A Time to Pause

Our theme this month in the Everyday Journals group is A Time For... Valerie Sjodin asked us to think about what it is time for in our current season of life. For me, this month it is a time to pause, even as the school year begins and my schedule picks up the pace. My hubby and I generally take a vacation in September or early October and rent a cottage east of us on Lake Erie. We love these fall vacations. The summer season is done and school is back in session so the lake area is quiet and uncrowded. We can relax and enjoy peaceful surroundings.

We started our week visiting our area's newest Metropark. Howard Marsh just opened in May and we have not had a chance to visit it yet. Since it is on the way to the cottage we decided to head over early and spend some time there. We were not disappointed! Toledo has incredible Metroparks. The new one was formerly a large working farm that the park system in conjunction with ODNR has returned to wetlands - 1000 acres! We saw many types of birds and other wildlife and enjoyed walking the trails and boardwalks.

This morning I went for a sunrise walk, which is a habit of mine when on vacation. I love how calm the beach and lake are in early morning, and the light is incredible as the sun climbs. Early morning walks in the city just don't have the same feeling of peace.

The clouds last night looked like they had been painted.

I photograph this old dock every time. I just love it!

I also enjoy creative time while on vacation. Creating with limited supplies tends to stretch me creatively. I have found that I have been in a bit of a creative rut since I did the Colossians Words challenge, which isn't unusual for me when I lead a challenge. It requires a lot of attention and energy writing the devotional Bible studies, making the art, posting daily, and managing the Facebook group. So I usually will find myself struggling with what to create for a few weeks following a challenge. To help stir those creative juices I started looking for something with some prompts for journaling. In that search I stumbled on The Reset Girl and her Faithful Life Club which offers a monthly Scripture journaling challenge. The theme for September is A Fresh Start and the weekly Scripture passages tie into that theme. I came upon the group mid-month but started with week one anyway. I've done one page so far. I also picked up the journal I made for Roben-Marie Smith's Salvaged Journal class this Spring and brought it along to make some nature themed pages. 

Week One Faithful Life Challenge

Everyday Journals Group

Nature Journal

I hope you are enjoying your last week of summer and are finding time to be creative. :)

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group

Bernice Hopper, Valerie Sjodin and I are using one journal to record events, experiences and relationships and  to explore our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We are each blogging about our experiences and our art. If you would like to connect with others about creatively organizing your word, your ideas, thoughts, prayers, events, or your projects all in one journal, you are invited to join our Facebook group: Everyday Journals – Living Your Word of the Year.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/203309083575277/

Hashtags on Instagram: #everydayjournals2018, #livingyourword2018

Check out the other blogs:

Bernice: http://www.newlycreative.com/

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/

Colossians Words Signature Journal Flip-through

My completed journal made from my Signature Journal class for the Colossians Words Challenge.

I had a few empty pages left after the twenty words from the challenge were used, so I used a few passages that stood out and a few words that were not in the challenge to fill them up.

World

Gospel

Old self/new self

Theme verse tip-in page

Heaven

A Time for Seasons to Change

A Time for......

I love the start of new seasons, both on the calendar and in life. I'm not one who fears change. Change is good. Change helps us grow. Without change life would become stagnant. I also don't advocate change simply for the sake of change, but if nothing ever changed, neither would we. And this is not God's plan for us. He desires that life in Him be marked by transformation - continuously. Why? Because transformation - change, growth, maturing - is a process. A life-long process. A process that we need to welcome and embrace, good and bad, joy and pain.

Leaving the season of Summer is bittersweet for me. School starts here in mid-August and the slower pace I experienced in July and early August is waning. I like the slower pace of Summer. The renewal of energy as the busyness of my job and ministry slows down for a time. At the same time, I am (or will be) overjoyed to leave the heat of Summer behind. I look forward to the warm days and cool nights of Fall - if the heat waves ever end!

I love the change of the seasons, especially Fall and Spring, when the change is vivid and visual. The change of season often stirs within a desire to reflect on where you are at in life, what you are leaving and where you are going. 

My summer was busy this year in different ways than it is in the school year. I launched my first online class in July, so June and early July held lots of prep and learning curves. We remodeled our offices at work, which meant lots of planning, packing, moving boxes and furniture - and the fun part - picking out paint and carpet and lobby furniture! I started exploring the possibility of writing a book about spiritual formation with a friend. We even took a writing retreat in July to brainstorm ideas. We'll see how that goes in future months. I held a Words challenge in August, the first that was not tied to a season on the church calendar, as Advent and Lent Words were. Using key words to go through the book of Colossians was at first a challenge, a different way to go through a book of the Bible. But as we went I really began to enjoy seeing how the words were woven through the book and often interacted with teach other. I think the Words challenges connect my passions of art and Bible study together in significant and creative ways and I will be exploring more challenge ideas in the future. In addition, the Words Challenge group is a vital, active and encouraging community and I have really enjoyed watching it develop and become a place of significance for so many people. I'm so grateful to everyone who participates there.

So, as we change from one season to another, we also begin a new theme in the Everyday Journals group. Our theme for September is "A Time for..." We want to take some time this month and examine our word for the year as well as look at seasons and change using Ecclesiastes 3 as our guide. In the weeks ahead we'll have some questions to help you reflect on where you are at in your journey with your word for the year. Watch for further blog posts from Bernice, Valerie and I surrounding this theme. Join us! Information about the group and links to our blogs is at the end of this post.

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group

Bernice Hopper, Valerie Sjodin and I are using one journal to record events, experiences and relationships and  to explore our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We are each blogging about our experiences and our art. If you would like to connect with others about creatively organizing your word, your ideas, thoughts, prayers, events, or your projects all in one journal, you are invited to join our Facebook group: Everyday Journals – Living Your Word of the Year.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/203309083575277/

Hashtags on Instagram: #everydayjournals2018, #livingyourword2018

Check out the other blogs:

Bernice: http://www.newlycreative.com/

Valerie: https://valeriesjodin.com/blog/

Colossians Words Day 20: Perfect/Complete

Day 20 ~ Perfect/Complete

We now come to our last word for our Colossians Words challenge. This word serves as a set of bookends for the whole book and is found in 1:28 and 4:12. The Greek word for the word perfect means that something is brought to its end; it is finished, complete, mature, fully grown.

"He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ." Colossians 1:28

"Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured." Colossians 4:12

In these two verses Paul describes not only his purpose (and that of his disciples), but the purpose of the gospel of Christ. The gospel is not simply a prayer to be uttered for eternal security, although it includes that. The gospel is the call of God to people to become His holy people through faith in Christ Jesus, and to become fully complete in Him as we live out a life of faith while here in this life, in preparation for eternity.

This is a theme in much of Paul's writing:

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."Ephesians 3:16-19

"So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:11-13

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.Only let us live up to what we have already attained." Philippians 3:12-16

Pastor and commentator, Bob Utley, says, "God's goal for the church is that every believer be mature in Christ."

So we see this message in some of the other words we focused on in this letter:

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives" Colossians 1:9

"..and in Christ you have been brought to fullness." Colossians 2:10

"But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—" Colossians 1:22

"Christ is all, and is in all." Colossians 3:11

To be filled and have the fullness of Christ has the sense of completeness, having completely all that we need to be God's holy (perfect and without fault) people, who are reconciled (have complete peace restored) with Him through Christ, who is all and is in all. He is perfect and complete and we are called to be like Him.

Look again at how Paul declares this complete message in 1:28:

"He is the one (He is all, complete) we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone (all people) with all wisdom, so that we may present (as holy) everyone (all God's people) fully (abundantly complete)  mature (complete, perfect, whole) in Christ." Colossians 1:28

You are complete in Christ!

I have studied Colossians many times over the past 20 years and each time it amazes me that I continue to see new things in it about God, about our identity in Christ, and about the gospel. This book holds such deep truths about Christ, not truths to be known simply in an intellectual manner, but truths to be known - Ginosko known, experiencially through our relationship with Christ - that results in changed lives that express who Christ is in the world around them. I continue to grow in my amazement over all that Paul fit in this small letter to the Colossians, and pray that we are each profoundly changed by the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ in you the hope of glory!

Please do not feel that you have to be finished in this words challenge or in your creative responses to it simply because this is the last word presented. Please take your time in the Word and in connecting with it creatively. My motto in every study is not that you get through the book completely, but, rather, that the book gets completely through you. 

The complete list of words with their Bible study devotion is found here, which is also found under "Words Challenges" on the top menu. Continue to share your creative works in the Facebook group and on Instagram - #colossianswords. The Facebook group will remain open for sharing, conversation, and will be where I will continue conversations about future Words challenges. I also welcome any questions and dialog about the words and Bible passages we have gone through. I'm so happy we have gone through this journey together and look forward to staying connected with you through social media.

You can also join the other group I co-lead with Bernice Hopper and Valerie Sjodin, Everyday Journals - Living Your Word of the Year. Our theme for September will be " A Time For...". We will explore seasons and where we are at with our word for the year, as well as get into Ecclesiastes 3.

Colossians Words Day 19: Thankful

Day 19 ~ Thankful

In the beginning of the letter we saw in Paul's prayer for the Colossians (1:9-14 - see Day 5:Wisdom) that he asked God to fill them with the knowledge of His will. Paul prayed this so that, filled with the knowledge of God's will,  they would be able to live in a manner that is worthy of the Lord and that pleases Him in all ways. One of the ways Paul listed as evidence that one is living in a manner worthy of the Lord is a life of gratitude, continually giving thanks to the Father (1:12). Paul weaves this call to thankful, grateful living throughout his letter.

In 2:6-7 Paul's call on Christ followers is to "live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Our faith in Christ is not only a set of beliefs that we commit to with our minds. It is also a lifestyle that we submit to that  transforms who we are and how we live. While grammar can be boring and at times hard to grasp, there are times when the knowledge of the grammar used in the Greek can help us gain a deeper sense of what God is calling us to. Here in this verse, Paul lists four ways we are to live in Christ - rooted, built up, strengthened, and overflowing with thanksgiving. These four words (participles) are in the passive voice in the Greek, which means we do not produce them. They are produced in us by God. We play a role in that we must do what is necessary to keep ourselves connected to and positioned before Christ for transformation (look at the metaphor of the vine and the branches in John 15:1-8 for a picture of this). Also note, that of the four things listed, the first one, rooted, is a perfect tense, which means it is a past completed action that has continuing effect. You have been rooted in Christ. You are thoroughly grounded in Him and will continue to be. You have a firm foundation of faith in Him. The next three things are present tense, which means they are ongoing processes produced in us by God. They continue to grow as we continue to grow in our faith. So we will continually be built up and strengthened and we will continually overflow with thanksgiving.As we grow in our faith our lives will express these qualities produced in us by God. The words are passive, but we are not to be passive. Paul calls us to "continue to live in Him". We play a part in God producing these things in us by faithfully living and growing our faith in Christ. I love the word Paul used to describe the thanksgiving that God produces in us - it is overflowing - great quantities of gratitude and thanksgiving bubble up in us and overflow in our lives. What an awesome picture! Am I participating in the life of faith God calls me to in such a manner that gratitude to Him bubbles up and overflows in my life? Sounds like a great thing to pray for!

This leads Paul then to call to us to "be thankful" (3:15 & 4:2) and to "do all things , whether in word or in deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (3:17). This one of the ways we obediently live out our lives in a manner worthy of and pleasing to the Lord. Giving thanks becomes both an expression of who we are in Christ and an expression of praise and worship to God for His rich blessings to us through Christ.

If you are behind or just joining in, you can find a list with links to the previous words here.

Please share your creative responses to today's word and Bible verses in the Words Facebook group or on Instagram using #colossianswords.

#foundonbrighton #everydayjournals2018