Ed Christian's World

Who You Are…

The other day I touched on this subject when I mentioned the gift God gave us: God’s gift to us is who we are and our gift to God is who we become.

Today I will expand on it a bit. Who we become, is our gift to God as well as our gift to the world. We are at any point in time the sum total of the choices we made in our life. These choices, good and bad, help form who we are today. Character and disposition are formed as well. This should caution one to make the best decisions possible to become the best person we can.
Your input will determine your output, so guard what you put in and you won’t be put out.

Basically this what life is all about, what you put into life is what you will reap in the end. I remember my parents and grandfather drilling this into me as I was growing up and I’m sure your parents pushed the same. But did we listen or just add it to the pile of all the other stuff they tried to warn us about. I know, at the time, I knew better but fate always has a way of pointing out our mistakes.

Hindsite is always 20/20 and in my case I was shown many times just how smart my parents were. I’m sure most, if not all, of you can look back and say the same thing.

What’s the matter with us humans? Were human, that is exactly the answer. God gave us freewill to make our own choices, knowing we would do some stupid stuff in life. The best part of is that He is always there to forgive us and help guide us back to where we belong. All we have to do is trust Him.

Trust – wow that is a big word, how do you trust someone you haven’t even seen. That called for Faith. Faith is best defined in Hebrews chapter 11 verse one:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So having Faith in God is also trusting that He will do as He promised. It took me several tries to finally get it right and I can say I put all my trust in Him. Yes, I made mistakes in life and my parents and especially my grandfather made sure I made things right. I can honestly say I have been blessed to have such loving parents and to have my grandfather as my mentor.

In closing let me say this: As we go through life, remember it is God’s gift to us and let’s make sure we give Him the best we can be.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

I find it interesting when people ask what gift God has given them or wonder what gift God has given you. Actually, when you stop and think about it the answer is pretty simple.

God’s gift to us is who we are and our gift to God is who we become.

God gave us all the gift of life, then as we became Christians opened the door to many other gifts to enhance our life’s. He expects us to use these gifts wisely to show our light to others and to draw them to Him. How we do this is pretty much up to us, since He also gave us freewill, but it is our gift to Him to live our lives to the fullest while sharing His love and blessings with everyone we touch.

With all of us being blessed on a daily basis, I often wonder why there is so much turmoil in the world. If we share our love and blessings as God has asked, imagine how little turmoil that would be. Life is too short as it is, why can’t we all just love each other more and hate less?

One of grandfathers favorite statements was “The Gift Of Life is love so Love everyone you can, in all the ways that you can every day that you can. Then you live up to the gift God has given you” I think that pretty much says it all. Love is never wasted. Thats the greatest gift you can give to God!

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

I remember one day while hiking the Grand Canyon grandfather telling me “The voices of the world are loud and sparse, but the voice of God is a constant whisper.”

At nine years old I never gave it much thought as I loved walking in the canyon and the woods listening to nature tell me it’s story. Little did I know that voice was God leading me along my path. His guidance through that soft whisper, constantly encouraging me and gently scolding me when I chose a different direction, but always ready to lead me back to the correct path.

A few years later when grandfather passed his words came back to me as a reminder that I should be in constant conversation with God and always listening for His response as He whispers in my ear. I am, for the most part, in continuous prayer or conversation with God and lean on Him for just about everything.

Saying that brings back another favorite phrase of grandfathers. “Don’t trust to hold God’s hand; let Him hold yours. Let Him do the holding, and you the trusting.” He always reminded me to turn things over to God and to let Him handle it. We often find ourselves turning things over to God, just to take them back to try a different approach. How much easier it is to trust Him to handle things while He is holding our hand.

Prayer is a personal conversation with God and God as my closest friend is always there to offer guidance and comfort. My prayer is for His will to be done and His grace to bless us all. His answer always brings me comfort. As I strive to follow His lead, which I sometimes fail, He continues to bless and encourage me.

I think we are totally blessed in spite of ourselves and need to be thankful for the blessings He gives us everyday for I really think we take them for granted.

I wonder just how good life would be if we all took the time to listen to His whisper soft in our ears. I bet life would be outstanding.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

I believe that if you don’t derive a deep sense of purpose from what you do, if you don’t come radiantly alive several times a day, if you don’t feel deeply grateful at the tremendous good fortune that has been bestowed on you, then you are wasting your life. And life is too short to waste.

One of my favorite things to do is to go into the woods and enjoy the magic of nature. Everyday nature wakes up and surprises us with something wonderful, something beautiful and something magic life in its fullest. I often wonder why people can’t do the same.

I’ve written before about how we all seem to live in our own world and by sharing our world with others as they share theirs with us our world’s grow bigger and hopefully better. Life is a growing experience and our sharing, with love, makes the experience so much better.

I’ve watched as some look at others as inferior and tend to hold themselves in a higher plane. I have learned over the years that although we are all somewhat different, we really are all the same. Each one of us is trying to make our path through life and each of us wants to see others succeed. What is missing is the realizatiopn that in order to succeed we all need to learn from each other for without each of our worlds, the world fails. We are the world, each and everyone of us and it’s our love that makes it grow.

So how does one get that message out to everyone? We live in a very diverse world and it is this diversity that makes it as great as it. The idea that some are better than others is stupid, to say the least, for what you lack in something they just may be very strong and where they are weak, you just may be strong. We all need each other and for those who think they know it all or don’t need anyone’s help once in a while, you just need to look into a mirror and see just how ignorant you are.

Believe it or not, in spite of all the greed and discontent in the world, love still makes it worthwhile and move forward. I believe when Jesus gave us to command to love our neighbors as our self, He meant every other person in the world. It is a big command because we tend to limit our world’s to just the area we live in. There is more to life than what we see, it’s the hidden things in life that really make the difference. Until we open ourselves up to love and offer our love to others, these hidden things will remain hidden. They present themselves to us as we share our love and world’s with others.

That simple greeting and a smile goes a long way in making someone’s day a bit brighter. It will also make your day better too.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Gift Of Life…

There are certain givens in life that everyone experiences. For example someone will say or do something that really upsets you or you will say or do something that really upsets someone. On the other hand the complete opposite will happen and everyone is happy. There will be days when you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, bringing you down and then there will be days when you feel light as air and life is at its best. This is life and we all experience it everyday.

What makes this special is how we handle these ups and downs in our world. I say handle because these obstacles or plusses happen for a reason and that reason is a lesson we need to learn. As you know I don’t believe in coincidences, but maintain everything and every person that crosses our path is for a reason. That reason could be because there is a gift hidden there for you or you have a gift to share.

Life is a gift! Everyday of our life we are given gifts or blessing we are to share with each other to make life lighter and brighter. That smile you share with a stranger might just make his or her day. That kind greeting of good morning or hello to that clerk at the checkout counter may be a blessing needed to lift their spirit.

In this same approach, how we look at the negative experiences in our life could make the same difference to us. When we look for what lesson is hidden inside, we just may find the blessing God has for this day. On the other hand if we decide the world is pushing down on us we may lose that blessing and lesson. That blessing could be something you need to share with the next person that crosses your path.

In other words, life is just how we accept it. We can look for the blessings or we can choose to let it overwhelm us. Life is not a bed of roses, we all know that, but we hold the reins and can make the best or worse of it. I choose the positive and look to share the blessings with all. I know what love I share makes someone’s life better, which in turn blesses me to make mine better.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed