Behold & Engage

What I have learned in life is that you can become opened to an idea and take a wee little bit from it. Then as you go along, you might find it keeps popping up and you get the joy of acquiring more from that topic, like a building snowball rolling down a mountain. Or as I like to think of it,  connecting dots and creating constellations in your brain.

You don't start off with too many dots and therefore aren't seeing too many pictures, or constellations. Maybe things don't make sense. But after awhile you find you have a few stored away and they just keep growing. I mean, COME ON! I am with a 3 year old day in and day out and am constantly amazed at what he knows! He's got a lot connected up in that brain of his, but he has got a lot more to learn! As do I.

So, when I had the words Behold & Engage a couple years ago for my New Year's theme, I posted it in my house and I walked past it every day. Sometimes I thought about those words and what to do with them, but most of the time I didn't think much on them.

Until, this year!

Funny how they were flung back into my brain. Actually I found the poster I made in our shed the other day, and then I came across this article. The wheels were turning.

Behold........... the Lamb of God.
Who is the Lamb of God?
What did He do?
Why did He do it?
How did things go for Him? How did people respond? How's could go on and on...


Engage.......... in what God engages in.
Be about His business.
 Love what He loves. Hate what He hates. Look to Him as my example.

Then go engage in the world where He has placed me. And repeat as well as I can, by the grace He so willingly gives. 

Behold & Engage has grown to mean more to me than it did two years ago.  I understand it more because I have spent more time with those words, contemplating what they mean and what to do with them.

More dots have been connected. I see more pictures. I am reminded I have far to go, but have come a long way, also.

I humbly behold and humbly engage. Any other way and it won't be like Christ. It won't get the desired results, which is love and relationship. Let's be honest here; I struggle. I'm a sinner saved by grace that is still being saved and sanctified daily. I don't always get it right. I'm sorry for that. But I (we!) must keep going.

So, in a nutshell, I behold Christ by spending time with Him, reading His holy scriptures, praying, asking, repenting, praising. 

Then I engage with the world around me every morning when I wake up and see happy little people excitedly sharing their dreams and thoughts, and every time I go to the store for yet another bunch of bananas. And even at church with fellow believers.   You get the idea.

I must be careful what I behold because it will effect the way I engage. Filling my mind with Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, will shape my thoughts in a way that I can share Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. 

And vice versa with Lies, Ugliness, and Harshness.  

May we all choose rightly, what and how, we Behold & Engage.