Random Thoughts from the Week, July 24th 2011
The preacher had a good sermon today – I hate it when that happens, cuts in to my nap time! Actually, he did have a good sermon.
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I do believe that we’re given at least one gift everyday, it’s up to us to actually notice it… and no, I don’t really think this includes seeing Jesus in your scrambled eggs or mold growing on your wall, I mean a real gift. But… like most things in life, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure: we may not see the gift because all we see is trash. A diamond in the rough does not shine and sparkle like the finished product. I think God sends diamonds in the rough – we have to cut and polish them.
Speaking of signs, this week I read a short article in our local paper about a guy who claims to see Jesus and a few other faces in an old painted sign on a brick wall where he works. I don’t know, maybe he does. In life you see what you want to see. Some people see a child with downs syndrome as a curse, a burden to bear, and say “why me”… others see the same child as a gift, an opportunity to love unconditionally, and say “thank you”. It’s all about perspective. Is Jesus in that wall painting? No. Jesus is a living God, touching our lives with other lives, usually with something simple like an easy-to-overlook-and-pass-off-as-something-else action or event.
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Do you think demons and evil are real? Back in Biblical days Jesus and his disciples cast out a lot of demons to cure people of various sicknesses and problems. Do demons no longer cause these same afflictions? I’ll bet they do, we’re just too “smart” to for that now. I wish I could see them (note to self: be careful what you ask for!) and do something about them when I see them (note to self #2: if I do see them, I definitely will need the power to do something about them!). I look around and see a lot of evil – it’s not just child-molesters or wife-beaters: evil is a child trapped in a world where their body is crippled or a mind trapped in a black hole no one can reach, it’s leaders betraying their country and their people, it’s leaders and laypeople alike claiming to fight to end race conflict yet constantly making it worse for their own twisted reasons, it’s the constant race to the bottom of the morality barrel… there’s no shortage of evil these days, so I reason there’s no shortage of demons. It’s time to cast some out don’t you think?
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When the thing that you fear and worry about actually starts to happen it can be a relief… if that is, you realize that God is going to provide a path through the minefield.
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God will take care of us if we let him… we just tend to think we can do a better job… not too smart on our part.
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Back to the preacher’s sermon… it was about the fact we don’t really know how to pray. He’s right – here are some of my thoughts: Too often we approach prayer like sitting on Santa’s lap at Christmas, we need to focus less on our wants and needs and more on others. God knows what we want and need without us asking for it all the time. Prayer is a constant process, not something we turn on and off… I’m going to write more on this in the future, but I believe that if we “pray” for “x” (when we actually pray in a formal way by closing our eyes and actively praying) and the other 23 hours and 55 minutes of the day we’re doing and thinking the opposite of “x”, then we’re not really praying for “x”, we’re praying for the opposite of “x” and the opposite of “x” is what we’ll experience.
Until next time,
Fred
