Thou Shalt Be…….

And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

Its been raining most of the day around here, quite a bit in fact. Silage is almost done, maybe four or five loads to go and I don’t know when that’ll happen with this rain we have now, but that’s not a worry at all with all we have made so far. Great plenty, thank you Lord! Last night was church and I was in Children’s Church and was almost done and low and behold my daughter comes in with the news that there’s a calf out in the ditch of the county road at home and we had to take off pronto. By the time we got home it was back in the fence with its mother. It is extremely rare that anything gets out over there so that tells me its time to pen them up and get ready for weaning which I did this morning before the heavy rains set in. Its kinda a good feeling penning them up after they are pulling those dirty deeds on me! They only seem to get out during church so I figured I’d better do something about that!

I’m a thinking about the verse above this post from the Gospel of John, first chapter. Jesus is meeting Peter, or Simon at the time.  And Jesus is looking at the man, a hotheaded fisherman and goes beyond that and sees what Simon was predestined to be from before the world began. Jesus seen Cephas, or Peter. Most of the readers here know the story and if you don’t just go to the Gospel of John and it’ll be there! What got me thinking though are parts of the verse. Like, “Thou Art…….” and “Thou Shalt Be…….”

Yup, I think about stuff like that during the day when I’m working around the place. Thou Art……  A person can fill in the lines. Who am I at this very moment? And whom shall I be?

Every person on this earth has a predestined plan for being the person he or she could be in God. And unlike some that figure that they have arrived and were chosen by God as something special above other folks that they figure God chose to go to hell, I disagree with that all the way. God wants no one to perish and the Bible clearly says so. But I don’t want to get sidetracked into religion discussing subjects like that. I will always write from the Biblical perspective of Jesus dieing on the cross for all mankind, not a chosen few. But it is up to the individual to respond to the cross. God gives freedom to accept or to deny.

Thou Shalt Be…… When we follow God, when we give it all to Him, that enables God to work in our lives to bring us to that point of who we were planned to be in God’s eyes before the world began. Kinda awesome really! I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t want to be this fella that I am on my own power cause to tell you the truth it doesn’t work out all that well. No matter what a person will fail on their own power. If I was to stay at this present state I would call that a kind of living hell. But with the “Thou Shalt Be” a person has hope! A hope that comes when pursuing the Creator of the universe. A Creator that loves each and every one of us and wishes for no man to perish. Old Jeremiah, he knew about this! In chapter 1 Jeremiah wrote:

⁴ Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying:
⁵ “ Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
⁶ Then said I:
“ Ah, Lord GOD!
Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.”
⁷ But the LORD said to me:
“ Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’
For you shall go to all to whom I send you,
And whatever I command you, you shall speak.
⁸ Do not be afraid of their faces,
For I am with you to deliver you,” says the LORD.

Now I don’t know about any body else but this is some good stuff! On this rainy night I’m dwelling on this, dwelling allot. God wants us to be all we can be in His plan! Anything else is way, way below the perfect plan He has for our lives. Now when the Creator of the Universe has a plan for a person I think its a good thing to grab a hold of it, to follow it because anything else will be far below what He has for us! Going back a few weeks ago to going after God’s own heart like David did, when we go after the Heart of God He responds, always!

God is not some mean thing always ready to punish us when we screw up such as much of religion tries to tell us in their gloom and doom way. God loves us, and will do the impossible to pull us out of hell fire! When we brush the man made traditions out of the way, like David did, and go after God, things happen! This is what God wants and I can safely say that He isn’t all that impressed with our church going and such if its just a dry religion. He wants folks to come after Him with everything they got!

Farming is different than many ways of life. There’s allot of time to think, to talk to God day in and day out. When it comes to public prayer I fall way short but just let me have my days in the field or with the animals and I can honestly tell you the conversations with God go a long time. They take up many,many hours of the day. That’s probably why I write things such as I do, from communing with God during the day on the farm, to writing, or at least attempting to write some of it on slow evenings.

And I wonder, I’ve wondered allot these past couple of days since these verses came to mind from the Gospel of John. “Thou Shalt Be…..” What is in store for a person that will just follow God’s Heart?  The bridge between “Thou Art” and “Thou Shalt Be” is Jesus! Oh Lord, this is good, very good. Just let this simple concept sink in!