Results

The outcome of a story is not always predictable.  It may, or may not, be comfortable, reassuring, or neutral.  Results are just that, results.  I do not find they have any particular agenda, except in the eyes of their beholder.  I cannot see how there is a statement included, except as we understand what came before in leading to what is now.  I fail to find a bias; results touch the rich as easily as they do the poor, the powerful as quickly as they do the weak, and the manipulators as well as those simply going with the flow.  The only different in results is how one looks at them, experiences them, and chooses to live in the context of their birth.  Results pivot by the experiential filters we place between them and us. 
 
It is in the last statement that everything changes.  I find myself reflecting on what I missed.  I know I looked at results through fear.  As a result, I only saw what I wanted to see.  I understand I have placed my agenda in front of the outcome.  As a result, I only found what I wanted to find.  I sense my fears have prevented me from a full understanding of the lessons and insights resting on the table.  As a result, I am poorer for my fears.
 
This was of looking at results come to a particular focus when it comes to God.  I am reluctant to believe and accept the way God engages in my life and others.  When I hear God’s voice reminding me how “your enemies, crazed and desperate, will turn on themselves, killing each other in a frenzy of self-destruction.  Then everyone will know that I, God, have saved you—I, the Mighty One of Jacob.”  (Isaiah 49.23)  I find myself trembling because this means something, changes everything.
 
Having fears, struggling with agendas, and using the senses in limited ways come with being alive.  Yet it is in handing each over to the Spirit that opens the door to being fully, completely, and wonderfully alive, today.