BY STEVE DUNN
Dianne and I are in our 41st year of marriage. This was our first home--for all of three weeks. Both of us were college students, getting married in late August so we can earn money all summer and then squeeze in a honeymoon before the first day of class. We rented an apartment in town from a landlord who became one of our greatest encouragers.
The summer of our marriage will be remembered in central Pennsylvania as the year of Agnes--before Sandy the most powerful hurricane/storm to hit the Middle Atlantic states. A whole lot of things were disrupted and delayed by Agnes--including the finishing of the place into which we werre to move. So for three weeks we rented an Airstream trailer near town.
It was cramped. It had a bathroom with a shower where you could not stand up. And if you leaned too far forward on the toilet, the shock absorbers of the trailer might flex and send you tumbling forward. It was heated by propane gas in a tank (which I later learned in the middle of the night needed to be refilled). The pilot light, which was reachable only by laying on my back on the floor and extending my arm under the kitchen stove, went out frequently.
It served us well, but only for a time. We could not have lived there very long, even as students. There was barely enough room to open a textbook, let alone set up a book shelf. We could never have raised four kids there. I could go on. You get the point.
It was what it was--but it could not have remained what we needed to live.
When it comes to spiritual matters, human beings tend to want to remain where they first began. They are often comfortable with the place where they first enter the faith. It's simple. It's familiar. It has its limits, but it also has few expectations that require change or sacrifice.
Lent is a time of reflection--confession, repentance, and renewal. Moving on from where we have been spiritually and moving up to where God wants us to be.
The Apostle Paul writes: "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers, 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 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." (Philippians 3.12-15)
Are you moving on and moving up?
(C) 2013 by Stephen L Dunn
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