Increasing and decreasing

       I swear that there is a switch that is tripped when people become parents. They become more focused, more loving, unselfish and all giving. Let's face it, parents would do anything for our kids. It may be biological but it calls to mind the expression used by John, He must increase, but I must decrease. 

        As we get older and hopefully also as we get more faithful, we realize what is more important in life. This is the stuff of midlife crisis, realizing what we 'have' is not as fulfilling. We come to see that 'stuff' is not making us happy.  People come and go that we see are really the most important things in life. Love trumps 'stuff'.  So short of being parents, many of us come to the conversion moment as we get older that people are more important, moments are more important and God is ultimately the most important.

This is a natural and gradual progression akin to 'he must increase, and I must decrease.

         There are those that have the realization that material goods don't make me happy but a new set of toys will....or a new wife, or any range of "new" things. This is an aberration that sadly those individuals may never realize until it is too late. Too much love wasted, misspent or hoarded.

         The notion that He must increase is a guiding principle to life. Generally we all get it when we see our friends die off or we see people 'taken' too early in life.  Appreciation of what we have is a natural response. We realize our own mortality and faced with that, we see He ( God ) must increase and we decrease.

          In the sphere of faith alone, if we are proceeding correctly ( in my mind ), we grow into the knowledge that He must increase and we must decrease. Our faith tells us we are conduits of God's abiding and generous love and not the gods we may perceive ourselves to be or even the gods of the things we own.

         How do you see your life going? Who is number one? Who is increasing and who is decreasing?

John 3:22-36

 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized— John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.

 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. They came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.’ John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.” He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.’

 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.