Who me?

In worship we're going through the book of Exodus and taking a close look at how the book provides a foundation for the rest of the Bible and also how it shows us the relationship between God and us.  The stories of Moses and God's call, the whole plague deal in Egypt, the flight to the wilderness and then the wandering are wonderful stories with lots of stuff to teach us about God and how God relates to us.  I'd highly recommend joining us to hear some more about this fantastic book!

The past couple of Sunday's we spent time on Moses and his conversation with God on Mt. Horeb.  The familiar story of the burning bush has been discussed.  In a nutshell God tells Moses that he has been chosen to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt and that God is going to work through him and help him.  Moses first says, "here I am God," and then eventually says, "send someone else."  The conversation between Moses and God where Moses brings up excuse after excuse why he can't do it and God patiently, for awhile at least, answers every doubt Moses has is fantastic.  I love the story because it reminds me that God gives us what we need and that God promises to work through us.  I also admire the guts Moses had in talking directly with God and throwing excuses at God.  

After the two sermons this past week on Moses' call I have thought a lot about our call as Christians.  Two questions come to mind:  how does God call us?  And how do we respond?  The how God calls us part is kind of hard because I think it is different for each person.  I firmly believe that God calls each one of us for some sort of service to God, and I also believe that call can come from anywhere...even a phone call asking one to serve on a church board!  I heard a sermon last week at the St. Patricks Catholic church that has stuck with me.  A visiting priest was talking about the call of Samuel and he made a statement that made a lot of sense to me.  He said that God's call is found in the little things in life.  He compared listening for and following God's call is a lot like a diet.  We fail a diet not because we eat mountains of fried food each day, but because we sneak that extra cookie when no ones looking.  It's easy to say no to the obvious foods that will not fit into our diet, but that one extra snack or can of soda won't make that much of a difference we think.  The same is with God's call.  We are not very good at identifying where God is at work in our lives because we're waiting for the voice, the blinding light, the 2x4 upside the head that says here dummy do this.  We don't see God in the big things because we don't see God at all in the little areas of life.  If we can't find God in all areas of our lives, even the little things, then we can't expect God to trust us with the big stuff.  We're so busy with life that slowing down to recognize where God is at work in our lives is almost unheard of.  If you want to find God's calling in your life then start seeing God at work in the little areas of  your daily life, and soon you'll see God's plan for the big things in your life too.  

Responding to God's call is easy.  We just say yes and let God take over.  Simple as that!  We all know it isn't as simple as that, but that's how we answer God's call.  We don't make excuses, we don't try and weasel our way out...we simply say yes and trust that God will help us out.  Once we simply let go and trust it's amazing how we can experience Got at work in our lives.  First though, we must learn to recognize God in the little things and then we'll see God in the big things too.

Happy New Year!!

Ok, so I admit that I'm a little late to the party.  It's already 5 days into the new year, so please forgive me for being a little late with the new year greetings.  I've never been real big into celebrating the beginning of a new year.  That's not to say I don't enjoy spending time with friends and family ringing in the new year...I do.  I guess I don't get all caught up in the new year resolutions and stuff because I know they most generally don't stick.  I also don't really get the thought that the new year offers all of us a clean slate and a chance to do things differently in a new year.  For one thing habits are very hard to break, and just because a calendar tells us we can start something new doesn't magically mean all our habits go away!  I guess you could say I'm a scrooge when it comes to the new year!  Although I positively love all the football on!
I think I don't get to caught up in the new year hoopla because I'm too old to stay up to midnight!  HA!  Seriously though I know that we have a chance to start over any time we want.  I also know we have the ultimate power to help us make any changes we want at our disposal any time of the year.  Jesus is always waiting with open arms to welcome us back to him.  He wants to hear our regrets and our shortcomings.  He will offer us forgiveness and the strength to make changes if we ask and IF we listen.  You see the easy part is declaring what we would like to change and then asking Jesus to help us.  The tough part is listening to Jesus and then making the necessary changes in our lives to actually see change happen.  Sometimes we want Jesus to magically change us, when what we really need is Jesus' help in making the changes for ourselves.  That's why I think new year resolutions are so popular and also so easily broken.  As soon as we sense some work, or tough decisions, in keeping the resolutions we tend to give up.  If we honestly and earnestly ask Jesus to help us make changes, and we honestly and earnestly do our very best to listen to what Jesus has to say to us to help make the changes and again do our best to implement them, even if they're hard, then we'll be a lot better off and a lot better at making the changes.  So let's do away with new year resolutions and instead ask Jesus to help us make the changes we want.  Or better yet, let's ask Jesus what changes we need to make!

What a weekend!

It is the Monday after the annual church dinner and sale.  I would have to say it was a great success.  We had so many people come for the turkey dinner that we ran out of food!  Don't worry...for those that came towards the end and didn't get fixins I've offered a free meal at our next church dinner!  The Sunday school kids did a great job singing and I think the sale itself went very well too.  Before I forget let me say thank you  once again to everyone who contributed to the wonderful day!  It would not have been such a great day without everyone's help!
I know a lot of people want to know how much money was raised, and I suppose that has a bearing on how successful the day was, but on the other hand I can say it was a success even if we broke even after all the expenses.  It is always good for the church family to come together and work towards a common goal.  It is always good to see new faces and some familiar faces you haven't seen in awhile.  Big events like this remind us that the church is alive and well and that the success of the event is secured simply by the fact that so many people attended and helped out.  It is so easy to get caught up in numbers and membership and budgets and the doom and gloom of the nightly news reports that days like yesterday are essential to our spiritual health.  Days were the church family joins together for a common good reminds us of all the good that surrounds us and reminds us of the wonderful and caring community that all of us are apart of.
Incidentally that's why being a part of and attending church is such a vital part of our spiritual life.  Being part of something bigger, and actually taking part in services, reminds us that we are not alone on this journey called life.  We are reminded that there are a great number of people who are on this journey called life with us, and that those people care about us and are willing to help out when called upon.  Being an active part of the church family reminds us that life isn't all about us either.  We are called to love God and to love neighbor.  Big events in the church life are great, but the "normal" Sundays are important too.  We all need to be reminded from time to time that God loves us, that there is a community that loves us, and that we are part of something much bigger!  Join us on Sunday and bring a friend...won't you?

Cracks & Fixes add Character

Outside my window this morning I'm watching a crew fix the potholes in the road.  It'll be nice when it's all done, but there is a lot of work that goes into it before they are finished.  This crew is actually grinding out the bad spots, cleaning them out, adding oil and then putting the asphalt back in and packing it nicely with a roller.  I'm not an asphalt expert but I have to imagine these fixes are going to last longer than just throwing some patch down and letting the cars pack it in.  You know the quick fix that gets all over the under carriage of your car!  The quick fix would be cheaper, quicker and easier but not as good.  It got me to wondering how often we go for the cheap fix in our lives instead of the good longer lasting one.
We have gotten used to instant feedback in our lives.  We want our news instantly, we want our promotions at work instantly, we want our kids to listen instantly, and we expect almost anything in our lives to happen right away and to our satisfaction.  We've become conditioned to not having to wait for anything, and if we do have to wait it's the end of the world!  I think we've forgotten the old saying that sometimes the good things in life are worth waiting for.  This instant gratification culture has also caused us to not spend too much time working on anything.  We have come to expect God to work on our time table and to give us what we want instantly too.  Am I right?
Just like the road outside my office we all have cracks and potholes and areas in our lives that need to be patched and fixed.  If we're honest with ourselves we can all find areas of our lives where God is working on us or we know God should be working on us.  The trouble is we are either too busy or too stubborn to let God work on the cracks.  If we identify them and let God work in us we get discouraged when it takes too long or it might become a little painful and we wish for the instant patch.  The trouble with the instant fix is that it doesn't hold as well and soon we're patching the hole again. What we have to do is let God do the work.  Sometimes the fix isn't pleasant and it isn't easy.  The fix takes some grinding, some cleaning out, and even some packing back in.  The process may not be easy, quick or very pleasant, but the process will be complete and the crack healed.  Am I taking the road analogy too far? I hope not.
The truth is that somethings take time.  None of us are perfect and God wants to work with us to make us better people and people who reflect His love more perfectly.  It's a process that takes time.  It's a process that we have to open ourselves up to and allow God to work through us.  WE might not like the cracks that God identifies, but I guarantee that if we allow God to fix those cracks we'll like the finished product even better.  So...let's help God identify the potholes we need fixed in our lives and then commit to allowing God to patch them with us.

Thunder! Na Na Na Nanna Na Na Thunder!

It's AC/DC for those that don't get the title.  So I'm sitting in my office this morning and I can see blue sky to the south and some pretty innocent clouds to the north.  Then I hear this sound...sounds like thunder I think, but it doesn't look like it could be thundering.  Sure enough, there's one dark cloud due west and it thunders a few times and drops a few huge rain drops.  Might be enough rain to keep me from mowing this afternoon, which isn't all that bad, but this one thunder cloud got me thinking.
How often do we let one bad cloud, one bad comment, one bad criticism, or just one bad thing ruin our whole day?  Or even worse if we set out to do something and we receive a little negative feedback we just give up.  How often does that happen?  Just like this morning.  I can see blue skies, and I know this cloud isn't going to cause a torrential downpour, yet it is tempting to let the little bit of rain ruin my plans of mowing.  I know full well the blue sky will prevail and I'll be able to mow just fine.  Okay, maybe I'm stretching a little here but seriously...how often do we focus too much on the negative in a situation?
Fred Craddock in his book Craddock Stories tells of a young pastor who was interviewing at a church and the vote to accept him as their past was 142 yes to 2 no's (or something close to that).  The pastor then spent the next couple of years trying to find out who the 2 no's were so he could change their minds and after that 2 year period the congregation voted 142-2 to fire him.  Moral of the story?  The new minister focused too much on the negative and ignored the positive.  It ruined a great opportunity for ministry.
I know I'm guilty of that.  I'll do something, it can be anything from a sermon to a new addition to worship to making a pie, and the vast majority of the feedback will be great but if I hear one negative thing I want to focus on that.  Why?  I know I can't please everyone and I also know that if I try I'll end up in the nut house so why do those negative comments have such a pull?
I'm not saying negative comments and constructive criticism are necessarily bad.  In fact, you can learn more in most cases from that type of feedback.  What I am saying is that letting that feedback ruin the whole day/experience for you and/or letting that negative feedback keep you from stepping out and trying something new is not good.
I wonder if sometimes we're looking for an excuse not to do something and we automatically jump to the negative.  We think of all the things that could go wrong and talk ourselves out of it.  We want to focus on the negative because we all want to be like 100% of the time so when what we aren't liked by everyone we feel bummed.  I guess I'm challenging myself, and you, to not focus on the negative.  Learn from the constructive criticism, but don't let one cloud ruin your whole day.  If that becomes the case then anytime you even think you might see a cloud you'll stay holed up in your house.  Remember, clouds produce rain which is good too.

The Sky is Falling....!

During our Group 3:16 meeting last Wednesday we talked about worry and fear and how neither one can add a single minute to our lives.  We looked at some of what Jesus has to say about fear and how he doesn't want our limited energy going into worry and fear because the vast majority of what we worry about never comes true.  I told the kids that it isn't possible to not worry at all, and God isn't telling us to stop worrying completely because that isn't possible.  What God wants us to do is to take our worries to Him and to talk to him about or fears and worries.  In doing so we'll let God help us with our fear and tap into the Spirit's vast power.  

After the big group we broke into smaller groups and I asked my group what their biggest fear was.  Want to guess at their response?  Nope, not grades, not girls, not pimples...Ebola.  Their biggest fear was contracting Ebola.  I told them their lives must be going pretty good if they're concerned with contracting a disease that is pretty hard to catch.  Then, and I don't know if this was helpful or not, I told them if they want to worry about a disease worry about influenza.  If we really need something to worry about, they say, worry about getting your flu shots. From 1976 through 2007, flu-related causes killed between 3,000 and 49,000 people in the U.S.  From CNN website.

The hysteria around Ebola continues to amaze me.  I feel for the families that have been stricken with this disease, but the level of worry and speculation and downright hysteria that has come with this disease amazes me.  I wonder why.  Why do we jump to such hysteria?  Why do we spend any time worrying about a disease that many, if not all, of us will never deal with.  I understand it's possible, and by possible I mean in the same ballpark as the Vikings winning a Superbowl possible, the disease could mutate and things could get much worse.  Heck any disease I suppose could mutate and we could all be infected, but is that something to worry about?  Can we do anything to control it?

Fear comes from misunderstanding and not understanding something.  We fear what we don't understand and unfortunately that fear generally leads to dumb decisions and anger.  When we let fear control our lives we are demonstrating that we truly don't trust God.  If we live in fear then we don't truly believe that God is in control.  As I said above we can't not worry completely, and we can't live without any fear.  What we can do is not allow that worry and fear to rule our lives.  We can talk to God about our fear and let God work through us to help us address that fear and work through it.  Don't let worry and fear keep you from experiencing God.  

Nothing to see here

Our confirmation class just went over the story of Noah and the flood.  As part of the learning I had the kids listen to a narrative version of the story and right down thoughts, questions,  and insights they had as the heard to story.  As usual they had some good ones.  Of course the obvious question was, "why?"  Why did God kill everyone and everything?  Taping into my vast knowledge of the Bible I responded with, "why do you think God did it?"  They had some good responses, but what I like the most was when we looked at characteristics of God in the story.  I asked them to tell me some traits God displayed...anger, frustration, sadness...compassion.  Huh, God kills everything on earth except Noah's family and a 2 animals of every kind and we call that compassion?  That's like burning an ant colony and leaving one or two to start over.  Doesn't sound like compassion to me.  

Well it is compassion if you consider that God could have just obliterated everyone and everything and started over completely.  God gave us a second chance.  Of course we talked about this story being literally true and the possibility it is simply a story to give us a better idea of the way God works and how God wants us to live.  Either way we are to find out what God wants us to learn from this story.  "Don't make him angry," was one response I liked.  But we tended to focus more on the compassionate side of God allowing a way out and promising never to destroy the earth again with a flood.  

Then I asked the tough question, "Is it much different today as it was back when the flood happened?  Are we as a human race doing much better?"  What do you think?  Hard to imagine people were treating each other worse back in the days of Noah.  So why doesn't God just wipe us out again and start over?  Maybe because he promised not to, maybe because He continues to work through us to make us better people, maybe because God doesn't have the energy to start over again.  The truth is we don't know the mind of God, but what we do know is that God has provided a way for us to be in direct relationship with Him and that's through Jesus.  The death and resurrection of Jesus shows us all just how much God loves us, and it is because God loves us that much we should be working to spread that love to everyone.  We were created in God's image and we have that ability to share a glimpse of God with everyone and anyone.  The question is are we willing to do it?  God gives us all kinds of chances to get it right.  Will we grasp one of those chances and let others too?  Let's hope so!