Christian Living

---

Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday November 20, 2008

One of the objectives of this program, Larry Lilly's Letter, is to cause you, the reader, to Selah, or pause and ponder, in other words, think. Perhaps, muse, is a better word in that we are such a hurry to get around the circle of mundane daily routines, that we fail to ponder, and this failure is a primary cause of deep dissatisfaction.

Today, I call upon one of the grandest thinkers, even philosopher's of the modern era to give pause to our rat race and trigger a musing time, a time to think deeply, with feeling.

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice there is."

The above quote is from a philosopher who wore a mask, and other paraphernalia in an effort to disguise his true self. The bolded, italicized quote is from, Yogi Berra.

To apply Yogi's statement to real life situations is to engage in thinking that may cause major upheaval in your life, for the better.

We are told by the Apostle Paul that he was praying for the saints at Thessalonica:

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1Thess 5:23.

In this prayer Paul was touching on a truth put into words by the Yankee Catcher. In life we are one thing on the inside and another on the outside. In a perfect world we would always manifest outwardly, in the physical realm, what is going on inside. This is the theory. In inner theory we are on top of things, we are up and at it, whistling while we work, solving insolvable problems, answering questions about how we have such a fabulous marriage and the secret of our swift rise to the top of the heap.

In practice we lie in bed and call in late, fuss with our spouse, blame our mother in law and state that we wish someone would show us the way. For many, we have been knocked off the mountain, and find we are like the old lady in a commercial pathetically pleading, "Please help me, I have fallen and I can't get up." We are not attempting to climb the mountain again, we can't even find the mountain.

The spirit, soul and body analogy by Paul is where we must start to again mount up on wings of Eagles. The spirit, must be renewed by the higher spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. And the soul must be brought into harmony with the spirit and desire intensely the higher things. The body in spite of its cravings can and must be brought into subjection to the spirit and soul's function of right passion and directed feeling forcing the physical to carry out the will of God. The theory is simple, the practice? The practice will take some work.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE