Tag Archives: Devotional

In the First Light

Posted on by under The Edison Project Blog

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Whether turning points or new starts, I’m beginning to understand that it is more about the perspective we bring to a given moment that allows us to see our lives anew.  For me, this is one of the most redeeming virtues of Christianity; that we are baptized again and again in our faith journey.

My wife and I are constantly searching for ways to convey the power of this season through traditions.  True, they cannot grasp the full message of Christmas.  What they can understand is that each and every year, as a family, we gather around certain occasions to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ.  This past weekend, there were two such events which, in tandem, speak powerfully to me and have provided this urge to write.

First, as a reward for their consistent good behavior over the Thanksgiving Holiday Tour we took, we treated our two older children to “The Star”. An animated movie from taken from the perspective of Boaz, or “Bo”, the donkey in the manger scene of the Nativity; “The Star” was a crash course of the events that lead to the birth of Christ in Bethlehem for my children. Startlingly accurate for a meeting of Hollywood and Christianity, “The Star” was an excellent choice to reign in Advent Season.  It featured, among other things, an amazing soundtrack, among its tracks a copious amount of my favorite songs.  As the music played and the video rolled, my mind’s eye was busy envisioning moments around our Christmas tree as a kid, at holiday parties with friends and family, warmed by the assurance God’s birth provided for me.  I can still close my eyes and see myself on a plush lounge chair, enshrouded in a blanket, warmed by hot chocolate in hand, held in the golden light of the Christmas tree as my father’s music collection melodiously filled the air with words and sounds of joy.  I was inspired in that moment to collect some of those songs and play them for my children.

Second, as we strung lights and unwrapped stashed ornaments from last year’s Season, my very own playlist ebbed through the room – this time as father and curator of the soul-filling experiences to which I was so blessed to be a part.  Among my father’s favorites, and by transference and common experience, my own is the Christian A Capella group Glad.  Glad has a series of albums dedicated to Christmas.  Among them include a track called In The First Light.  This song explores the reality of Christ existing before anyone knew, aside from his parents, that He was to give His life for the salvation of man.  It juxtaposes the heavens with the earth.  It talks of a baby, not yet speaking, being the Word of God to man.  They would hate Him, it says, and in anger, they would nail Him to a tree.  The song foretells of our failures.  The song foretells of the futility of those failures in the face of Christ’s Love.  The song is beautiful.

Beyond its soothing words and rhythm, it fills me with a sense that at any moment, we can alert ourselves to Christ’s presence and begin again.  In a world where failing is constant, feared and often chastised, Jesus gives us a new deal.  One where we can attain permanent Joy and Happiness through Him.  If our collective sins were the force that drove the spike into Christ’s wounds, our Advent wonder is the Light that exudes beyond which daylight can provide.  Regardless of the nature of our crimes, Christ offers us salvation through Him.  He offers us the opportunity to begin anew; to be filled by His Love and forever be held in golden light.  What a wonderful time.

Yours in the Pursuit of Happiness,

Will O’Connor

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My Faith Journey: A Series of New Goals

Posted on by under The Edison Project Blog

Countless times in my life, I’ve chosen to leave my faith behind when confronted with a conflict between it and my lifestyle.  As a teen, as I’m sure most of us can testify to, the difficulty in fitting in balanced with preserving the integrity of my faith, I often wavered on the latter, choosing the former to be the projection of myself.  I always felt a departure from my true self whenever this would happen.  I lacked the moral fiber to intervene on my own behalf.  I posses a vivid memory – prior to meeting the woman who would one day become my wife, I was driving home from spending time with a person I very much cared for, but could not in any way convince to reciprocate those feelings.  I remember feeling as though the source of my unhappiness and my inability to court this young woman was the fact that parts of me had to be someone other than who my soul knew I was, in order to just be “around”.  I remember praying, while in my car, for God to bring to light the person with whom I could develop my true self.  That was the prayer that got me back on the road, in hindsight.  It certainly would not be the last prayer I would ask, nor that He would answer.  However, it did serve, and does still, as the perfect example of how the right prayer, when asked, is delivered.  God’s Love does not waver or diminish by our misdeeds.  It is a river ever-flowing.  All we need do is help ourselves remain along its banks.

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For each person in my life, there come with those relationships various beliefs in God and commitments to His Graces.  I was raised to focus on my own journey; to not determine the value of my relationship by the synchronization of our separate faith journeys.  For the most part, this has remained true.  I have never, nor do I still feel called as an evangelist by words.  My hope is that my life would indicate the value of allowing God into my heart, but it is by no means a pressing point for me to verbalize this towards others.  If directly asked, I bear no hesitation in offering my thoughts, but rarely, if ever, have I taken it upon myself to be the instigator of that conversation.

And so it goes that on the day of my third child’s baptism, one loved one made joking remarks to another about the consequences he might incur while in a church and still filled with sin.  It was, no doubt, intended to be a joke.  It also, no doubt, created discomfort in the man who is less frequently in a place of worship.  When I heard of the exchange, I felt pain.  Pain for the discomfort caused.  Pain for the un-Christian act of discouraging another’s faith journey.  Pain that I am in no place to evangelize either of the two.  For I am also Peter, on the night before the Crucifixion.  I have equally, and possibly far more frequently, negatively impacted the Kingdom of God.  And therein lies the rub.

In my introspection, I realized that we have all equally sinned in the eyes of God.  By turning our back on God, there is no one among us more worthy of claiming spiritual goodness.  All we can do is make every effort to turn back around; to face God with our eyes open, beg of forgiveness for our wayward missteps, and we shall have it.  It is a source of great happiness for me, this completely undeserved acceptance back into the flock.  The fact that there is nothing we can do that would deplete the reserve of Love God has for us is the most powerful internal force within me.  Over the course of my life, there will be countless times when I will not be the one to properly stand up and portray the Love of God to another.  I do not want that to happen.  It is written into our humanity.  What I can do about it, however, is to put myself in the daily frame of mind to review my actions, make it right with God, and mend the errors with that person, or those persons.

Our faith journey is an imperfect one.  None among us can claim otherwise.  Perhaps together, we can recommit ourselves to what is good.  Help each other along the way.  Do so with a less judgmental air of self-righteousness.  Preserve the integrity of the culture we ought to be seeking.  There will be much faltering.  Along the way, may there also be much happiness in the striving for a Love we can never rightfully earn, nor ever fully deplete.

Yours in the Pursuit of Happiness,

Will O’Connor

Taste And See: The Devotion to Happiness

Posted on by under The Edison Project Blog, Uncategorized

Several years ago my mother gave me a devotional entitled Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace In His Presence.  It had sat in a bedside table for quite some time.  Not that I wasn’t interested – I just had a devotional that I liked.  Then I determined that it may be time to change it up, go for a different brand of simple thoughts.  I put the devotional in my work bag and brought it out to my job.  It sits on my desk and I take 5 minutes, at no structured point in time, every day to read through it and reflect on the wisdom it espouses.  Today’s was directly in line with the Me.Now.Movement I am involved in, and provides me both peaceful thoughts to implement throughout my day, and reminds me of the importance of living in the present.  Particularly, this passage jumped out at me, “Taste and See That I Am Good.  This command contains an invitation to experience My Living Presence.  It also contains a promise.  The more you experience Me, the more convinced you become of My goodness.  When adversities strike, the human instinct is to doubt My goodness.  Do not try to fathom My ways.  Instead, spend time enjoying Me and experiencing My goodness.”

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I battle with the struggle of perseverance through my own effort while at the same time maintaining my faith that God has a plan for me.  It is difficult to properly balance the two competing thoughts, and is taxing on my happiness.  What does God require of us, in order for us to fulfill His plan for us?  That’s a question that keeps me up at night more than any other.  What helps me to sleep, is that at some point I understand, and its only ever momentarily, that my persistence in holding up my end of the bargain puts me on the path to meeting His plan for me.  That provides me with great happiness and sustenance.  It is only when I encounter my next hurdle where I seem to lose that synergy with God.  And then I am reminded again of it.  In truth, sometimes it takes days, weeks, months – its even taken years, at times, for me to understand that my persistence is the key ingredient to finding my way to His path.  Every day I divert from His plan.  Sometimes it is only momentary.  At other times it is severe.  I don’t post about my devotional to claim my moral and spiritual superiority to others.  Far from it.  I actually believe that my human nature requires my daily devotion to God.  Reading a small passage is but a single step along that line of requirement.  It frames my day for me and instill within me positive thought and a manner by which I can attain happiness.  For as much as we might like to think we can govern our happiness, our true grace and salvation, and therefore our happiness, can come only from God.

Faith has been at times an active, and at others a latent pursuit.  It has always been a medium through which I moved, but was not always something met with my open heart.  There are days it still is not.  Those are the days I need faith, and devotion, all the more.  Those are the days I need my wife and my children to be witnesses of God’s love for me, so that the love I feel in their presence reminds me of something greater.  That is the true gift of God’s love; it can inspire us to remember Him when we are least thinking of Him.

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Today I am thankful for the foundation in faith that my family and friends helped to instill within me.  I am grateful for the walk I am taking through life and through God with my wife.  I am hopeful that I am doing, and will continue to do, the same for my children.  I am happy that Jesus Christ, the Bible and little devotionals like this one came for me, and are provided to me, on a daily basis.  I pray that God’s plan for me has been instilled within me on some level; that the goals and visions I have for myself and my family will be part of God’s plan for me.  These thoughts, and the actions they inspire help me to be reminded of all that I have; through which I can pursue and achieve happiness.

Yours in the Pursuit of Happiness,

 

Will O’Connor