The threads of our lives.

We’re weaving a story, all of us, and much of how that picture appears will be the result of the choices we make, the threads we return to time and again to weave into our tapestry. Paul speaks in Colossians 1 of three threads: suffering, glory, and labor. Each of these 3 threads have a long and rich history as primary colors in the economy of God.

But why stop there? Each of us has habits to which we return regularly, and these habits are shaping us powerfully. Are you eating trash on a regular basis or seven servings of fruits and vegetables per day? Are you exercising or sitting around watching TV? Are you serving others or disengaging? Are you meeting Christ in the Bible, or fellowship, or creation, on a regular basis?

I have a little sheet at my desk that reminds me of five or six threads that I need to be consistently weaving into my fabric. Taken together, these things address emotion, mind, body, spirit, relationships. I find it helpful to name those threads and seek to stay at the loom, and continue to draw from those threads regularly, because without that intentionality, I tend to pick up anything within reach. The result of that kind of living, for me anyway, is that my tapestry becomes jumbled, random, ill defined. And worse, I become exhausted.

We need to work hard at keeping the tapestry vision before us. We’ll surely fail, all of us, sometimes for moments, and sometimes for months. But hopefully we’ll always have a benchmark to which we may return. What are kinds of threads are you weaving:

1. to open your spirit to God’s revelation?
2. to open your heart to relationships?
3. to open your body to cleansing, strength, rest?
4. to open your life to courage, beauty, celebration?

Paul doesn’t appeal to weaving, but he’s really saying the same thing here. And here. Transformation doesn’t happen accidentally!