A Blank Piece of Paper

It might worth your while reading this companion piece that I recently posted about the things that last to help with what this post is all about.

It’s a Sunday evening, officially the end of the weekend and already the beginning of the week. At this time it’s a special end to the weekend and beginning of the week because after the recent seasonal holidays the majority of people out on leave are returning to work.  I be among that majority returning to an albeit abbreviated working week.  Yet in this season of things new and transition all thing are up for review including what the working week is all about.

I was thinking about routine and how much we are creatures of it, just as we are with habit – I mean the two are virtually the same.  When things are up for grabs even that which is familiar to you can be questioned, so even the regular of routine of work can be looked at from a different light.  If even that is going to change and there’s an extent in which that is in your hands then all sorts of things need to be considered.  Exciting times indeed – and challenging ones.

So in that light it’s about the old blank sheet of paper thinking.  What would you do if today your life was a blank sheet of paper on which you could write anything on it and those words would determine your day, indeed the pathway to the rest of your life?  What would you write?  Now it’s a bit of a misleading question – there’s no such thing as a blank piece of paper.  Every day, every life, every episode is a part of narrative that has been written even as it has yet to be written – it’s not really blank.  Even the capacity to consider what you’d put on the blank sheet of paper of that nature suggest there’s already narrative in you to write – dreams, ambitions, fears, concerns, goals, desires and so much more.  Yes indeed there is no such thing as a blank piece of paper.

There is however the next sentence to be written.  Sure the paper isn’t blank, but there’s the next sentence yet to be written.  That sentence does not have to be chained to everything else that’s been written.  It can flow from it, but it can do something new, take it in a different direction to the rest of the text.  It can start constructing something towards an outcome that could have an incredible impact on the narratives of the lives of others.  That maybe paragraphs and even pages away, you may not even be around to see the fulfilment of some of the things your sentences have been leading up to, but at least that next sentence, the next words, the next thoughts can build up towards it.

This is not pie in the sky wishful positive thinking on my part.  Read Genesis 1 again and read it as if every time God speaks He’s putting together a sentence and by the end of day six the paragraph has been completed.  It’s not so impossible to read it – the creative force of God is expressed thought in words – after all, no point in thinking it and not expressing it.  Then see how that narrative is further expressed in Christ – the living Word – then read on to see how those called to be a part of the story is living letters. Followers of Christ become living letters that create part of this story in praise and to the glory of this brilliant, wonderful, glorious God who has created these things by the power of the Word.

Being made in His image life can be lived in line with this narrative – reflecting Him and encouraging others by that life to also be a part of the greater story – the life-giving story.  That whole mind-blowing concept begins by considering what we write in that there next sentence.  It’s not a large thing at all, it’s encapsulated in that eternity now thinking that affects those minor decisions we make in life.  Like those habits and routines we have firmly established.  What would they look like if they were adjusted to fit this bigger picture?  What would it look like if they sought to reflect a story of God’s Kingdom come and will done on earth as it is in heaven?  You know television habits, relationships and conversation, approach to our every day working life, what we do in the weekend on a Sunday evening just before the start of another working week.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd