Inheritance @ MindSay 
Wonderful, amazing truths, ones I’m still trying to wrap my brain and faith around.
However, there is more to being a son or daughter of God than what we inherit. It has to do with how we behave.
Don’t you love it when the Bible reads you? That’s what happened to me (again!) the other day, when I came across this teaching from Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers,what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Oh, yes, I want to be a son of God! Do I want to love my enemies? Uh, not particularly. Have you ever been betrayed by someone? If you have, and I would think that almost all adults have, you know the struggle. Struggle or not, however, we’re to pray for those, bless those, who have done us wrong.
Lord Jesus, help me obey this command. And bless those who betrayed me.
Yesterday’s post concerned a question that I’ve been asking the Lord lately: What does it mean to be a son or daughter of God? Somehow, when believers are born a second time, they literally, actually inherit the spiritual DNA of their heavenly Father. This is an amazing truth, and one I’m still thinking about, wondering what that means concerning practical spiritual life.
Inheritance is a biblical idea. Peter tells us that there is an inheritance reserved in heaven for followers of Jesus, one that won’t perish or fade away. Again, I’m not sure all of what that means.
But consider this. After we had returned from Israel, we stayed for awhile with Laurie’s dad. One morning, I’d gotten up to pray and eat breakfast as the sun was rising. I said, “Lord, Your sun is so beautiful, so amazing.” Immediately there was one sentence in my head, which surprised me: “Our sun.”
I’ve been chewing on this statement now, for around three years, wondering if it was God I was hearing and if it was biblical. I believe it was. Here’s why. Obviously, I had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of the sun, nor does any human being. This is a truth that is patently clear. Do claim otherwise, I would be establishing that I was delusional. But here was the Father telling me—telling those of us who are believers—that we, somehow, share in His creation, without having had anything whatsoever to do with it. This is stunning. Profound.
And, yes, biblical. John says this in the book of Revelation: “He that overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”
This is exactly like the salvation that we’ve been given. We had nothing to do with it, the Bible tells us. Even the faith to believe comes from Him.
These are exciting ideas. However, the one that I’ll post about tomorrow is, well, a little more arduous, at first, than exciting.
All children receive an inheritance from their parents. Much of the time, that inheritance has to do with some degree of wealth, whether large or small. Where physical wealth is lacking, an inheritance may be solely sentimental in character—perhaps only a memory. Some children are left with an inheritance that contains neither wealth nor sentiment. The relationship with one or both of their parents was dysfunctional or entirely lacking. All children, however, regardless of wealth or relationship, receive a genetic inheritance. They are the offspring of a man and a woman, regardless of circumstances.
The Bible tells us that all those who have given their lives to Jesus the Messiah become children of God. They become, astoundingly, the spiritual genetic offspring of our Father. What does this mean?
I’m not exactly certain.
Just before we left Israel, I was telling the Lord that I was concerned because I was returning to the States, where I had no current prospects for employment and—I was fifty-six years old. While I was praying this, He spoke to me. Now for a brief digression. When I say, “He spoke to me,” I don’t mean that I heard a voice with my ears. I haven’t ever heard the voice of God with my ears, although there are some who have made such a claim. He spoke in my spirit. And this “speaking” doesn’t happen, in my life, at least, on any kind of consistent or frequent basis. Oh, I may have a sense or what we call a “leading” with more frequency, but clear, out-of-the-blue words—infrequently.
This was one of those times. He said—and this is a paraphrase, because when the Lord speaks, He says in a moment what takes us many minutes to explain—“Just as your physical, earthly father took care of you, I will take care of you.” But there was more to it than that. With that statement, came an implicit question: “If your earthly father took care of you, what makes you think that I (and that is a fully loaded “I”) wouldn’t take care of you?
There was nothing I could say, which is almost always the case when God speaks. There is little room for refutation. He always and only speaks the truth.
The Lord had, by His Spirit, made a truth real to me that is part of standard Christian doctrine: Believers are, by faith in Jesus Christ, sons and daughters of God. But what does this mean, exactly?
More in part two, tomorrow.
Yes! I do have two sons! Here is a photo that was taken in the Summer of 1991 by my father. From left to right, Ian age 3, Tom, (thirty something) and James age 5. Mungalls all! Ian is wearing a kilt in the Royal Stewart Tartan, Tom is wearing the Stirling and Bannockburn District Tartan and Jamie is wearing the MacBeth Tartan. My parents painted a large oil painting portrait from this photo that summer which now hangs in my office.
CuldeeDeacon †
Friday:
After getting out of school, I went home, did some chores and showered. I met Olivia and Kimmi at Olivia's house shortly after 5 (I had to go home because I forgot my ticket to the soccer game in my history book, which proceeded to fall to pieces when I shook it to get the damn thing out) and we went to FOD. For those of you who don't know, FOD stands for Fair Oaks Deli. It ranks up there with Rims and Mr. Pickles. Or so I think, I haven't been to Pickles. Anyway. Shannon met us there and after eating, we went to the soccer game in folsom. It wasn't at the high school, it was a couple blocks away at Kemp Park. We got a little lost going there because I though I knew the way and accidentally took a wrong turn, but then went the right way and then got a little confused again and had my right turn signal on for awhile before I realized there was no right turn. It really looked like it though. Anyway, I finally got us there and we watched the game.
We won 2-1 I think, after coming up from behind. Speaking of behinds, the referee got in the way of Matias and didn't make an effort to get out of there, and Matias (who looks like he's about to kill someone when he plays) booted the ball pretty much as hard as he could right up the ref's ass. The field was artificial, so whenever the ball bounced, black rubber bits sprayed into the air. It was a good game overall. On the way out I hit a curb... silly me. We followed Courtney through an entirely wrong plaza to try to get to a starbucks that ended up being right next to the Round Table Pizza Alicia and gang went to. We got our drinks, talked the Round Tablers and left for the football game at the high school. It was dark about this time and while getting onto the freeway, apparently some rat sprang out of the bushes and Courtney ran it over.
The football game sucked terribly, so we left after the third because it was freezing and I couldn't feel my feet. I had, for some reason, opted to wear flip flops. We followed Kainoa and Courtney to Mel's. At one point, we were passing up Courtney and Olivia stuck herself out the window and rowed like she was in a boat. A speedy boat. Our group at Mel's consisted of Chrissy, Kainoa, Mia, Me, Olivia, Kimmi and Courtney. I may be forgetting someone. Jake Milusnic and Matias joined us later. We ate and such and left to get Ana at the dance. Dropped Kimmi at home and went to Olivia's where Kainoa soon joined us and then left. Then Marc and Robbie came. And here's where it gets interesting.
We decided to go to WinCo (which is apparently back in folsom) for some cheap tp. So we took the highway and they were egging me on, so I managed to hit 110 I think before we needed to exit. We actually went one exit further just so we could push it. At WinCo, Ana shoved Olivia + cart into a stack of boxes and I searched fruitlessly for marshmallows. Upon leaving, I thought we were giong back to Olivia's, so I turned onto Winding Way. Bad Idea. If only we had just gone straight to Emily's (to tp).
Well, I was zipping through Winding Way, speeding along quite quickly. We get to the big turn. That's what I call it. It's the one where I fishtailed going downhill on it once. Well, we were headed uphill, which involves a left turn and then en even tighter left halfway through the first. Took it at 60ish. Very bad. I discovered tonight that the speed limit sign was knocked flat to the ground though, so could you really blame me? Anyway, the car felt like it was going to tip and, well, I guess you just can't do that turn at 60. Or even 50 for that matter. We ended up hitting the guardrail on the right side. Yea... pretty bad. We stopped and got out and looked, and it wasn't promising. The scary thing is, Robbie was on the left side of the car and he had his hand out the window and he told Olivia to do the same. If she had, she would not have a whole hand right now.
We were all fine and we just decided to skip TPing. We tried to sleep on the concrete outside, but thought we saw a snake, so we went in. We washed a lot of the dusty stripe from the rail off the car and were left with some dents and paint chips gone along the right. The passenger door opens with a sick crunching pop.
Saturday:
When I got home, I waited until my dad came out of the shower and then broke the news. They were not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. Marc had said it wouldn't be more than $500, my dad took a look and said 3-4000. All in all, I was told I'm not allowed to do any "social driving" for awhile. That doesn't mean w/o other people, as they still do not know about that, and never will. It just means no football games or shit.
I spent the rest of Saturday feeling bad about it all and reading a book I got at Barnes and Noble. It's called "Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales from a Pretend Adulthood." It's the sequel to Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life." by Laurie Notaro. I highly suggest that first one. New York Times bestseller, that one is.
Sunday:
Slept, ate, newspapered... looked up colleges in the Fiske guide... bleh.
Showered w/o washing my hair, went to softball practice, whereupon I almost died. I had to just stop at one point because I was so tired. We had done the killer drill and Art had us moving all around the outfield doing a relay thing, in which I accidentally put all of my energy into making perfect throws the first time, and pretty much just wasted all there was. I was pathetic. I also left my water in the car like an idiot. I hit good though. My hitting has been great.
I went home and my mom took my dad to the airport, so I finally got some home alone time. The first a month. At least. I spent it eating some Drumstick Sundae flavored ice cream. It has pieces of cone and peanut covered in chocolate in it. That night was the first time I washed my hair since Friday morning.
Monday:
Math test. Didn't know the first half would be w/o the calculator (which, by the way has recently been the recipient of some games) (but now Hunter doesn't work and that was the best one on there). So I did pretty shitty on that half. But I totally passed up all these people who started the second half like 5-10 minutes before me. What can I say? I'm a fast test-taker when I think I know my shit.
We had a quiz in film and watched a silent movie called The Gold Rush. I almost fell asleep, but wanted to watch it so bad I managed to stay awake. That just made it worse in English when we read The Crucible out loud using the staged play format. Sucked. Spanish sucked. We played battleship, our teacher's most favorite game. Me and my partner blew a lead and lost. Chemistry was not freezing for once. History was a huge waste of time.
At 3, we had an appointment at Ground Zero Body Repair getting an..... Estimate! Taadaaaa! They said they're just going to completely replace all of the parts on the right side of the car, including the front and rear bumpers... stupid wraparound design. As for the cost *cue Price is Right music*: Marc said 500, my dad said 4,000, but the real price of that repair IS......... $7500!!!. My grandmother loves price is right. Did I mention that she broke her hip? She was going down basement stairs backwards with a bag of salt or something. Grandma.... she's last one of her kind in my family. I'm all out of grandparents except for her. Too bad the family is Italian and big-ish. I always hoped for a good inheritance. Maybe a ghetto-fab grandma buick or something.
Yea so... I guess my insurance payments will be going up? Sucks ass. Not getting a ticket was so drilled into my mind that I didn't even remember people had single car accidents. My dad was like a ticket would only be $75! Or more, as Neil can assure. My dad had told me if I got a ticket, I wasn't driving again until I was 24 and insurance costs first started to drop. Oh well?
So that concludes my oh so adventurous weekend.
Current Music: Touchdown Turnaround - Hellogoodbye
P.S. I originally wanted to title this: A Guardrail Saved My Life Tonight, but I thought it was too revealing. Kind of like those white shorts I wore today.
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