Professionally Speaking

When people talk about being "professional" - it's a word I don't really understand. I don't know what it means. I get it if something is effective, or innovative or, well done, or cool, or high quality - but I don't know what "professional" means. It sort of has a mildly negative connotation for me, now that I think of it. Corporate, stayed, distant, cold, how's it usually done - professional.

Inspiration

I shared this little thought a couple of times a the lake this summer. I thought I'd jot it down here. It's about inspiration.

There's almost no feeling that I like better the real inspiration. It fills me and makes my soul hum at a frequency that nothing else can. When it hits - I mean really hits - I feel like I can't contain it. I feel like I'm close to something that I'm desperate to touch, but can't quite. There's an ache, a longing, a drive to something unknown. It almost hurts. But it's one of the best feelings I know. A talk I heard a couple of months ago hit me that way. I actually wrote "ouch" in the margin of the ppt hand out.

2 Corinthians 5:2 - 5 says, "Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."

The Bible talks, in a few places, about groaning as we wait for heaven. I always thought it was about how miserable life is sometimes, dreary and depressing. But when I read that recently it sounded more like how I feel when I'm inspired, not miserable!

I wondered if inspiration isn't about drawing near to the eternal, and how our spirits glow and strain within us when we are a breath away from God but don't realize it. I wonder if biblical references to groaning and longing aren't a call to find those things that truly inspire us. In that place we are closer to God and better able to reflect some of His glory earthward - even if it's a bit uncomfortable.