Wishing

How I wish...

what?

There is the popular old story of the genie. It stirs the hearts of everyone apparently to wonder what it would be like to have three wishes fulfilled. What would you choose if anything and everything was on the table except you could not make someone be in love with you?

The genie story was formed so very long ago, yet still is retold and known widely. What does the persistent retelling have to say about human nature?

Um...

In this instance the question is far more fascinating then a dull, limited answer. It is that we as humans are attached emotionally to desires we cannot seem to fulfill. While everyone is an unique individual, we all have this same emotional need to dream of things we cannot have.

So the genie overrides reality and provides the opportunity where anything is not only possible but will happen if you simply ask.

The limiting to three wishes is a stroke of artistic genius. This limit means that so much else I also wish for has to be eliminated. Paring the list down to three is impossible. It is impossible to predict what my words will bring into being. There is an ever present sense that I am forgetting something. There is the instinctive feeling that once I finish, I will wish I had made different choices.

It is just a game that we enjoy playing.

In the midst of all this passionate longing, why do we never seem to choose the status quo?

That is my question.

I hope that is what I would choose.

God has written my life story. I trust He has done it perfectly. I am very sure that I could not have done it better. In fact, I am convinced I would have done a horrible job.

So I should know better than to wish. If I had the ability to control reality, I would create disaster, darkness and chaos. My best intentions would bring about destructive results. Its true. In theory I know that is the way it would be.

Yet. I can kick and complain with the best of us. I want things my way too, all the time. My wish list is fifty odd years long and growing every day. It is not something I can simply stop doing. While my spirit can obtain knowledge and grow and know better than to trust myself, the broken, sinful animal in me wants what it wants. Both of these beings live within me. They wrestle incessantly.

It is not the good Bobby wrestling with the evil Bobby within, rather it is evil in me versus surrender to God's will. The good is not in me. Good is in Him and in Him alone. This is a hard concept for many to accept. In fact, most choose to believe something quite different than this truth. They would argue with Jesus who said, "Only God is good".

I hope I am not spoiling the game for you, wink. Trying to limit wishes to just three is entertaining and probably provides mental relief for many. It is not as if we shall ever get to make them reality. I, for one, do not really want them. The game is safe enough since it is not real, but personally I have always sucked at it. I worry about the down side of any wish I might choose. There is always the hidden, unseen cataclysm lurking behind the choice.

For example, if I did the noble thing and wished for world peace, I just know that would end up bringing untold suffering into the world.

If I did the selfish thing instead and wished for riches, I would bring untold suffering to myself.

Maybe that is the point of the game. To make us recognize our human limitations and vision. Maybe we all are attracted to the story of the genie because it reminds us that wishing is fine as long as it does not become reality. We sense that unlimited control would bring disaster. The relief is that while wishing cannot be contained, at least we do not have to live with the consequence of their fulfillment.


Meanwhile,

Love someone well today (at least try)

Bobby

Mom

You only get one.

I miss mine tremendously. She was my best friend and biggest fan. There was a comfort there that can never be replaced. There is a hole in my mind and emotions that I live with every day.

All that grief aside, I am so thankful for the mother I had. She was always there for me, always with the same obvious love for me radiating warmth through my being.

She gave me life. She kept me safe and warm and healthy. But above all this, she gave me something extra. She thought I was special. Every day. She was interested in me. She watched me and encouraged me, cheered me on and bragged about me. Because of this, I always tried to make her proud by doing my best in anything and everything. I still do, it is who I have become because of her.

Thank you mom!

I am sure God has you near to Him. Your kind of love is dear to His heart.


Love someone well today,

Bobby

Weeds

Look towards God old man. Look towards God woman. Look towards God young man. Look towards God young woman.

In God you will find the tools needed to do right, to build peace; to build joy; to build love.

These are tools of the mind, body and soul. They are free for the asking, free for the taking.

You would hope that once started on building goodness and light; mercy and truth, that all around you others would join in and your solo would become a heavenly choir. Many hands make light work. As a result there would be fruit enough to share in abundance.

However, into this delicious music comes static, a chorus of naysaying. Jesus described it as deliberately planted weeds in your garden. He recommended allowing them to grow until the harvest and then sorting them out to be burned.

The labor of producing something of spiritual value brings happiness initially. Unlike joy, which is eternal, happiness is fleeting.

Happiness comes when we take a moment to focus on the growth our labors have facilitated.

Growth is all around us. As beings created in the image of God, we can choose to make a garden and choose to help certain growth and restrain other, unwanted growth. It means we must labor for the good and labor to destroy the unwanted. It means laboring with a purpose towards a goal. It means being dedicated to the tasks at hand rain or shine, in sickness or health.

As I said, happiness springs from our hearts when we take a moment to focus on the difference we have made in the world. We like this feeling. It motivates us to do more.

It is sometimes rough having to beat back the unwanted. Why do dumb ol' weeds need to exist? Normally we would not even care. Weeds only become a negative when they impact our vision of something special.

As tough as it is to deal with this reality, imagine that an enemy deliberately plants weeds in your garden. Oh the static this causes one's brain! When you invest your time and efforts into creating a vision, you are investing yourself. Anything deliberately killing the vision is an enemy. Killing the enemy is rarely an option. Even when it is, it would bring negative consequences.

Why is there always an enemy to your labors?

It makes you want to give up.

But, we are never to give up. The Bible says, "be not weary in well doing".

We can go on, producing spiritual work, regardless of our feelings.

It would be wonderful if life was naught but happy moments. It would be wonderful if there was never any warfare. We wish for life to be different than reality. We sometime allow these thoughts to think external weeds are our only problem.

Actually, the external weeds are not our problem at all! They really do exist, but we are not responsible for their existence. What the purpose of those nasty weeds might be is not our issue either.

That the battlefield lies within ourselves...

is what we need to acknowledge and accept.

Fight the good fight...

of faith.

Humbly, bless God, and your fellow man, remembering who we truly are and what we are made of and why we needed Christ to die for us. He did not come to save and redeem us because we were such pristine, pretty little perfect, weed free gardens, did He?

We are without excuse and therefore should be without complaint.

Being without complaint could be a great definition for JOY.

I must surrender my imaginary control over all gardens external to my own being. Where I may, perchance, have some limited authority, such authority is totally granted by God through grace. Such authority is more to be translated in the current mind as responsibility. I am granted the power to love, not to abuse, anything and anyone I have authority over.

Meanwhile, I ever and always have my internal garden to tend, amen.


Love someone well today!

Bobby