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Eye of the Storm
Joe Killian • Apr 03, 2020
With lots of time on my hands I decided to tackle a task I'd been putting off for months. A little background will provide context for an unexpected blessing. I began blogging almost ten years ago. Initially, I used a small email list at the church I was working at to share my reflections of the weekly Gospel. The list slowly grew as I gathered email addresses from attendees at our adult education sessions. When an illness forced me to quit my church job six years ago I continued blogging on my website.
As I neared the completion of my book,
Our Journey WITH God, I decided to pause my blogging to focus on finishing the book. Once the book went into production I turned my attention to this, my newly rebranded website -
www.joekillian.com. The rebranding left me with over 150 blog entries on my old website. I was paying monthly for the old website for the sole purpose of archiving the tens of thousands of words until I transferred them to the new website. In the midst of that tedious, and at times frustrating slow process I experienced an incredible blessing. After reading dozens of my reflections, rooted in scripture, I came to realize that almost all of them brought me peace and comfort in this challenging time. The reason is simple, God is at the center of it all.
Even if you don't read a single blog entry on my website I encourage you to take the time to watch this video of Ryan Stephenson's Eye of the Storm. God is present in all things, especially in the eye of the storm––where He remains in control!
The story continues...I'm still working on the pondless waterfall in our front yard. I shared this project with you two weeks ago in Playin' In the Dirt. Since then I've had to rework sections of the stream three different times because we were losing too much water. I am now an expert on evaporation rates and excessive splash, two causes of water loss. This morning I tore the whole thing apart and I'm starting over.
Have you ever watched DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda? I stumbled across it recently and thoroughly enjoyed Jack Black's performance as a bumbling, noodle selling, kung fu enthusiast, giant panda named P o. Set in ancient China, it is more than a humorous slapstick comedy. The core message of the story jumped out at me as I have been focusing recently on the concept of being. Po is shockingly identified as the Dragon Warrior and he reluctantly enters training. The goal of the training is to receive the Dragon Scroll, which is believed to hold the secret to limitless power. Now I don't want to spoil the big reveal but I will say that what Po realizes is the same as what I speak to in the concept of being and authentic identity. So, where do we find the secret to our "power?" I praise You, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works! My very self You know. Psalm 139:14 God knows it; and we must seek Him with all of our hearts in order to find it. As it was in the movie, the answer is stunningly simple. Our authentic identity is already within us. The challenge for Po in the movie was in seeing himself accurately and not the way others saw him. Even his teacher scoffed at the idea that Po was anything more than an underachieving dreamer who overate when he was anxious. Po's problems are rooted in the fact that he believes the lie of his false identity much more than he does his authentic one. Is it possible that you do the same? Who could have imagined that beneath all of Po's girth lived the Dragon Warrior? What's hidden from view in you? Seek God for understanding as to who He created you to be. Spoiler Alert: the secret of your limitless power is already in you. God placed it there and He wants you to be who He authentically created you to be.
Maria and I have been playing in the dirt a lot recently. First we replaced our French drain and then we embarked on a creative project intended to change the entire look of our front yard. My brother Jeffrey and I installed a new front step.
