Thursday, September 3, 2009

Have a Coke and a smile...

One of my favorite childhood memories is of summertime and a 16oz bottle of ice cold Coca-Cola. My friends and I would be out riding our bicycles in the heat of the day and come roaring up to the house and my mom would call out..."Anyone want a Coke?" We'd very nearly tear the screen door off it's hinges just to be the first one to grab the bottle opener!
Then we'd purse our lips up to those frosty cold goblets of delicious brown elixir and instantly be transported into another world...You know, the one where those green tinted hourglass shaped bottles had the ability to transform a rag tag band of down and outters into a harmoniously unified group of happy smiling people, singing, "I'd like to teach the world to sing...in perfect harmony..." and Coke did all of that. Amazing! Well, that's not exactly what it did for us, but it sure did (does) taste good on a hot summer's day.
Recalling memories like that is fun. And I think, in some cases, provides some much needed perspective on the world in which we live. Actually, what the simplicity of childhood memories can do is give us clarity in a world full of mass confusion.
We have taken, what used to be crystal clear; things like our dreams and plans, our motives and our ideals, and allowed the world around us to convolute and confuse those things that used to be crystal clear to the point that we're not even sure if we believe what we think we believe anymore.
The answer to that conundrum is more easily deduced than we dare believe...nay, you might even call it simplistic, however, it works.
Clarity, that most desired of commodities, is found when we focus on the end instead of the unknown.
The beauty of that perspective lies in the memory of things we know, (or once knew), to be true. Like the frosty cool delight of a carbonated beverage...the reality that God is madly in love with us and wants to know us, though often drowned in the litany of details in our day, nonetheless, remains true.
We must hold on to those foundational realities that too often get swept away by things like popular opinion because we cannot or will not sift through the minutia that grinds against the truth until it becomes unrecognizable to us. We must hold on to those foundational realities, those things that God has said He is or will do, because it is in those things that we can find clarity in the midst of confusion.
One of my favorite passages of scripture,which i posted as a status update a few days ago says:
"We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be cancelled."
"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in to a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long until the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as He knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love." (I Cor. 13:9,10, 12,13)

And that my friends is the end that gives us clarity, even when much is unknown.
I think I'll go grab myself a Coke.

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