Growing Up in the New Year

Happy new year!!!

For the first time ever, I have really been very happy throughout this first day of 2006.
Last night, spent a beautiful time at a friend's house. We talked till 5am.. of things that were hilarious and trivial, profound and lovely.

One thing i had asked my learned friends about was the odd juxtaposition of
Matthew 7:6 - 11
6 "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 "Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 "Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!'

What was with the swine and the asking? What meaning lay behind this often (tritely) quoted verse on receiving good stuff?

R elucidated that it meant giving the living, precious truth of God. Dogs and swine would not understand it, would even turn hostile.

Jesus must have been damn frus when He said that to His bunch of perpetually confused disciples and the ever-condescending Pharisees.

But the verse on asking would be a redemption of the dogs and swine. If anyone would truly ask for truth, he/she would receive it.

And from whom, and for what purpose?
From a God who is good, overflowing. Bread and fish, like what Jesus had multiplied for the multitudes, for survival.

And it boiled down to this - that the living truth of God is not meant for us to analyse and showcase in pretty glass packages, It is bread and fish. Simply for survival.
And to get it, I need to realise that i have been as dogs and swine before. i need to be desperate enough for truth to ask and seek and knock. To be desperate enough to know that my soul is slowly starving without this bread and fish.

B talked about the 'luxury truths' of God versus the plain, bread truth. Showcase vs sustenance.
I am desperate for it. Blind, naked and wrteched.

This morning, during service, the choir sang a very simple song (Glory to the Lamb). i was so overwhelmed by thankfulness at how God has seen me through this year. More than seen through, He has blessed me immeasurably.

I need to grow up, to see the truth in my relationships, to face the truth, and bind grace with that living truth. To stop being a narcissist who only sees how others have/may hurt me.
So that's my resolution - to grow up.


The verse I received for 2006 :
1 Corinthians 13:4 - 6
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails..