It's 4 AM...

And I am blogging about all my secrets.  

Last year when I was in Africa, I tried to blog weekly.  This year, I am barely making it a monthly event, much to my dismay.  So when I finally get around to blogging, (usually in the wee hours of the night) it turns into a blogging spree of sorts.  

I went on a small holiday a couple weeks ago with my friend, Karoline.  We got off the ship for five whole days and stayed across town at the home of a friend who lives near the beach.  We did a whole lot of nothing, and it was fabulous.  We ate, and sat, and read, and talked, and walked on the beach, and napped.  

Sometimes you need a vacation after a vacation.  But this vacation was truly restful, and so I came back to the ship more rejuvenated than I would have even imagined.  It is amazing what a time of rest can do!  

"Godliness with contentment is great gain..."  

How often in life do we really feel content?  When Paul wrote of learning the "secret of being content in all circumstances," I wonder what he meant?  I wonder if I am learning the secret, at least in part...  Learning to be filled and satisfied by Christ alone.  Learning to look to Him in all things.  Learning that He gives richly of Himself.  Learning that His grace is sufficient.  Learning that if I am filled completely by Him, that the rest is just overflow. 

Perhaps this is life abundantly?  To always be filled, and to quite often be overflowing....

"Not that I have already obtained all of this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me..."  

There is a secret to that whole "life abundantly" that Christ spoke about when He walked on this earth.  Surely He saw the pain.  Surely he knew suffering.  And yet He spoke about life in abundance.  An abundance, that evidently sorrow doesn't deplete.  An abundance that evidently doesn't depend on things turning out right all the time.  Life from a Source that doesn't run dry. Life that even death can't steal away. Christ came, He lived, He suffered...He died.  And so, what "life" did he mean... if that is what His life on earth was like?  

And as we face suffering, and pain, and poverty and loss here... how do we point to a God who is Good?  How do we, with sincerity, testify of a God who is loving?  Perhaps part of the secret is in the pain.  Perhaps, God, in His infinite wisdom knows that we will never look up, if we are never in need.  So while I do not believe He sends the pain, perhaps He does allow it. And He meets us there.  In death.  In pain.  In loss.  In disappointment. 

At the end of ourselves, stands the cross.  

And a Savior.  

He died, and so we must too.  But He rose.  "The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly."  And so life is available to us, as well.  So look for Him there.  Where there is lack, where there is loss, where there is a void.  Please know there is One... and only One... who can meet you there.  

His name is Jesus.  

He lived, He suffered, He died.  He rose, He lives, He knows... you.  He loves you.  

"The Lord confides in those who fear Him..." 

There is a secret to contentment. There is a secret to life in abundance.  

And those the Lord loves are let in on the secret. 

He is the secret.

  

"Be still and know that I am God."