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The Journey

Branches and Bar-B-Que

Scripture: Psalms 118:1-2, 19-29

Today I am just glad to be alive. Last weekend I spent time at worship and hanging out with the family.  Even took in a couple of hockey games. Which I know is odd for a Quaker pastor but it is a very intresting game. Today I consider this scripture as I sit in the open air enjoying the spring air. I sit in a place with a church’s cross up on a hill and the smell of Bar-B-Que lofting through the air. I live in Kanas City the air always smells like this! I sit here thinking isn’t it great to be alive.

How often do we just slow down enough to worship? Truely worship, not the worship we do at our “meetings for worship” or church, but just being in a place where we stop worrying, stop planning, and just be. This Psalm reminds us of worship and praise. I consider what the writter encourages the worshipers to use in worship. Branches of trees, this means that the worship began not in the temple of God but somewhere else. It began in the fields, in the yards of the houses. Our worship starts at home as well. We should already be engaged in worship long before we enter our Meeting Houses.

They begin to praise God, they cut branches and they make a procession all the way to the temple. They praise for a simple reason, God’s love endures forever. Spring time encourages me in this. I know scientifically the cycles of growth and dormancy, yet I stll am drawn to worship God. Life is all around the beauty of creation is emerging before my eyes and the aroma of all that I love tickle my nose. Life is good.
How often do I forget to remember to praise God for the simple reason that God created this world for us to enjoy. He allows the cycles of life to continue every spring, and it shows the vast love of God.

When I add in the Gospel of Christ everything builds to something even greater. God’s love is so vast that He came to live with people just like me. He taught us how to be human, not only taught but showed us how to be human. And he gave his life so that I can live free. In the darkness of winter a light came a light that became the hope of humanity. Just as life begins to emerge we remember that the hope is fulfilled when Christ, God incarnate rose from the grave to live again.

What great love. I sing, “Lord save us” along with all the ancients. And I have the assurance that he will and can because he proved it to us all in his life, death, and resurrection. Blessed is He that coms in the name of the Lord. I encourage you to just be in God’s presence tonight praise the one whose love never ends and whose grace is new every day. As for me I’m going to grab some bar-b-que don’t judge sometimes eating is worshipful too. 

About jwquaker

I’m sure everyone wants to know who I am…well if you are viewing this page you do. I’m Jared Warner and I am a pastor or minister recorded in the Evangelical Friends Church Mid America Yearly Meeting. To give a short introduction to the EFC-MA, it is a group of evangelical minded Friends in the Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Colorado. We are also a part of the larger group called Evangelical Friends International, which as the name implies is an international group of Evangelical Friends. For many outside of the Friends or Quaker traditions you may ask what a recorded minister is: the short answer is that I have demistrated gifts of ministry that our Yearly Meeting has recorded in their minutes. To translate this into other terms I am an ordained pastor, but as Friends we believe that God ordaines and mankind can only record what God has already done. More about myself: I have a degree in crop science from Fort Hays State University, and a masters degree in Christian ministry from Friends University. Both of these universities are in Kansas. I lived most of my life in Kansas on a farm in the north central area, some may say the north west. I currently live and minister in the Kansas City, MO area and am a pastor in a programed Friends Meeting called Willow Creek Friends Church.

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