I’ve worn my stocking cap a lot these days, largely because I’ve believed something which is evidently not accurate!
I read recently that the oft-repeated claim from well-meaning folks (myself included) that in frigid weather we lose eighty percent of our body heat through our heads, is not exactly true! When it’s chilly we lose body heat from any exposed part of us, say those who care about accurate perceptions of life and health.
Still, with these cold and snowy days we’ve had this past week, imagine my disappointment last Monday when I realized that I had lost my favorite wool stocking cap! Regardless of the eighty percent heat loss myth, the fact that something important to me was missing was not a pleasant feeling!
I retraced my steps from the morning and called around to the places I’d been. No hat anywhere!
Over lunch with Bobbie, I glanced out of our living room window and commented off-handedly about a squashed plastic bottle lying on our driveway. It’s too bad I didn’t follow my good impulse to throw it in the trash.
Imagine my relief when later in the afternoon, Bobbie texted me that the “squashed bottle” in the driveway was actually my stocking cap, which had evidently fallen from my coat pocket when I checked the mailbox at noon.
Pondering this little “lost and found” vignette, I got to thinking that the “Something’s missing in my life” feeling is more common to us than we probably care to admit, especially when it comes to our Christian lives.
I resonate with how David Takle, author of the “Forming—Change by Grace” course that we are offering starting next month, puts it: “Most of us have experienced the heavy weight of knowing all the things we should be doing and all the things we should not be doing, and the exhaustion of being forever behind where we think we ought to be by now. Giving more and trying harder seem to be the only alternatives we know. Many of us have virtually given up hope of becoming more of what God wants us to be, because we have no idea how to add any more to what we are already doing.”
What’s missing?
What God really wants to do in us, Takle says, is to change us from the inside out. Instead of us trying hard to do the right things and hoping our inner being will somehow catch up, God wants to first grow and change our heart so we are naturally inclined to live better. This is what is called “being formed into the image of Christ.” (Galatians 4:19).
I would really love to have you join me this spring in our 12 week Tuesday night “Forming” class (March 12 through June 4) as we explore how to “sail” under the direction and power of God’s Spirit, instead of just asking for strength to “row harder!”
In “Forming” we’ll learn how to develop a genuine relationship with God and to engage him for the transformation we long for.
If you sense that’s what’s missing in your life, let’s dig into real growth and restoration together!
Detailed information is available here or at the Sign Up Station in the foyer on March 3.
See you Sunday when Pastor Jack continues his new sermon series on “Real Faith” from James.
Pastor Steve