An Early Morning Meditation That Helps Frame An Understanding For Making It Through The Day In Godly Fashion.

“If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.” (Heb 12:7-17)

My Lord, why have You included this text in Your holy word? Your servant, the one who originally penned it, and from whom I learn by the divinely kept record, he understood something about one’s relationship to You, and about Your relationship to those who are truly Yours. And, You, Lord, have permitted me to have this record, this revelation, this understanding regarding the quality and the character of what one particular part of our relationship is like. Your care, Lord, for me, and Your work in my life, is not defined by what seems best to You, or what another human seems is best for me, but it is defined by what You know is most profitable for me, and that, O Lord, is that I would be separated from what is unholy, so that I may become like You and participate in what is of You: holiness.

You let me know, Lord, that this likeness gives off something of a display that I did not have or give before Your corrective work upon my life. You recreate my life, such that my life presents something called “righteousness,” and this divinely crafted offering to the world (which it apparently won’t have or know apart from Your careful attention in human lives) is a manifestation of the reality of Your existence and Your involvement with humanity. Without You the world is subject to sin, lust, corruption, evil, and ungodly rule. Yet here, in this Hebrew’s passage, You tell me about Your work in my life, the end of that work, and the affect of that work. And while the writer knows Your craft will be discomforting, Your revealing to Your children the purpose and end of Your labor is itself the key which permits Your labor to be comfortable, even desired, by Your children. For You, O God, as God, do not simply show me the end and hold that out as some distant tangible reality to which I aim and hope to some day attain, but You show me Your means to that end, so that I know Your ways with me as I venture along my life path toward that end. Also, I know (informed and convinced) that You are intimately involved with me and close to me each moment of each day, so that we together travel along the way. I am never alone.

Father, You tell me to pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one in this fallen world will have a display of You, Your Son or Your Spirit. You have revealed to me by word and experience that I am Your child. Forgive me for my choices of selfish living where the world and its people who have traveled close to me did not see You but only a reflection of its own corruption as mirrored in my life! I am not of the world! I am from a different line, that of Christ, not Adam, and I have a different birth right, one that I dare not disregard, the loss of which I would sorrow over with tears; unless those tears be of a repentance, which can still occur because of Your love chastening me back to godliness before I fall over the cliff’s edge into the abyss of eternal doom and there realize that I have made that fatal error of choosing to be identified with the father of the sin corrupt world—the devil—over You Who are truly a loving Father over all creation.

You, Lord, in love gave Your Son to reclaim and recreate me into His image, which is a reflection and a revelation of Your interior goodness and Your displayed greatness! I must understand and see Your work in me during my days to the point of clarity whereby I grasp my weakness and at that very moment also see Your hand and I turn away from me toward You, thereby being healed. This experience of seeing what is of me and what is of You, then turning to go with You, is at times very painful—because I love myself—and this struggle can create bitterness leading to defilement, if I at that divine moment love myself so much that I prefer myself over You. Father, I pray and trust that over time, as I become more familiar and accustom to Your work and Your ways, I will await this spot where You open the eyes of my heart to what is of my flesh and what is of You—the way of holiness and godliness—and I will delight to make the turn toward You.

Gracious God, thank You for presenting to me this understanding of our relationship. Knowing that You have preserved this divine record of revelation for so many years up to this very day for my life helps me to live with You and for You as one of Your children journeying through the earth on my way to be with You forever. May I carry these thoughts into all that is my day today, and may I truly know that You are closely and carefully with me. May the world not know me as one who comes from its womb, but one with a heavenly birth. All this, my Father, is good and comforting. I am ready to venture into my day. Amen.