Years ago I learned a slogan that went, "Gratitude will change your attitude." I have used this slogan many times and I have learned about myself that if I start "giving thanks" for what God has done in my life it is very hard to stay in a self-pity frame of mind.
As our country gets ready to take some moments out to actually pause and give thanks on Thursday God has been molding my heart to look daily every day of the week every week of the month and every month of the year to focus on one day of troubles and look for things to be thankful for. Now I have not done a stellar job of being thankful each and every day and I have started to plummet and focus on my station in life right now and whine and complain but each day and month is getting better.
The big thing right now is to make a conscious effort and to focus with the help of the Holy Spirit to start thinking about things to give thanks for. To focus and work on this day I have been given. To seek and pray to see what God wants me to do that day. To see what He will or has put in my life for that day. To say thank you.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Community
Tonight I went to a visitation for a young man who had passed away last week and had to wait in line to get to the family. I was awestruck! They had two lines going into the funeral chapel and the people kept coming. I was thankful there had been a private time for the family because there was none of that today at either visitation.
While I was standing in line a thoughts struck me about community, how we interact in each others lives and with other people, how a chance meeting could have a life long result, about people in the body of Christ but not only that but about a community in general. The families had been part of two communities for a long time and had work and served in both. They attended church, supported school activities, opened their homes to their children's friends, and to their neighborhoods. Their children had followed their example. The result of this example was the people that have sent their condolences, food, support, cards and love.
I listened as comments were made about how the families had touched the communities they live, work, fellowship, and play in. A revelation of sorts has started to form about being a part of a community and about what that means as a Jesus follower.
I have heard over the years of course that the job of the church was to "win souls for Christ", for heaven, to help them escape eternal damnation or an eternity in hell. I have heard we are preach to the poor, set the captive free, bind up the broken-hearted. I have heard we are to preach to the ends of the earth and that we should be a community unto our own and shut the rest of the world out and wait to fly away. It is all true and I believe most of what has been said.
But what I seen tonight just really made a gospel real. Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul. This is the greatest commandment. The second greatest commandment is, "Love your neighbor as yourself." John in his three letters talks much about loving God and loving each other and even though Jesus said that we would do greater works than He and certain signs would follow those that confessed His name. I am sure we all would have rejoiced had this young man sit up in his casket, well after we got over the shock of that happening but what greater "sign" could there have been than that kind of love and caring.
A sign of the sacrifice many people made to take time and drive to another city, to stand in line, to bear others up whose hearts are breaking. To witness several communities to come together to lift up another friend, relative, co-worker, and church goer. To know that each person was bearing an image of God to each other there even.
This is what, I am sure, Isaiah was referring to when he wrote to preach the gospel to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, and give an oil of gladness for a spirit of mourning. This is what Jesus was talking about in His priestly prayer to His Father to "make his followers one just as you and I are one." In a world that is torn by disappointment, grief, hurt, and all those ugly emotions but we can even rejoice with one another when a new child is added to our family, we achieve a goal, a diploma, a new job, or to care for one another after a surgery, a car accident, a move or a change from the daily grind.
I seen it tonight, I have experienced in my own life, and I have seen it in larger venues such as conferences this is when the Jesus follower's shine. It is with this sign, this love, this feeling of community that the world will truly see a God unlike any other gods of the world.
While I was standing in line a thoughts struck me about community, how we interact in each others lives and with other people, how a chance meeting could have a life long result, about people in the body of Christ but not only that but about a community in general. The families had been part of two communities for a long time and had work and served in both. They attended church, supported school activities, opened their homes to their children's friends, and to their neighborhoods. Their children had followed their example. The result of this example was the people that have sent their condolences, food, support, cards and love.
I listened as comments were made about how the families had touched the communities they live, work, fellowship, and play in. A revelation of sorts has started to form about being a part of a community and about what that means as a Jesus follower.
I have heard over the years of course that the job of the church was to "win souls for Christ", for heaven, to help them escape eternal damnation or an eternity in hell. I have heard we are preach to the poor, set the captive free, bind up the broken-hearted. I have heard we are to preach to the ends of the earth and that we should be a community unto our own and shut the rest of the world out and wait to fly away. It is all true and I believe most of what has been said.
But what I seen tonight just really made a gospel real. Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul. This is the greatest commandment. The second greatest commandment is, "Love your neighbor as yourself." John in his three letters talks much about loving God and loving each other and even though Jesus said that we would do greater works than He and certain signs would follow those that confessed His name. I am sure we all would have rejoiced had this young man sit up in his casket, well after we got over the shock of that happening but what greater "sign" could there have been than that kind of love and caring.
A sign of the sacrifice many people made to take time and drive to another city, to stand in line, to bear others up whose hearts are breaking. To witness several communities to come together to lift up another friend, relative, co-worker, and church goer. To know that each person was bearing an image of God to each other there even.
This is what, I am sure, Isaiah was referring to when he wrote to preach the gospel to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, and give an oil of gladness for a spirit of mourning. This is what Jesus was talking about in His priestly prayer to His Father to "make his followers one just as you and I are one." In a world that is torn by disappointment, grief, hurt, and all those ugly emotions but we can even rejoice with one another when a new child is added to our family, we achieve a goal, a diploma, a new job, or to care for one another after a surgery, a car accident, a move or a change from the daily grind.
I seen it tonight, I have experienced in my own life, and I have seen it in larger venues such as conferences this is when the Jesus follower's shine. It is with this sign, this love, this feeling of community that the world will truly see a God unlike any other gods of the world.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
The Days Go By
It has been quite a few weeks. Having to move when I had just started a job and not knowing how I would support myself yet it has been God's provision and through my income that has kept me going. Blessings of furnishings from friends and family like a love seat, microwave cart, kitchen towels, curtains, table and chairs. A beautiful hand made cedar chest. It has been good. I am enjoying my little apartment and thankful for God's provision.
During the move however I hurt my knee which at this point 8 weeks out it makes it very difficult to walk on but I am thankful for my friend and Pt person giving me some exercises to work the muscles and prepare it for surgery. Now as patients and income has dwindled I am praying that God help me to trust Him to provide.
Emotions have begun to overrun me this last couple a weeks as a friend of my son passed away on October 20 at 27 leaving a child behind. Another friend grandson died in a car accident at 27 leaving 3 children behind. Then this week the son of fellow church members is diagnosed with cancer, another son dies because of blood clots in the lungs, and I see a friend of 33 years who has stage 4 Mesothelioma. A church member finds out she has ALS, another is "hit" by a car in her parking lot. Others have had joint surgeries, skin wounds that need healing and have grieved family members, others have had surgeries for other complications in their body. Another friend moves from her home of 17 years where she raised her children and celebrated a family.
There seems to be so much grief, pain. heartache, and disappointment. And the answer to why does not make any of it better or different nor does it make it go away. As I pray and cry out to my Heavenly Father I hear the Spirit say in a message from my Pastor that, "He is still on His heavenly throne, He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, He is present today and holds tomorrow in His hands.
The Spirit speaks to my heart that none of this can separate us from His love, the whole earth is His and all who dwell in it, we are the apple of His eye and He has engraved us on the palms of His hand. His love endures forever and His mercies are new every morning. Our weeping may endure for a night and not necessarily a 12 hour night but a dark night of the soul but joy will come in the morning.
Now as I sit here and continue to listen the Spirit whispers to occupy until Christ returns by loving my God with all my heart, mind, and soul, to love my neighbor as myself, and to embrace the body of Christ around me and look to them for love, support, and the ability to get through. Because only as we link together as cells in our own physical bodies do will we be able to keep walking and have hope that is anchored firmly and secure, because Jesus has become our high priest and this is the hope we can encourage one another in. This life is so crushing and many times one crushing event rolls in right after another and it is the hope of receiving a kingdom that can not be shaken and where they will be no more tears, where there will be no more death, and the light is the Lamb of God. The hope of that kingdom is what is to spur us on to bring joy in the morning and be an oil of gladness over our raw, hurting souls and before we know it we will be crossing that river ourselves.
During the move however I hurt my knee which at this point 8 weeks out it makes it very difficult to walk on but I am thankful for my friend and Pt person giving me some exercises to work the muscles and prepare it for surgery. Now as patients and income has dwindled I am praying that God help me to trust Him to provide.
Emotions have begun to overrun me this last couple a weeks as a friend of my son passed away on October 20 at 27 leaving a child behind. Another friend grandson died in a car accident at 27 leaving 3 children behind. Then this week the son of fellow church members is diagnosed with cancer, another son dies because of blood clots in the lungs, and I see a friend of 33 years who has stage 4 Mesothelioma. A church member finds out she has ALS, another is "hit" by a car in her parking lot. Others have had joint surgeries, skin wounds that need healing and have grieved family members, others have had surgeries for other complications in their body. Another friend moves from her home of 17 years where she raised her children and celebrated a family.
There seems to be so much grief, pain. heartache, and disappointment. And the answer to why does not make any of it better or different nor does it make it go away. As I pray and cry out to my Heavenly Father I hear the Spirit say in a message from my Pastor that, "He is still on His heavenly throne, He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, He is present today and holds tomorrow in His hands.
The Spirit speaks to my heart that none of this can separate us from His love, the whole earth is His and all who dwell in it, we are the apple of His eye and He has engraved us on the palms of His hand. His love endures forever and His mercies are new every morning. Our weeping may endure for a night and not necessarily a 12 hour night but a dark night of the soul but joy will come in the morning.
Now as I sit here and continue to listen the Spirit whispers to occupy until Christ returns by loving my God with all my heart, mind, and soul, to love my neighbor as myself, and to embrace the body of Christ around me and look to them for love, support, and the ability to get through. Because only as we link together as cells in our own physical bodies do will we be able to keep walking and have hope that is anchored firmly and secure, because Jesus has become our high priest and this is the hope we can encourage one another in. This life is so crushing and many times one crushing event rolls in right after another and it is the hope of receiving a kingdom that can not be shaken and where they will be no more tears, where there will be no more death, and the light is the Lamb of God. The hope of that kingdom is what is to spur us on to bring joy in the morning and be an oil of gladness over our raw, hurting souls and before we know it we will be crossing that river ourselves.
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