To Walk With...

I think on the poem by Dylan Thomas, 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'. When I was young I felt like I was fighting everything. As if I could never 'Go Gentle...into anything. The adults in my life did not have answers to many questions...at least not very good answers. They apparently were still fighting through their own set of problems. I sought for answers, and observing the problems the adults were having, I thought, there just has to be a better way.

When I found Christ and His Way, it was still a fight. There were some right things I had been taught as a young person, but now I had to try to sift through those things in light of what my Saviour taught through the scriptures. And now, I was the adult...according to the world's standards. And according to even my own ideas, I was supposed to have the answers and raise my own children, and yet it was still a fight.

As I draw nearer to the end of life my perspective changes with time. I do have the answers as it says in 2Peter 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us...'all things that pertain unto life and godliness'...through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

The irony is that it is still a sifting. It is still a fight. There is so much dross in our lives today that there is a constant barrage of things that MUST be thrown away.

2Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

It SHOULD come easier as we grow older to throw away those things and escape the 'corruption that is in the world...', but alas, and I say this with a sigh, the 'lust' may change, but there is still the fight to distinguish the dross from the gold.

Yes, even growing older is still a 'growing' and 2Peter 1:5-8 exhorts us: And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6) And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7) And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 8) For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, I have spent a life time trying to grow in this manner, yet it still is a fight, because like a little girl playing dress up in her mother's dress, trying to hold up the skirt seems like an un-do-able task. I get one thing where I want it, and something else slips to the floor.

However, even as I think on the past, present, and future I sense a change. Maybe even a hope. 1Timothy 6:12 says: Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life...,

What I want--as I near the end--is to be able to say with the Apostle Paul in 2Timothy 4:6&7: For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7) I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith...

2Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

-- I want to be able to say, yes, I can go gentle. I want to be able to walk with a peaceful heart...into that good night-

Hallelujah! What a Savior!