Rev. 1:4 ¶ John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,
On this Memorial Day I’m thinking about my Father who died when I was 19. As a young man he served during WW2 as an infantry 2nd Lieutenant in the Philippines. In reality, he died there. He came home, but he really didn’t. The trauma of there war so scared his young heart that the person who came home was not the one who went to war. He lived out the rest of his life struggling with alcoholism and a deep sense of feeling lost. He passed away at 53. I think a lot of Christians are like my Dad, in that their trauma from the warfare in this fallen world has so sacred them that it’s as if they never really survived the pain of the loses suffered, at the hand the Devil, or other fallen people. When I read that verse I am reminded that I was baptized into Christ and therefore I was plunged into His story. He is the one who is, and was, and is to come, and I am In Him. My story has been absorbed and redeemed by His. Because I’m In Christ, my past is no longer my story, and certainly not the Devil’s or anyone else’s, it His his, and His alone. The same is true about my future. I can look forward to my future because it is caught up into His glorious, and victorious future. If this is true about my past and my future because He was, and is to come, then it is certainly true about today, because He is. He is my life, and my present is all about His presence and the story that He is living. I’m in Him, and therefore a member of His body. The Christian life is Him, and He living His life through me this very moment. If my past is now part of His story then I no longer have to believe the lie that somehow I’ve been robbed of life’s potential because of the past, and I don’t have to fear anything or anyone that maybe in my future, because its His, and gloriously I can celebrate today because of the amazing adventure of being plunged into His exciting story right now. Stay abandoned to His abundance.