The 500th Post

Josiah and I sat at a small table in a cove just to the left of the Greenbrier Café.  It was much too cold on this early spring day to be outside, but we could still peer out into the courtyard in anticipation of what was to come.  I was sipping on a cup of buttercream flavored coffee as our conversation turned from our daily lives to missions.  At the time our family was preparing for a move to Mexico, and Josiah was gently insisting that I launch a website that featured a regular blog post.  He dubbed it “Ken’s Live Journal”, and now ten years later to my surprise, I’m posting its 500^th entry. 

The first post was a dedication to the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ.  I have tried to maintain that focus through the years while being as real as possible about my own spiritual journey.  Hopefully it has shown through that Christ is the centrality of life to which all else is peripheral.  Sometimes it has been straight forward and at other times nuanced; sometimes intentional and other times unwittingly; sometimes seriously and other times light-heartedly. 

The idea is summed up in the Christ Coming into View from 2012: “Christ is our life in the best of times and in the worst of times.  In the best of times we tend to think of it in terms of joy, vibrancy, fullness and aliveness.  In the worst of times these are not diminished, but undergo a metamorphosis into hope, rest, peace and assurance.  It is two sides of the same coin, both are abundant.”    

As I read back through these posts I find myself often thinking, “I can’t believe I wrote that” – either by embarrassment or by intrigue.  It’s interesting to see how what I was so passionate about just a few years before has changed or how growth has given a distinctively different perspective.  I guess that’s one good reason for writing if nothing else.  It lets us see where we’ve been and how far we have come.  It is definitely a huge flashing neon billboard of God’s grace in our lives. 

                                 

Thanks to all of you who have endured and even found it in your good natured soul to encourage.  It means the world to me, not so much that you have read but that our relationship has grown.  You are friends of the first rate kind.