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Rashional Thoughts: Taking time to recenter provides clear eyes, full heart, refreshed spirit

  • April 19, 2022
  • Jennifer Davis Rash
  • Editorials, Latest News, Opinion, Rashional Thoughts
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Rashional Thoughts: Taking time to recenter provides clear eyes, full heart, refreshed spirit

Ahhhhh, do you sense it too? The refreshing, life-giving reset and recentering of our souls coming out of Easter weekend. Lungs filled with deep breaths and eyes clearly seeing the possibilities ahead.

A boost of energy and settled heart ready to put itself out there again. Confidence to face the heaviness from this world another day.

Easter is a time when all creation acknowledges the risen Savior, and while some may not realize it or intend to do so, every aspect of the season points to Him.

Emerging from Easter-related activities also provides an opportunity for those of us who are believers to refocus our eyes on Him beyond the celebratory Resurrection Sunday sunrise services, special musicals, spring outfits and dogwood blossoms.

Grasping the magnitude and reality of what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us on the cross surely changes everything for us. He deserves our full focus and complete surrender.

No matter what we’ve done, where we’ve been or who others say we are, Jesus is ready to wipe our slate clean and scoop us up in His arms, arms with a reach so massive no one is too far away.

Life will still be difficult in seasons and the brokenness of this world will always leave points of pain in and around us, but walking the journey with our Lord is the only way that makes sense to me.

Strength, wisdom and more

He provides the strength we need to face each day and offers wisdom, grace, peace, mercy, love and hope. All we have to do is reach for it and trust Him.

I’m not sure why we sometimes make it seem so hard to come to Jesus, and I’m always astounded at how easy it is to take my eyes off Him.

It’s also interesting to me how much time we spend evaluating each other’s commitment to Christ rather than keeping intense watch over our own hearts and seeking every opportunity possible to share with those who don’t know Him.

We all matter; we all have value. The Lord died for all of us, and we are called to be His image bearers, to represent Him as we ebb and flow through our daily lives.

Scripture is clear that our top priority is to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength (see Matt. 22, Mark 12, Luke 10 and Deut. 6). From there, all other aspects of our faith journey will flow naturally.

We won’t have to stress ourselves out determining when to do what, attempting to find humility in all things and learning to love those we don’t like so much because we trust the Lord to work in us and through us.

His light will shine through us and the world will only be able to see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, as described in Galatians 5.

What is the Lord impressing on your heart today?

Romans 8:31–39

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

He Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all — how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died — more than that, Who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written: “For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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