I know that God would like to call me “friend”. If I’m not there yet, I am in pursuit.
    I am aware that I come up a bit short as a friend from time to time. I know this because I see that I fail my friends that I can see and touch and feel; so I suspect, yes I know, I also fail God from time to time. Nevertheless, like a bee to honey, I am at least cogent enough to look around and try find Him when I realize that I have lost touch, however long or briefly.
    What I do know is that I cannot reach my destiny, without becoming a true friend of God. My lab for this is life, and my dear earthly friends are the specimens for my practicing, as I no doubt, am theirs.
    My thought for the day: Who do you admire that is very well known among the masses? Peyton Manning, David Beckham, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, or some other celebrity. Let’s use “Brangelina” for its possible broad appeal. If you go to almost any grocery store in the US or UK, you can read all about this fab family while you wait in line to check out. You probably know that they have a lot of children, most but not all adopted. You probably know the names of at least one or two of the children. You may know where they live, when they have an argument, when there are threats of separation, what his ex-wife’s name is and when they are fighting.
    Honestly, you might know more about Brangelina than you know about your own next door neighbors, or your own siblings or cousins. What if you were to run into Brangelina on the street and went over to invite them in for coffee? What would they say? “Hi, come on over, let’s go for lunch!”? I don’ t think so. They might turn around, or their security people might intervene, but it would be very evident that they don’t know you.
    You and I may know all about these celebrities, but they don’t know you.  You are not their friend. Their fan perhaps, but not their friend.
  Not unlike what the Lord said in Matt 7:22-23 I can see it now–at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’
And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use Me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress Me one bit. You’re out of here.’ (Message translation)
    Today, are you a fan of God? Or, are you a friend?
Archive for January, 2009
Destiny, Relationships
Whose Friend are You?
Destiny, Women of Wonder
Hello World!
Check off one more New Year’s resolution: Create a blog! I chose Reaching Your Destiny as the title for this blog because it is also the title of Nexus Connection’s flagship course. Well, that and it seems it would be the title of my life, if it were a story.
As the Director of Nexus Connection (Nexus Institute) I am looking for ways to reach out to the community that shares my quest to live a good life on earth, and prepares me for eternal life. I am an unabashed Christian who believes that the truths of God don’t need any puffing up or exaggeration. Nor do they need to be apologized for.
Christians, are another story and we do occasionally need to be apologized for, but God shouldn’t be made guilty by association.
I believe in everything in the Holy Bible, but as a practical matter I have three high points of theology that I’m processing through in this season of my life:
1. God knows
2. Change your mind
3. Always measure eternally
…one other little point I would like to make here. I have always found writing comfortable until it came to the internet,… I find writing web copy, blogs, networking, etc very difficult. There are the limits of using fewer words to connect to someone while trying to captivate and engage a person of unknown persuasion, ethnicity, religion or demographics. So it with no small amount of trepidation that I am dipping into this water hoping to make some of my life stories and experiences relevant to others.
To that end your input, comments, criticism (please be polite) and questions are solicited.
Sincerely,
Patty Mapes
