Defining Parameters

I start with the premise:
God is who HE says HE is.
The second premise is related to the first::
I am who HE says I am.
All of life follows....
I hold these truths close.
Hide them deep within.
Bury them where fear, and doubt and pain and suffering and lies cannot assail them.
They are the bedrock upon which I lie down...when all strength is gone.
My standing...when I have done all to stand ...is more of a prostrate position: face down....
Whom have I but you Lord?
We fill books with words.
We define and explain.
We extrapolate and pontificate.
We think. We know.
Just turn on the TV....
Just ask anyone...everyone has opinions about everything.
Again...
We think...we know...
We don't.
How much of this life is spent in the forming of opinion?
The presenting of that opinion?
The defending of that opinion ?
Challenging other opinions?
Paul said:

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or 

superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.^. 

 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, 

except Jesus Christ, and him: crucified. 

I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, 

but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 

so that your faith might not rest on men.s wisdom, 

but on God’s power.

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, 

but not the wisdom of this age 

or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 

No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that 

God destined for our glory before time began. 

None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, 

they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

However, as it is written:

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared 

for those who love him”, 

but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man 

except the man’s spirit within him? 

In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 

We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, 

that we may understand what God has freely given us. 

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom 

but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come 

from the Spirit of God, 

for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, 

because they are spiritually discerned. 

The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, 

but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:

     “For, who has known the mind of the Lord 

                            that he may instruct him?”                            

 But we have the mind of Christ.

~~ 1Corinthians 2:1-16 NIV ~~

All is vanity save this.
Life as I know it is precarious.
One thin skin away from flying apart.
One breath from...not breathing...

Eternity is here....we are mouth to mouth with it...
It is a heartbeat away... it always has been.
So much of what we esteem and invest our time in....is so empty.
So meaningless.
 All is vanity.
Lately I have been captivated by the story of Lot and his family...specifically Lot's wife.
That last look over her shoulder...the longing...the regret...the resistance... the resentment....
....the value of what was being left behind vs. the value of what was to come..
...what was being offered....vs. what was being required....
The elevation of her defining parameters over the truth...the goodness of God.
God was not enough.
She believed :Strongly.
Her opinion was obvious.
Her convictions: conveyed.
A Pillar of Salt....
Dead Sea.
Nothing grows...nothing lives...
How much of my life is spent in holding on to or figuring out how to have what I want..
...what I desire...
...what I enjoy..
...and God too?
Who defines what is good?
Who defines what is just?
Who defines what is right?
Who defines....me ?

I pray today that I can say with Paul: 

I seek to know NOTHING among you......but Christ.... and Him crucified!


I am in His grip of grace, I can survive nowhere else....