Complete your symbols!
If the first half of life is finding your true symbols, the second is more fully tending and harvesting them, letting them bear fruit for others to enjoy. The first part of the journey is finding your symbols, and what is your own land to cultivate or be formed within in Him. In the latter half, you have discovered them, and need to tend them into wholeness-to cultivate your symbols into a true and fuller interpretation, so your story can be left for others to receive from. We are no longer insecure or in competition about who we are, we are able to allow Him to start to whisper nuances. To fill in His story of who we are in Him. He is pronouncing the poems of Himself through the poems of who we are. And our task is to collaborate in blooming our true inner symbols.
For example, i live (invest, dwell intentionally nurture) in three cities currently, each represents a unique aspect of my own story, and His Story through me. Each symbolizes part of His story of my life.
The three cities (there are others, but i use these for clarity) I occupy in this season for instance, are aspects of a whole symbol of my life in Him. Currently for me these would be: Austin, San Fran and Antwerp—each symbolize different aspects of your calling and His Story through your life. They each need to be harvested uniquely. But in Him, they are integrated.
As we get older, the parts of our lives start to integrate into one centered experience and expression. Our lives get interpreted, as teachings for others! As we grow up in Him, He literally brings the rooms of ourselves under the same roof. He is that roof. And Jesus is the key to integration and identity. We had to believe that by faith at the start, but now we know it, and we watch Him slowly gather our houses into One expression-His House and ours.
Our outer symbols have attached with our inner reality, and our lives can be read as art which tells a clear story. There is a complete narrative in Christ. He contains the entire path prepared beforehand to be our way (Ephesians 2:10). He who formed us, is also able to pronounce us, as we remain yielded and faithful. How He is allowed to symbolize Himself through the story of your own life, is one of the funnest and best collaborations you will ever experience! You get to watch The Master Artist, doing His thing through your very life story!
Our outer lives and activities start to reflect directly our inner reality. The medium becomes the message! The outer frame starts to symbolize the inner reality of who you are. This occurs in Christ. And it is His pleasure to make us more whole as His Art. Who we actually are, starts to express itself in all we do outwardly. And this is a great mystery of a long life yielded!
One of the saddest things in life is to feel a life cut short, or a story not fully told, explained or expressed. When the symbols are not complete, we feel impartial. Like the body of an artist work which never got to be complete. We have a Curt Cobain moment, or many other artist who didn’t get to finish their symbols. As those in Christ, we are able to finish and cultivate our symbols, and allow Him to make the full body of art He desires to make through our lives. And that is beautiful!
In the first half of life, people are searching for self- what is home, what is Real, what is theirs to know and tend. What symbolizes them. We search through jobs, relationships, travel, to define ourselves. In the second, you know what’s yours and you begin to refine it and teach it to others. We switch from define to refine, once we know the basic story line of our lives. Mine art, spirituality, integration, and identity. Creativity and Identity and their proper relationship in Jesus.
Will you leave completed symbols on the earth? Now that you’ve found your symbolic lands, how to cultivate and complete them. That’s the second half of life’s mandate. The second half of life is about that symbolic efficiency and effulgence! You know what you have to tend, now you can make it fruitful with Him—finish the lines of your poem! Let Him enjoy the final chapters, and say with you, it is finished! It is whole, completed, expressed fully!
As you go into the 2nd half of life, you want to refine what you already have. You want to make each symbol more complete!!! Stewarding your symbols becomes a pleasure. When young, you found them, now to edit refine and share them. To tell the whole story. To collaborate in completing your testimony—His story of your life! This becomes your passion.
You see those who still want to do the first half of life’s task, while clearly standing the second. They still want to get their symbols out, or to discover them. But we are meant to be tending them in the later half of life. To already know who we are in Him, and be secure in that, and now to work on expressing it in a way which will bless and cover those after us!
To complete your symbols on earth, becomes the task of the second half of life. The symbols you searched to find and conquer in the first half of life (blessed are those who overcome in the first half, blessed are those who know in the later part of life (St John)—the true images of self or yourself, others and the world, can now be contoured, completed, filled in, outlined, interpreted for others and shared. The story can be told! The second half of life is to tell the whole story well. To complete the symbols in Peace and with Wisdom and articulation. No longer are you in competition, so you can complete your symbols in peace.
Walk them out! Steward your story well. Cultivate the pleasant lines of your inheritance!
Having crossed your Jordans (your necessary deaths to self), having entered the land of your inheritance (the pleasant lines of yours), having occupied, possessed-now, you move on to cultivate, to bear fruit which will outlast you. The colorful fruit He desires to express through the story of your life! To complete the symbol of God’s story through your life. To interpret your life as a sign for others. To tell the whole story-His story of your life. To do so, you must steward the symbols of your life. Jesus completed His symbols! And like Him, we should be able to say at the end, “It is finished!” Let’s us allow Him to finish His story of our lives. Now that we know them, let’s steward our symbols well in Him!
What symbols do you still have left to discover or complete in your life? How can you collaborate with Christ in discovering them, and helping them become whole? If you see yourself as His art, what areas does He want to refine, cultivate, heal and fill in, into His fullest expression of Himself through you?! How can He complete the contours of what He wants to express through you on earth. He wants to tell the story of Himself through yours. Ask Him, what is His version or interpretation of your story? Write and live that out! His testimony concerning you, is His Testimony about Himself. And He who started a good work–the Author and Finisher of our faith-is able to cause us to be (to cause us to stand-Romans 14:4), and finish the stories we are in Him! Allow Him to finish His own story of you!
