Scrambled or poached?

I was delightfully surprised this week by a long-time mentor. Things have been transitional around here for a while now......I guess that's an obvious concept, since change is inevitable, but the family has been on a journey that feels a bit like the old childhood game of blind man's bluff.

At any rate, I'd spent some road time walking and praying this week between bouts of rain, anda couple of the specific things I'd been talking over with God were purpose and direction. Truthfully, I was asking for a bit of a pulse check.....you know, one of those prayers where you know God's got it all going on, but you're not quite sure you're tuned to the right frequency? I'd been feeling that I had run into the same dead end several times over and was asking for fresh vision to see my way over or around the hurdle.

Honestly? My spiritual life had reached a point of defiance dressed up to look like caution and careful thinking. Instead of "running the race that was set before me", I was operating much like I do when I try to humor one of my sons by playing Viva Pinata......spinning in circles, headed in the wrong direction, madly mashing buttons on the video controller. In other words, in the game but going nowhere.

So, God, in His crazy way, chose to show up in the form of a phone call with a much respected mentor that I had never met. I was encouraged, challenged and able to process a lot of things during that phone call----enough to fill several blog posts on a variety of subjects that had been rolling around in my mind. Abba surprised me with a conversation that literally walked through the laundry list of some key things I'd been wrestling with. With all respect to my mentor ( and friend!!) I'm not sure he even realizes how much he was used by God yesterday morning.

What, you may be asking yourself, does this have to do with eggs---as implied in the title of this confusing post? Everything, really. My mentor reminded me of a significant thread in the movie Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It seems that each of the unfortunate suitors who'd been left at the altar all had one thing in common---they knew that "she was the one" because she liked her eggs the same way they liked theirs. Poached....scrambled.....over easy.......soft-boiled......in all honesty, the girl wasn't lying. I'm sure she did like her eggs the same way they did. The reporter covering the story unlocked the unlikely source of her inability to commit, stating , "The problem is, you don't know how you like your eggs!"

Fast forward to the final scene, where we find our conflicted protagonist surrounded by plate after plate of eggs, prepared every way imaginable. We hear her make her proposal to the reporter who solved the problem---because she took the time to find out who she was---to discover exactly how she liked her eggs ( benedict, I believe).

That said to say this---I need to find out how I like my eggs, and so do you!! As the bride of Christ, I don't want to run away from the altar anymore. I want to run, but in the right direction because I understand the way I'm made well enough to run with purpose. I want to run, with abandon, on the course that's marked out for me, instead of in blindfolded circles because I'm too afraid and cautious to crack a few eggs in order to find out who I'm meant to be.

Do you see what this means---all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running--- and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished the race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed--that exhilarating finish in and with God--he could put up with anything along the way; cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faity, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

Hebrews 12:1-3