Defining Moments
What is a defining moment?
To define means: “a: to determine or identify the essential qualities or meaning of<whatever defines us as human>b: to discover and set forth the meaning of. You define yourself by the choices you make… Characterize or Distinguish yourself.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (definitions for define and moment)
Moment means: “a: a minute portion or point of time: An Instant b: a brief period of time.” As in 1 Corinthians 15:52 “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” “The ‘Greek word for moment is ‘atomos.” If I understand it correctly, it means the very smallest particle of matter. In this passage of scripture I take it to mean, when Christ comes it will be very sudden without advance notice. ‘Greek translation taken from The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible.
I believe that our lives as Christians are made up of many moments, that continue to define who we are. In these moments we make choices that distinguish us, that shape our character as we press on to BECOME like Christ. Twenty five years ago my life looked very different from the way it looks today. Many times, I did not consider the consequences of my decisions. Every choice we make has consequential results, good or bad. Our choices affect the outcome of our lives. Our choices affect our families. Our choices affect our relationship with Christ, our intimacy with Him and the progress we make toward becoming like Him.
What does a defining moment look like?
For a woman named Ruth, who was born and raised in a pagen’ culture (Moab), we can see some of her defining moments and only imagine others. What we can see is that one of her most important defining moments was her decision (choice) to marry into a family from Bethlehem-Judah, that traveled to Moab’ because of a famine in their land. After her father-in-law and husband died, her defining moment was to make a choice between her old life of living with the gods of her land, or following her mother-in-law and the living God of Israel back to Bethlehem-Judah. We know that she came to know the living God of Israel and she entered the family of God through the redemptive act of a kinsman-redeemer. It is through Ruth’s story that we see the power and demonstration of God’s grace and redemption.
Tomorrow I will share with you, what some of my defining moments look like. Your assignment today is to write down the defining moment, or event, that I asked you to think of. Did you make a decision as a result of the defining moment, or event? Did your defining moment, or event, bring about a change(s) in your life? __________________________________________________________________________
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Quote to Ponder: “Humility is a paradox. The moment you think you’ve finally found it, you’ve lost it. There has yet to be written a book titled, Humility and How I Achieved It. And yet, God expects (and rewards) an attitude of servant-like humility in His followers.” Author Unknown
This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Bible Studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
