Treasures: A Climb and a View

Within minutes of arrival on Fripp Island, my friends and I spotted deer prancing across grass. Two came to our car.

Later, we saw a flock of egrets, an alligator, and a statuesque grand blue heron. Fripp is not a beach with a boardwalk and crowds, but an island charmed by wildlife. I spent the week quietly enjoying natural beauty with good friends. What's not to like about drinking morning coffee greeted by a spectacular sunrise overlooking an ocean?

The Treasure of Gratitude: More Than a Post-it Note

I’m reading Life Together by Dietich Bonhoffer, and this treasure popped off the page this morning.

It’s Monday…Where are You Looking?

I've enjoyed scrolling through Facebook posts of friends’ Easter photos. We took family pictures, too, and adults stood with several camera phones, trying to capture smiles. In some attempts, one or more in our group had eyes closed, or looked away from center. It was a challenge to have five or six focused in the same direction at the same time, especially when children were part of the group.

Looking in the wrong place often happens. In Luke 24: 8, we read words, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”. Yes, people sought Jesus, but in the wrong place. He wasn’t dead in a tomb, but alive. The tomb was empty.

Friday’s torture, became Saturday’s silence, and then Sunday’s surprise. In a path of contrasts, the ultimate showed up: death to life.  

Empty ... to full, just as He said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  (John 10: 10). 

So, where are you on the Monday after Easter? Do you still have pieces of a chocolate bunny, or a basket of plastic eggs holding treats from an egg hunt?  Ready to eat that last slice of dessert? Maybe you are laundering the tablecloth and putting china away used at your Easter dinner.

Have you thought about the living among the dead? Have you thought about personal emptiness to fullness?

In the forty days leading up to Easter, I focused on a particular life-giving thought each day in my devotional reading. I reviewed a few this morning: mercy, trust, courage, grace, follow, strength, surrender, love…The list of forty is made possible only through the power of the living Savior. The exchange of my emptiness for His fullness.

We learned if we want photos worthy of a frame or posting for others to see, we need to keep our eyes open and focus in the right direction at the right time.

Looking for fullness of life uses the same principle…
     eyes open, focus in the right place…on the only One who knows we are empty, but wants to fill us with His power to fully live.