Monday, November 26, 2012

Foundation Part 1

The other day I was working in my backyard and looking at the patio we build this summer and doing my best to secure things down or put them inside for the winter. It got me thinking to another conversation I had earlier in the week with someone about things like Sunday School and Bible Study. They knew of students who were completely unengaged with these things.

The problem is for the things you learn in those places, it's a foundation. If you drive around your neighborhood and look at houses you'll notice very rarely do you see the foundation. It's hidden. It's something built first and everything else is put on top of it.

Too often we have people who want to go out and serve on mission trips, play in the worship team, do the things that are visible. Things they can look back on their life and point to and say "I did that". The problem is without the foundation those things never last. And the foundation is built on the things you probably don't remember. I don't remember every Bible Study I had in high school. But I also don't remember every meal I ate in high school either, but without them I wouldn't be healthy.

Just because you don't see the immediate effects of something doesn't mean it's not there. Foundations are like that, if you are only going for the things of God that are visible, you're missing the foundation faith is built on.

T

Monday, November 19, 2012

So Much To Be Thankful For

This week is Thanksgiving, the time of year we sit and thank God for our families and all He's given to us while we eat copious amounts of food. In a few conversations over the past few weeks, I wonder if we could be even more thankful. Next time you're about to complain about something, find a way to be thankful about it.

I have to park all the way at the end of the parking lot on Black Friday:
  I have a car
  I have working legs and can walk to the door
  I live where I can go to the store and buy something I want &
  I have the money to do it
  I can buy a drink inside, bottled, safe, many flavors and types to choose from
  I have people in my life whom I love so much I want to give them a gift
  I have stores with electricity to shop at night and be heated inside
  I can buy food while I'm shopping, prepared by someone else, I don't have to make it myself, also safe
  I am healthy enough to shop
  I can breathe clean air while shopping
  I have joy, the other people that are unhappy shopping, I don't have to have that attitude

You get the idea. Try it, every time you go to complain, think about what you can be thankful for in the situation. You'll be surprised what you find...

T

Monday, November 12, 2012

No One Does It Alone

Sunday was Veteran's Day and it reminded me of one thing:

No one does it alone.

No war is won alone. No one masters a subject alone. No one builds buildings alone. No one makes movies or music alone. No one find a true sense of who God is alone.

Thank you to all those who fought for our freedom, but thank you to all those who helped me, I couldn't do it alone.

T

Monday, November 05, 2012

Shakespeare & The Bible

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!"


It is one of the most famous lines of Shakespeare and is often quoted. But here's my problem with it:   What does it mean? Who sad it? Why was it said?   Too often people pick out one line of an entire play and remember it. "To be or not to be", "All the world's a stage", these are lines we hear, we know, but if I was to ask the context most people could not tell me.   And this is what we do to Scripture waaaay too much. We know a single line, a single verse, we have it memorized and we know it backwards and forwards, but we don't know what the line is before or the line after. We don't know where Jesus was when He said the verse we're quoting, who He was talking to or what the main point of His entire conversation was. Many times we don't even know where the verse is to go back and find it to look up what it really means.   There's a danger in taking one line out of the context of the whole conversation, the whole day of events even. If we really want to know what God is saying in His Word, we need to read more and understand more than the single line.   By the way, the line at the beginning, it was used by Marc Anthony. It was also a parody of an earlier line of Brutus, making fun of him but also showing his intelligence, talking to the people about Brutus' murder of Caesar. It was a counterpoint to Brutus' speech and lead into a discussion on politics and right and wrong. When was the last time you heard that line used in context...?   T