always so honored and so humbled when people will write or call or walk up to me thanking me or commenting to my blogs.  But goes with that is a chosen responsibility on my part to be a Christian in my thoughts, my words, my sentiments and expressions.

 

Never did I ever think I would be a blogger but I was asked by many over the last few years, primarily by students, to do that thus providing for wider audiences some of my thoughts and approaches I use in my teaching. Thus, I entered the realm of the readable and do not regret it. But if you go back to the beginning, the coloration of my blogs were much brighter, encouraging and uplifting I sense.  But I can only blame myself for allowing the darkness of a dark world to find its ways into my thought processes and writing style.  I realize I have become one of "them" meaning one of those that tend to throw gasoline into the fire instead of speaking to the brilliance of the fire's warmth. For that I apologize to each of you for I am better than that.

 

My concerns about my nation are at an all time low or even worse, I see nothing in leadership that will turn this ship of dismay and disappointment into the winds of good and joy. But then I realize, all of this is Biblical. All of this is part of God's plan. All of this is in the choreography of the End Times. All of that I believe!

 

So, what does all this mean? It means I will continue to put my heart into letters in hopes that the reader is lifted and encouraged. I may go a period of time and write nothing about the crazed nature of our world such as ISIL, POTUS, scandals, wars, etc, and lean more toward personal interests, biographies of great people I have known, such as my grandchildren, or I may just post a song and talk about that song's meaning to me. But in the aggregate, I want my blogs to be positive diamonds glistening with joy in the ring of life that is all too consuming and exhausting at times.  I do love to seek to understand the things of this world but me adding my even bleaker summation and opinion to things like the current debacle of the CIA report, for example, adds only insult to injury.  

 

My wife's favorite question to me is something like, "is there anything you can do to change "it"?  Reality is, No, there is nothing I can do to change for alter so I guess I have fallen in the writer's trap of thinking my words and sentiments can create change. No, that is not practical I believe I realize. I yearn to be a beacon of encouragement and hope; so that is my new horizon.  Many of you seem to like my writing so I hope you will like the "New Jim" and my approach to be what I believe God would have me be with the gift of writing He has given me but now more for His Glory!

 

Thank you for your faithfulness in my blogs and for the many, many encouraging comments I have received. It is truly humbling.