Dear fellow travelers,
Sundays here are now “Sunday Share.” The post below is a clever piece of advice on how to use something everyone has – their face – as a reminder to practice gratitude in everyday living. Mama Lava has been posting daily “hacks” to encourage and entertain her readers and this is one of my favorites!
During the pandemic, most of us found we had extra time on our hands. In my case, I did not have to commute to work, and many other activities I’d normally do were shut down, so it was easier (not easy) to make time for private time with God in Bible study and prayer. However, as I’m now in “Return to Office” mode, working 2-3 days a week in the office, I’ve been reminded of Mark 1:35, which says: “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, [Jesus] departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
Jesus got up early after a very busy night, which Mark describes in verses 33 and 34: “That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.”
I am not naturally a morning person, and finding time has been harder, but as I’ve written: “whether you’re working at a job, at home, retired, a student, a parent, or in any role in this world, as God’s creativity was to be reproduced by Adam and Eve, the character of Jesus is being developed in His people in this world.” “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”[1] If even Jesus needed daily prayer and time to listen to the Father to get His work done, how much more do we all need that time?
My post-pandemic routine is different than my pre-pandemic routine, and daily time with God is not about the means, but the end. He has work for each of us to do, and whatever your means of having relationship with the Father, making time to spend with Him is vital for approaching each day as an act of worship and service.
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14
[1] Ephesians 2:10
Dear fellow travelers,
Sundays here are now “Sunday Share,” but the post for today isn’t ready, so for now it’s “Saturday Share.” Today’s post comes from pastor, author and blogger Dave Peever. It’s a searching and thought-provoking piece on why attendance is declining in American churches.
He writes: “Many of our church leaders and attendees are empty people who have replaced compassion, community and commitment with butts in the seats, bucks in the bank and broadening their sphere of influence.”
Read the full post below:
I see no need to attend church. I know it sounds crazy coming from a pastor but the truth is I have trouble giving a good reason to show up every Sunday let alone throughout the week. I am referring to the congregation of course, if I don’t show up I won’t have a job.
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For Rewind Wednesday, check out the post linked below from November 2021, a quote from the book “Reading the Times”, by Jeffrey Bilbro. In this quote, Bilbro compares Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien’s books to an Old Testament prophet. I highly recommend the book, which is about keeping an eternal perspective when reading the daily news, rather than letting the news sweep us along with the tide of current events.
In the previous post in this series on our Master’s voice, I wrote that: “We can’t see the reasons God wants us to trust Him because there is far more at work than we could ever imagine.” Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes great illustrations come from strange fictional places, like Jim Carrey movies and Douglas Adams books for example.
In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,[1] the sequel to the sci-fi comedy classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, author Douglas Adams imagines a technology that harnesses full awareness of the universe as a profoundly cruel torture device. When Trin Tragula invented the “Total Perspective Vortex” to annoy his wife who kept accusing him of blowing things out of proportion, he found that when he tested it on her, “the shock completely annihilated her brain.” A victim is placed in the TPV and presented with a realistic model of the entire universe, with a tiny dot on top of a tiny dot that says, “you are here.” He concluded that “a sense of proportion” in such a massive universe would only make someone feel completely insignificant, hopeless, and insane beyond all hope of recovery. It’s a sci-fi comedy, but still, be careful what you wish for.
Another example from a different angle is the Jim Carrey movie, Bruce Almighty. This hilarious (but irreverent) comedy is based on Carrey’s character Bruce Nolan raging against God about his frustrating life. God, played by Morgan Freeman, appears and challenges Bruce to do any better, giving him “the job” for a temporary period to teach him a lesson. The 3-ish-minute video embedded here is my favorite part of the movie, where Bruce tries to figure out how to deal with his new awareness of all the prayers of the world.
If God thought it was possible, or a good idea, for us to know it all, we would. After all, even Nipper the dog from the “His Master’s Voice” painting would be distracted and unable to get anything done if he saw this picture, even though it contains only good news:
Our Master speaks to us as our creator, knowing both our limitations, but also what we are capable of as His marvelous creatures if we trust Him!
This post is fourth in a series that started with this post on His Master’s Voice. More to come…
[1] Adams, Douglas. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. (1980). P. 79
