Fresh Ink

A Big Light Bulb Moment

We love it when we have an exclamation-point experience in our lives.  It's that moment when a light bulb hovers over our head, clearly evident to all around us.  Our eyes light up, spelling "AHA!" across our forehead.  We get it, have it, and now we own it! In reflection, when was the last time we all had one of those "I have it" moments?  Was it finally grasping how to use an equation to solve a math problem.   Or when we saw a documentary that left us thinking, "Well, I never knew that!"  Or was it when we learned a new computer program and felt as smart as a whip!  Maybe it was during a visit to the Apple store and a child still in diapers explained the difference between Notifications and Messages. That moment for us is akin to when rain hits the desert and everything is in full bloom.
 Here is another example: recently a new Spanish friend was explaining to us a religious cultural difference.  She is from South America but is an American citizen and has become a wealth of insider cultural information.  When she told us how she had tried to share the Bible with her family and friends back home, they did not understand even the most basic words of Christianity, even in her Spanish Bible.  She showed them the words in the Bible and it was like "fresh ink" on the page.  They had heard these words, but had never seen them written or had them explained.  She added that from the look in their eyes, they "got it," they "had it!"

Yet, surprisingly,  after we "have it, get it, own it," we look into our hands, and they are empty.  There is nothing there.  We really don't "have it," or do we?  We do.  The initial action is invisible; that is, it is an intellectual property, a cognitive understanding, which is invisible.  The results, though, are visible. How do we know the results are visible?  Because we don't want to go back to "before," to un-know the math equation, the computer program, the fresh ink of the scriptures.  We love the feeling of "after."

In the same way, God's amazing grace is like that. When He whispers, and we say, "Yes," we get it, have it, own it - His amazing grace.  The initial action of conversion is quiet and invisible, a property of the heart.  But the transformed life becomes visible.  All can see that we have changed.  We don't want to un-know; we love the feeling of "after."

Fresh ink: "I have written your name on the palms of my hands." Isaiah 49:16. 


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                                                                 J:m and L:nda