Letters from the deacon: A growing relationship with Christ

Dear Lunastelle, Joy fills me when I hear your relationship with Christ is growing. A life in Christ is not an easy one. Outside the comfort and peace Christ offers, there is much to discern, much to gain in God’s time, much the world interjects to confuse. Faith, the great unknown, and trust will guide you. You must find comfort in this trust and learn what you do not yet know is in His hands.

Something has bothered me of late. Unsure where to begin, I will strive to share my own understanding. I choose the word “own” not in its possessive sense, but in what God has allowed me. These thoughts do not encompass all of truth but what experience, discernment and revelation from God impart to me. To say it is the whole truth would place me among those who often choose an easy desire to be right. Such a failing divides faithful Christians. Sadly, too many brothers and sisters in Christ walk too far down this road, a road graveled with passions seducing its travelers to fill the unknown with cultural fashion and conjured theories. But this is mankind’s nature, to go his own way.

Now that you have come of age, I, too old to dream but only remember, wish to share insights gained. Most of what you can know is indeed derived from a desire to choose right. Bertrand Russell observed there is a natural digression from this desire to acquire as much as you can, to lust for glory and vanity, to engage enough rivalry ensuring your neighbor is unsuccessful, and a logical progression to seek power. I have been on the receiving and giving end of these desires. The world’s way is unkind. Be wary of following it lest you become unkind.

When Christ became the center of my life, when I earnestly began to seek him and live in relationship with him, I strove to leave these desires behind. But where would this leave me? I knew only how to rely on myself. Scripture left me with words like righteous and holiness. But what did these words mean? Would my life ever measure against God’s desire to claim me for His service? I could only remain faithful in devotion, persistent in asking and humble enough to receive. Know well a life in Christ is much like a flower blossoming. The bud receives nourishment from rain, climate, elevation, good soil, temperature, air and light. You must endure life’s climate, and yet strive toward light to reveal God’s purpose for you, the blossom of your life.

Much of what you cannot know, what God chooses to reveal to you, comes from His commandment to love Him and neighbor. The commandment is the seed from which your flower grows. To will this truth yields the blossom. It takes time. Be patient. Love begins in mercy and a heart so inclined desires not to be right though there is a right.

I must be on my way for now. I will write again.

With a grandfather’s love, Deacon