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| |  | Michael Fox CPCC,
founder of m·agine!,
is a professional
coach and trainer,
author and creative artist, whose work has been featured throughout
the world.
Michael is a
Certified Practitioner
of the
Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator.®
Do you know someone
who might benefit
from our weekly email?
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And the darkness
can never extinguish it...
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The apostle John--whose weathered body read like the tattered pages of an old adventurer's mapbook--carefully settled in behind his desk. He shifted about his weary frame until he found the familiar contours of his chair. "'Son of Thunder,' they once called me," he mumbled with a smile. "More like 'Partly Cloudy' now," he countered with a chuckle.
This was the day he'd finally put to page his own recollections around the life and ministry of Jesus. There was no need to recast what his friends Matthew, Mark, and Luke had written decades before; and the need of the day called for a more thematic and, dare I say, "mystical" reflection of God's Last Word. John would dip his brush in letters and paint with broad strokes the dominant polarities of Jesus' words and works: light and darkness, life and death, eternity and mortality, grace and law, truth and shadow.
John reached for a fresh page to begin work. The blank page unexpectedly stirred John's memory of the conflict and loss throughout the seven decades since Jesus' death and resurrection. Emptiness which--in the parlance of biblical genealogies--begets loneliness; and loneliness begets darkness. And darkness can leave us breathless.
Emptiness. Loneliness. Darkness. Breathless.
I hate it when that happens.
John reflected upon nearly a century of opposition--of "darkness"...Persecution from within and without...The martyrdom of his fellow apostles, beginning with his own brother James...Burying the mother of Jesus, for whom he had cared from her son's death until her own. ("Oh, how I miss that woman," he thought aloud.)...His exile on the Isle of Patmos, a scant sixty miles from his beloved Ephesus, and yet a world away...Once stalwart friends in the faith who had chosen to surrender their convictions to save their lives.
Emptiness. Loneliness. Darkness. Breathless.
John leaned forward in his desk chair, and slipped the solemn sheet between the worn rollers of his old Smith-Corolla typewriter.
What? What's your grimace for?
You don't think they had desk chairs in the first century?
Well, anyway, John began to write:
In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created...
And just then--his mind returning to the perceived losses recalled by the empty page--John testified with a poet's flourish:
...and his life brought light to everyone.The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
John could indeed attest to the inability of the darkness to extinguish "the Light of the World" within his lifetime. Yet how much greater our witness to this truth when, two millennia later and half a world away, still the darkness--though not for its lack of effort--has yet to extinguish the light.
What's your experience around darkness and light--death, and life? Both personally, in your body, and in the church, the Body of Christ?
What's possible, then when suffocating darkness engulfs you?
Where's the light and dark in you?
What's your own historical testimony around the ability of light to prevail over darkness?
If John were to compose one sentence that might give you light in your darkness, what might it look like?
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Michael Fox
m·agine!
530/613.2774
407 Myrtle Drive
Farmerville, LA, USA 71241 |
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In addition to personal and professional coaching,
m·agine! specializes in spiritual transformation coaching,
employing its proprietary models
--Values, Vision, Voice and Heart, Soul, Mind & Strength--
as well as
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® curriculum
published by CPP, the People Development People.
Michael's books include
Complete in Christ,
Complete in Christ Spiritual Transformation Workbook,
and Biblio·files.
Coaching fees are based upon a sliding scale. Contact us for details.
For additional information, visit our website at maginethepossibilities.net.
Limited scholarships are available for spiritual transformation coaching.
On the flip side, if you are able, please inquire about opportunities
to fund scholarships for those who cannot afford coaching fees.
View our archives!
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