As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

Ephesians 4:1

I mistyped as I wrote that verse. It read at first, "as a prisoner of the Lord". That's a pretty big difference really, although I've always thought of it that way. So what does it mean to be a prisoner for the Lord. "For" sounds much more voluntary. It sounds even like a joyous choice made to give honor to God. A choice to restrain yourself from the way you might otherwise live in order to celebrate a life in Him.

A life worthy of your calling. A life that honors He who called you. Paul gives hints at what that might look like; humble, gentle, patient, and loving. A portrait of the life of Jesus, a living image of He who issues the call.

Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.
Ephesians 5:14

The first warm day, of sunshine, soft breezes, and geese on the river. Couples walking friendly, bright-eyed dogs along the trail, while children take to the streets on wobbling, over sized bikes.

It feels like waking up, to soak in the sun again. It feels like the euphoria of summer in Alaska, when the oppressive darkness finally gives way to glorious unending light.

Wake up to spring, wake up to sunshine, wake up to the enduring promise of walking in the light of God.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

In one more week, my boy will be gone. Off to start his life, to make his own way, a young airman with all his future before him.

I can say all the right things. It's time for him to make this leap, it's the right choice, it will be a good life. It makes it no easier to watch him go.

He's a strong young man, Godly and focused and centered. He longs for direction and a life of meaning. Through his quiet, steadfast faith, he'll find what he was created for, he'll enter the good works prepared for him. All I can do now is pray for him and let him go.

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. Ephesians 1 :18-19a

Paul praises the Ephesians for their faith and their love. He prays for their wisdom and knowledge of God. Then he prays that they know all that He has called them to, all the full riches of what they have inherited.

What would it mean to truly understand that? Is there anyone who ever really has? The Ephesians were gentiles. The Hebrew God unknown, even forbidden to them throughout their lives. Now they find that he included them too. That they are sons of the inheritance, fully accepted by a Father they had never before acknowledged. How much history did they know? Were they eager to study and know this God, to explore his promises and gifts to his people?

I wonder how they could be anything but, and yet how much do we really know? Where is the eager impatience to know all we can of the gift we have been given, to know all God has done for us, to rest in the hope of "his incomparably great power"? And how would our lives change if we ever did truly understand?

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease. Genesis 8:22

Seedtime and harvest; the work of sowing, the anxiety of waiting, the joyous celebration of plenty. All to do it again the next year. An endless cycle of focus and meaning and growth; of learning, and changing, and redirecting.

It seems like I should have my life figured out by now. Four grown kids, a mid-term career, and yet the constant question of where do I belong, what should I be doing, where do I go from here? It's an incredible comfort somehow, through the all the uncertainty, to see this time as a natural cycle, as a prerequisite to a new harvest, a new celebration of what God will provide.

I Corinthians 13. Love as a gift. A gift of God, a gift for service. The love chapter, the wedding theme, the greatest commandment as narrative poem. I've known of it nearly as long as I can remember, but somehow never noticed its context. It falls in the midst of teachings on spiritual gifts. Paul coaxes his readers to use their gifts as a fluid, functioning body, to honor and accept the differences that allow them to work together for the good of the church and to take their position as members of that body. Desire the greatest gifts he tells them, then immediately explains how meaningless they all are without a wellspring of love. It's the backdrop of marriage, of family, of all of Christian living. It directs the use of the gifts in chapter 14 as Paul continues his teaching on the power of gifts to lead and teach those who are without the love of God.

Traffic roaring always roaring, what would the world sound like if it all suddenly stopped. I walk in my favorite park on tree-lined paths alongside the river. It's rained for days, the sudden sun and deep blue sky seem almost foreign. The park was closed yesterday with water still splashing over its trails. Even today the river is high and fast, kissing the bridges and rushing along vaulted banks. Families pass with children and trikes and snacks. Visiting friends stroll past, soaking in the sun and gentle fall warmth. I'm suddenly alone with the peace of the world. Leaves crunch beneath my feet, birds call from the trees, and water splashes and laps at newly submerged trees. Yet beneath it all, that low constant roar from the highway crossing the bridge two miles back. It's not overwhelming, and it doesn't steal the beauty of the day, but it is incessant. I wonder what silence really sounds like. Do we even know anymore. Is there a world without white noise somewhere and what would we do if we found it?