December 18th, 2022 – 4:36pm – Haifa Hostel, Haifa, Israel:

For a couple of years now a verse has come back to me over and over again as I have moved from season to season of my life:

“Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.” – Romans 12:3 NLT

“Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.” – Romans 12:3 NLT

So… each passing season I measure myself against the faith God has given me. And how often I have fallen short of that. And I ask myself as God shifts and shapes my journey and the paths I take in this world… “Who am I really? Who did God create me to be?” It is these questions that define us as humans. Who am I.

If God is, “I Am.” And that is how He chose to answer the question… what name shall I give them when they ask who has sent me.

So if God is “I Am.”

Then how do I, as His child, answer that question both to myself and to others?

I listen to people. I sit and I really listen as they speak. I hear their questions… about God… about themselves… and too often I sit there without an answer. And those questions have become part of me now… the eternal searching for the answers… and it seems that is why I was created… maybe…

These blogs and these books and these journeys… they are pointing to Him. I get that part… but they are leading somewhere. There is a pattern… a flow… a divine purpose within these pages…

But somehow that is hidden from me… I know it is there… but I cannot grasp it. Hindsight isn’t helping as I look back over the 19 books that have been written… if they are leading somewhere then that somewhere hasn’t been revealed yet. But I must know where…

I want to know how this journey ends. I want to know what of this journey reveals something of Him. I want to know how it will shape future people’s journeys.

And so all this brings us back to this verse…

“Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.” – Romans 12:3 NLT

And consider this passion for isolation and Obscurity. And if you know my life story you can see that it was always leading this way… toward Him… toward the deep… toward obscurity and solitude.

Sure… the paths have lead through the dark places of this world but that has become a strength to sit and listen to those still trapped and to share something of the Love I have found in Him.

Obscurity doesn’t mean alone. Solitude means alone… but obscurity… simply means not known.

Unknown… perhaps a strategic retreat from the ways of this world so as to perhaps grasp something of the next. Perhaps… to Listen and Obey… really meant… listen and obey.

What will tomorrow bring? God only knows.