I think the first time I ever heard that expression I was reading the biography of Hudson Taylor...a missionary.... what seems like ages ago.... to China.  He talked about how Jesus literally wanted to live His life in us.  We had to simply make the decision to exchange our life for His life....and then learn to live in that exchanged life....not learning a bunch of rules or trying to imitate His example or somehow bootstrap our way through life and hope we can be a good person....but allowing His life to work its way into ours and replace it....it is called the exchanged life!

Promised to complete this Musing.  It is based on this quote from Wayne Jacobsen...

“It’s not about teaching; it’s about living. Learn to live this life and you’ll find no end of folks to share it with. Teach it first, however, and that will be your substitute for living it.”  

Amazing how the Lord does this stuff.....You read something (hear something...see something)....then you talk about....or write about it like I did yesterday....and it just starts rolling around in your head....it won't leave you until you do something with it.  That's what happened with this one from Wayne Jacobsen that I quoted yesterday.....  "It’s not about teaching; it’s about living. Learn to live this life and you’ll find no end of folks to share it with.

I am sitting here again thinking about that word...relationship.   The word has actually been consuming me for a while now....then I had my relational birthday  the other day....and it just keeps buzzing in me.  The more I think about all the people the Lord has passed thru our lives, the more mushy I get.  Some just touches....others we walk with very closely....very regularly getting together.

I decided to have, what I am referring to as,  a relational birthday today.  I guess I can have any kind of birthday that I want to have...especially when one has had as many birthdays as I have.... :)

When you get to 73 of them you think about things like half your high school graduating class has already died....you think about death and dieing a lot more than you do at 23! I stopped getting the daily newspaper so I wouldn't waste all that time zipping over to the obits to see how many people had died that were younger than me.

I was talking about waging war in the spiritual realm the other day.....not in the natural realm.  The reason for that is that the reality of warfare is waged in that realm....the battles are always fought in prayer..... not in the natural realm.... that natural realm is actually the illusion..... and if we insist on fighting in that illusion...we will lose....

When I mentioned my own private little war yesterday......."I have my own private little spiritual war going on with all the greed and profiteering going on in the oil industry…"....  please note the word "spiritual"  there.  I do not mean I am using the court system or attacking anyone in anyway....except God's enemy....Satan. I have never brought a law suit against anyone...and I never will.  I do not do battle using the world's systems.

That's how the lies and illusions come at us.....every which way.....they are are mostly negatives but some times the illusion is about my wonderfulness...... as I mentioned yesterday. :)

This is such an important area.  Lies ..... illusions..... are very powerful things.  The only way to break their hold on us is to simply believe the truth instead.  Why is that such a difficult thing?

Just lost my job.....you'll never get another one.

Business just went down the tubes.....not only is your business a failure but you  are too~!

Haven't been able to go anywhere else since I threw out that last posting on illusions....it just keeps rolling around in my head. Illusions....the distortion of reality. The reality is that the sun is always shining. The illusion...may I also use the word lie.... the lie/illusion is that the last two days have been overcast, full of clouds and thunderstorms and we get all mellow dramatic and talk about how the sun will never shine again.....ever...in my entire life.