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Our grandson Owen is quite tech savvy and he frequently FaceTimes with grandma in the early evening. Sometimes his mom or dad make an appearance but he’s pretty much the star of the show.
I can’t be certain but there is a very good chance that Owen is also Tipping Idols’ youngest follower. Whenever a new blog comes out, it seems that Owen and his mom listen to the audio version while he is having his bath. Owen is a good boy. Owen is a smart boy. Listening to Tipping Idols makes him even more of both.
Anyway, this is a special day because today is Owen’s birthday and he is now 2 years old!
Happy birthday Owen. Grandma and grandpa love you and we plan to come and visit you really soon. Mwha!
Funny thing about two-year-old Owen – every time we see him he has learned something new.
We also have two grand-daughters and the last time we visited we were able to enjoy beautiful artwork that Becky shared with us and then we watched Katie learning new skills during a riding lesson. Both of them are getting better and better with their newly discovered talents. But those are just parts of their lives – there is always something new that we hear about them doing or learning or accomplishing.
The technical term (that I give it) is next-ness. There is always something more to come – it’s the joy and nature of life.
I recently heard someone say that for every question that science finds an answer to – the answer literally raises more questions!
Next-ness. In our discoveries; in our enjoyments; in our dreams; in God.
Step back for a moment from the busyness of your life and take a short time to reflect on the following reading from Isaiah. It is about Next-ness.
In the passage we are shown a word picture of a river.
A river that is active and flowing.
There are places where the water eddies and pauses.
But the river itself is moves forward.
There are places along its edges where the water is stagnant.
But in the river itself, the forward motion is purifying.
And we see that, in the end, the river is more than alive.
It actually produces and sustains life.
“Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” (from Isiah 47, NIV)
The work of the Spirit of God is to move us forward. In the process we not only gain personal purity but we enable new life.
I pray that there is a next-ness in how you think, hope, imagine. Maybe there is something great and difficult, maybe there is something small and precious, but ultimately I pray that God carries you forward toward new life.
Cheryl and I began this web site because we believed it was what God wanted us to do with our limited talents. God has blessed it beyond our hopes and we are grateful to him and to you.
We want to continue to speak about the intersections where God and people meet and the idols we create. But we also need to be carried forward because that’s where more life is.
And so, along with the other new things in our schedules, we have been discussing how we can add a broader range of content to our website. We are currently exploring those possibilities and we welcome your thoughts and ideas.
Please pray for us and please be patient with us as we learn new things, explore new possibilities, and tip bigger idols.
I hope you trust God enough to do the same.
