August 2024 Revealing Light Newsletter

When you make something -- whether that be a building project, an art project, a meal, class project, or even your family/household environment -- how do you go about doing it? Do you always do the same thing for everything or does it change? Maybe you like to save time so you try to complete the task ASAP. But other times, you may need to focus on every little detail so you take up more time in order to do it right (quality over quantity). Sometimes, you may do these projects all in one go; however other times, you may have to take breaks to refresh, take a step back, think about it for a bit, get some energy back, and then continue on the project again (it may take more than one day to work on some of these projects). You may even find that you get into the zone, get many hours done on the project one day, and then struggle to get back into that zone later. The point is, there isn’t just one way that we go about making something, or forming something.

On the other side of this, what is it like when we are the ones being formed? We may have times in our lives that we have been greatly shaped by an event that took place in our lives (“life-shaping” moments). Other times, it feels like a dry season in our life that nothing seems to be happening or growing. Lately, I’ve been considering each of those kind of seasons more often trying to notice how I might be shaped in the fast growing seasons and those dry seasons (times that force me to slow down and work on those fine details). In Ecclesiastes, the preacher says that there is a season for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11). The Apostles in the New Testament write about these times in their lives of having a lot and having little (Phil. 4:11-13), of facing persecution and suffering, all because they claim Jesus is the long awaited and promised Messiah, our Savior -- not necessarily of earthly things but our Savior of eternal things. The earthly things pass away, but we focus on Christ and His Kingdom which is eternal. These seasons in our lives are temporary and short when you compare it to the span of eternity (Rom. 8:18). Knowing Jesus Christ as our Savior for eternity is worth any temporary things we may face here and now on earth. And who knows, in each of those seasons, we may find that we are being formed as disciples of Jesus, adopted sons and daughters of our eternal heavenly Father, who loves us, cares about us, and is shaping us into His good nature by His Word and Holy Spirit in us through Jesus Christ. We are a new creation in Christ. (2 Cor. 3:18)

But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB 2020)

Additional Readings:
Romans 8:9-23
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
James 1:2-4
1 Peter  5:9-10

 - Daryl Struemph

Last year my baler would hardly bale the dry fescue stems, and it took about three trips around the field to make one bale. This year every field made five times more bales than last year. I was emptying rain out of the gauge every other day it seems. The garden is lush with tomatoes and peppers and I haven’t had to water it one time. And the yard, I have had to mow every five days to keep up. So the rain or lack of it can make all the difference in the world.

I began to wonder if I watered myself everyday on the truth of God’s word, how much more productive would I be? Now there is something to ponder, how much fruit would it be possible to produce if one cared and watered and drank in the nourishment from God? Would it be like my hayfields this year that produced five times more than last year? The Bible uses a word “renewed” in Eph. 4:23,24 “and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” The Living New Testament translates it this way: “Now your attitudes and thoughts must all be constantly changing for the better. 24 Yes you must be a new and different person, holy and good. Clothe yourself with this new nature.” So my life is to be continually changing as I let God and His word influence the way I think, the decisions I make, and the way I grow. Will you consider letting Him make you more productive as well?

 - Alan McNeely