Pursue All You Were Created To Be

By Peter Lundell –

To my daughter—and every child, however young or old.

When I first got you, I held you and sang. You filled a hole in my heart. When Mom and I took you to kindergarten, you and your classmates walked like little ducks behind your beloved teacher. And I often thought, Someday I’ll sit in a grandstand and watch you graduate from high school. On that day I will NOT wonder, “Where did the time go?” I determined that I would be part of your life and share it as much as I could.

And here I am.

Was I more successful or less? Through the years with you I’ve known joy and sadness. And that’s okay because one is incomplete without the other. If I could do things over again, I’d do them the same way. Perhaps that’s as good a definition of success as I can ask.

So pursue all you were created to be. You were not created to be a cog in a vast machine. No one is. Possessions and positions will claim they’re important. Entertainment will claim it’s worthwhile. Others will expect you to do things their way. I pray you see through that.

You have a life to fulfill. Someday it will end in eternity, and until then the two will intersect—every day if you’re looking. God has His hand on you. I have prayed it be so. As you practice your life’s call, never let go of purpose and hope. He has more for you than you now know.

Soon enough you will not have me to tell you what to do. The times it’s hard to stand on your own are when you’ll learn to do just that.

The best years of your life are ahead of you. Explore every open door. And may you find your way through every jungle of emotions and tangle of thoughts.

I will be there behind you.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9 NIV).

“Lord, my life is in your hands. Work in me to keep me from the maze of things I shouldn’t do. And keep me on the path of what I should.”

To my Friend

By Peter Lundell –

The one you loved has gone, slipped into another world that most of us anticipate yet oddly avoid until we have no choice. But you have taught us that either way we’re in God’s hands.

You and I live by the words we speak and write, yet her last squeeze of your hand went without them. In the face of eternity, it seems that all of life is irony.

Many days have now passed. Friends and family have held you well. God has held you. After the condolences and final good-byes, after we’ve gone home and hung up the phone, when the room is quiet, are you alone? Or does her scent linger in the closet, her shadow smile from a chair? Does the other half of the bed feel like a wilderness, or does her memory snuggle like a warm blanket?

Do you hear her voice echo in your inner ear? Do you embrace her in your heart? A memory can tenaciously defy a world that goes on without the one we have loved.

When the joy of a memory competes with the sadness of an event, which one wins? Surely memories themselves are real. How else could they reach past death to hold hands with hope and choose to look forward and smile?

Perhaps you feel God’s strength more than before––because you have to. Are the solitary footprints behind you your own or those of Jesus? Or are they somehow the same?

Someday you will go too. Another day will take me. And every last one of us. What matters is how we live until then. Tears in this life are brief, and we have all eternity to party. Until then we run our race and fulfill our purpose. We do not fear life. We do not fear death. Because we are in God’s hands.

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30 NIV).

“Lord, teach me to always remember that my life is in Your Hands. In good times. In bad times. You are not only there; I am in Your hands, and no one can snatch me out of them.”

My Misspelled Birth Certificate

By Peter Lundell –

The nurse who recorded my birth couldn’t spell. So am I who I think I am?

There on my life-long-till-the-day-I-die-permanent birth certificate, my middle name is misspelled. And crossed out, with the right spelling squeezed above. What if no one caught that? I’d have gone around all my life with the wrong middle name—or endured a tedious court process to change it.

This person also misspelled my dad’s occupation as “Reverand.” It’s Reverend. And it isn’t even an occupation, it’s a title. My dad was a missionary. Humph.

More dangerous than clueless people who mistake identities are those who damage others and destroy their identities. And sometimes we ourselves might damage others without intending or realizing it.

Kids get hurt. And sometimes they get hurt by adults who act like monsters. The child’s identity gets scarred, or twisted, or crushed. And from the damage often grows a scarred, twisted, or crushed adult. Too often these people live dysfunctional lives and may in turn hurt others. I see these things all the time.

It’s as if someone messed up the person’s birth certificate. God’s intended identity for that person got replaced by a false, destructive one. The false, warped image needs to be changed. That’s what happens in inner healing—and in salvation, spiritual growth, freedom from bondage, and growing into the image of Christ.

To treat the life of faith as boring or legalistic is completely against who Jesus is and what he came for. He came to set us free from the consequences of sin—both our own and others’—and he frees us to become the person God originally intended.

How has God freed you to become a new person?

Or how do you still need to be set free?

“Lord, You are the healer of my body and my heart. I lay aside my fear and pride, open my heart, and say do what only You can do in me. Clean me and restore me into the image you intended….”

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18 NIV).

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3 NIV).

Not 89

By Peter Lundell –

“THIS IS NOT 89” read the sign. Huh? What kind of sign is that?

I was driving with my wife on Route 89, a backcountry highway in Utah. In a hick town called Panguitch, Route 89 turns east. Going straight, it becomes Route 143. We wanted to take 143, so we were fine. A mile out of town we came to this sign: “THIS IS NOT 89.” It’s the first highway sign I’ve ever seen that told me where I was not. I had to take a picture.

I could imagine some drivers blithely driving for miles through the wilderness before they realized they were on the wrong road—no doubt why the odd sign was put there in the first place.

It struck me that many people live their lives that way. Including me.

We go along in life, at school or work, professional or home life, and we don’t realize that the road curved. We don’t grasp that the world changed or we changed or that God has something new for us.

We can find ourselves lost in discouragement when we don’t pay attention to where our path has been taking us. Or maybe we just need to get off what we’re doing and change.

“This is not 89” signs are good for us. They may come as the slap of a sudden realization. They may be a gradual waking up to a new reality. They may hit as a major problem or loss.

They usually come because we were going the wrong way in the first place. Or maybe it’s just time to grow. So be thankful. They’re usually what it takes to motivate us enough to change.

Have you had—or do you have—“This is not 89” signs in your life?

“Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell” (Psalm 43:3 NIV).

“Lord, send me the signs I need to walk the road You are leading me on. Whatever those signs may be, I choose to welcome them. And to follow. . . .”

The Potential Beneath

By Peter Lundell –

I hiked Bryce Canyon and was awed while walking amidst the rock formations. Up to the edge of the canyon is a forest. And it’s flat. The canyon starts from a clear line of erosion along the edge of this forest. With an average of 200 days of freezing and thawing per year, it forms astonishing sculptures out of Dakota Sandstone.

All along its edge is that flat forest. Given enough time, the canyon will continue to widen where the forest now stands. The earth underneath the forest is the same as that in the canyon, but it’s still underground. As the trees erode or burn away, freezing and thawing water and ice will push chunks of rock apart to continually form new sculptures.

That whole forest has the potential to—and given enough time will—form these amazing features.

We often think of potential as something we strive to achieve. Bryce Canyon gives us the image that potential is underground, continually waiting to be uncovered. Our potential as people lies deep inside us, buried below social expectations, busyness, perhaps fear, and maybe laziness. That’s been true in me. It may be truer in you than you’d like to admit.

Could each of us be like Bryce Canyon? Like the flat forest, we may live a normal life and be little different from others. But dig away, patiently, for years, our whole life. What uniqueness or abilities or actions would we find?

I think most of us tend to give up too easily, or we get distracted, or burdened with the rest of life. I often have. Then I start in again. Focus! I shout at myself.

What’s buried beneath your surface? How has God uniquely created you?

And what are you willing to do in order to bring it out?

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV).

“Lord, You know who I am better than I do. Work in me and lead me to erode away all that obscures and hinders what you would do with my life. I commit to fulfill my potential in Your hands.”

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