Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Why do we do what we do? Have you thought about this at all? I began my reflection while waiting at a train station for my son to return from a week long mission trip. He went to help clean up a school in New Mexico, which is just what a thirteen year old boy wants to do over sumer break, clean and go to school. Why then did he go?
When I was in college I boarded a plane and flew across the ocean to a place half way across the world, and I still ask why did I do it. We do many things some of those actions we like to talk about, others we would like to forget, and others we wish everyone would just stop talking about. The question is still why did you do it I you do not want people to remember.
The answer is in our hearts. when we fill our minds and bodies with certain things we tend to think and act accordingly. Sure at times in a moment of weakness we may do things that we normally would not do. It is the weak moments I wish to discuss. Thirteen years ago was a pretty trying time for me. I started college, My little sister passed away and to tell the truth I was more intrested in having the college experience than anything else. For the most part everyone would say that I was a good kid. My parents said they were proud of me, but spiritualy I was a wreck. When my sister died I thought I was greiving well, but now I realize I was running. I made choices that maybe I should not have made, but once an action is done you cannot take them back.
The results changed my life. It is amazing how that happens. I became a father. In an instant every priority in my life changed. I can say I made some bad choices but I will never say I regret this one. There is a reason I do not regret. I know that god can work all things out for the good of those that trust Him. My son drove me to examine the direction of my life and I had to make some pretty big changes. I began to understand aspect of God that I never knew before and I could see how God was working in areas I never realised. I had a son and I knew that God used him to keep me from going into a life that I one day would regret. As I began to let God into other areas of my life I began to see more changes.
Times of weakness or trials are the times we lean on the past and begin to grasp at various vines to regain some hope of our footing. In this scripture Paul talks about filling a life with Christ, and out of that filling acting according to that base. When we begin a journey with God in our lives we start for a multitude of reasons. Where we end up has a lot to do with us. God may save our soul, but we also have to respond all relationships have responses and action on both sides. The more we invest our lives into a relatonship the more we are changed and influenced by it.
Paul says that he speaks because a new nature has come into his life. He speaks not out of his own words but under the influence of the Spirit of God. His life is filled with God, his words and actions drip with the grace given to him through that relationship. He is not the same person he once was. I am not the same person. God got my attention and asI began spending more time with Him my life changed. It changed in a way that I was willing to leave my family and board a plane to another country. It has changed me so much that I am willing to let my son do the same. It has changed me so much that it has spilled out into the lives of others, and I begin speaking and acting according to a grace that without God I would not have. I do not do things I used to. Does this mean I will never sin again? No I am fully aware of all my weaknesses. When the stress piles up sometimes I return for a moment to that place I once was. I have noticed something though, the more time I spend with God in prayer the more grace and love I can share. I have also noticed the more that I pray the more open I am to serve the world around me because the Spirit prompted my heart. The more time I spend in prayer the more strength I have to deal with those around me that sap my spiritual energy. The more time I pray the more I want to pray, to worship and to speak to others about my relationship with God.
We pray and reflect on scripture because it deepens our relationship with God. We pray because it changes us into the people that can live and breath hope into the world. It is through the change in us that God answers most prayers. That answer is often a simple act or word of love to someone that needs it.
Today as you celebrate the day of the Lord remember what God did to provide a way and life free from the bondage of sin. And just enjoy some time with the God that loves you.
Scripture: Psalm 138
Have you ever really wondered what the point of prayer really is? Maybe I am weird and am the only on that thinks about these things, but there has to be something that prompts peple to engage in any activity. Along with that question rises another, what is the point of worship? These two activities are related, so closely related that you cannot truely have one without the other.
The Friends Church has a long history of meeting in silence. For many people this sounds a bit odd, but if you think about it a bit deeper you would see that these meeting are some of the most pure personal as well as relational expressions of faith. There is not any room to be fake in these meetings you are doing one of two things worshiping or sitting there. You can probably get a since why I say prayer and worship are related.
I think the Psalmist would agree also. So often these poems are written not about the incredible awe inspiring performace at the temple of the living God, but about the life of the worshiper as they still their hearts to meet God in the holy place. I find that many of these poems would actually point to the actual wrship experience being outside the worship space and in the fields they worked through out the week.
Consider this psalm, it speaks of the renewed strength received from the daily disipline of worship. This renewed strength is not the point of the prayer or the poem. The vast majority of the words are praising God, and recognizing the status of their own life in relation to God. That recognition of status is the heart of prayer. In my last post I spoke about being honest. Humility is essential to a healthy relationship. If we approach God thinking to highly of ourselves we are actually lowering God’s status. If we go into prayer with the false humility or the I’m a worm approach, we are actually lifting ourselves up in status instead of God.
So what is a humble aproach? It is approaching God as yourself. An imperfect person that need help through the day. If we approach God in humility the good things that happe we can honestly praise God for because we realize that there were other factors involved in it. We are able to thank God for givin us the strength, wisdom, and oppertunity to perform as well as thanking God for bringing those other personalities and circumstances. We are also able to realize that we prsonally did not cause all of our problems. In humility we can see where we errored and also see the other factors that we had no control over. Humility can allow us to improve because we are able to see the truth of the matter.
It is difficult to approach Go in humility. To be honest it is difficult to be honest. We want to rush into prayer without settling our heart down to be honest. We rush to church on Sundays, or Saturdays and we argue and yell all the way, because we are not ready to worship. We think of ourselves as great because we attend, but what have we done the rest of the week. Without prayer we cannot worship without worship we cannot pray. In both cases it is a dishonest empty shell.
I encourage each ofyou as you pray today to consider where you are being dishonest with yourself and with God. Are you being real, if you aren’t there is hope the Spirit will help us and strengthen us to be who we really are.
Scripture: 1 Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14,15
Rejection is often harsh. It is difficult to tell people that actions they have done or those around them are wrong or not satisfactory because it often damages the spirit of a person. Looking at this scripture I am literally sad well upset over the way the children of Israel treated Samuel and his family. They said you’re old, your kids are hooligans, and we don’t want you anymore. Then they try to pass it off as not being his fault. It make you feel like hey are saying, “its not you its us.”
Reading this today makes you realize people suck! I am an idealist. I would like t think that the world really could be a better place if we tried to do it. I get frustrated and I admit depressed sometimes when the ideas in my head do not seem to take root in those I tr so hard to reach. I feel for Samuel. I am not trying to say I am a prophet or major leader but I identify with him. The reasons they reject him and his ways are because they just did not get the point. He was tring to show them that God will provide, God will judge, that God is their one true ruler, but they want a king. They want a king not because it is a proven governing system that shows great benifits but because everyone else has them and because with a king they think they will not have to do things on their own. It is a recuring theme in human history.
For those that study the cycles of cultures they see stages. They rise in personal acheivement and cultural growth or expansion. They get complacent with a desire to take it easy where the people of the society do not want to work so hard. They begin demanding entitlements getting what they want without working for it. They receive benifits from the culture becoming dependent to those in power. Eventually the culture falls to another culture on a different stage of the cycle. The cycle averages around a three hundred year life before it restarts. Looking at these cycles you can see it happen through out the history of Israel, Rome, England, Russia, and even the United States the time frame varies but there is a similar cycle.
These cycles also are present in our personal lives. Rejection occurs on the downward side of the cycle. We begin to feel as if we personally are at fault in some ways it is. We begin to think too highly of ourselves and we get a reality check. Humility is important to our spiritual lives because it keeps us in the right frame of mind, it actually throws the cycles out. Humility is not talking ourselves down, but it is being honest about who we are. If you are good at something you should be honest about it, in the same breath we should not gloss over our weaknesses.
Honesty is hard to take at times. It is also difficult to give tactfully. Honesty is needed though. We will never be able to encourage someone in their lives spiritualy or any way if we are not honest. I’m sure each of us has experienced dishonest words that have lead us astray. Do we listen to he dishonesty because it makes us feel good, or do we take the honest words?
God says that Israel was not rejecting Samuel but Him. When we are not being honest to ourselves and to others we are rejecting them and God. As you pray consider how you respond an how you speak. Examine your life let the Spirit of God teach you about yourself and Him, and embrace the truth of life. Let us stop a cycle bent on distruction and instead embrace a life that will build others up on truth.