Sunday, October 4, 2009
Baptism prayer
Nuture me in faith and prayer so that I may learn to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
new tattoo inspiration
Paul suggests, beginning with our very lives, that nothing in life is “mine.” Life is a gift. The only real belonging is the reality that we belong to God – the God who created us, who redeemed us, and who fills us with the breath of life. We, and everything about our lives, comes with a tag that says “Use as intended” – and the whole kit and kaboodle belongs to God.
So it is that Paul is carrying this message to the Corinthians who seem to have forgotten much of what he taught them in the time he was among them. They are being swayed by other teachers. They seem content returning to the dead end lives in which Paul found them. They are being manipulated by teachers who present an “eye candy” faith that is increasingly disconnected from the heart of God-given reality.
So Paul reminds them that they belong to God. Their lives are not their own. Their calling, like Paul’s calling, comes to them from the outside. They live, not for themselves, but as representatives, ambassadors, of a divine sovereignty. They have died to an old life that God might raise them to a new life and that changes everything.
Not “mine” but “thine.”
~ Pastor Kerry Nelson
So it is that Paul is carrying this message to the Corinthians who seem to have forgotten much of what he taught them in the time he was among them. They are being swayed by other teachers. They seem content returning to the dead end lives in which Paul found them. They are being manipulated by teachers who present an “eye candy” faith that is increasingly disconnected from the heart of God-given reality.
So Paul reminds them that they belong to God. Their lives are not their own. Their calling, like Paul’s calling, comes to them from the outside. They live, not for themselves, but as representatives, ambassadors, of a divine sovereignty. They have died to an old life that God might raise them to a new life and that changes everything.
Not “mine” but “thine.”
~ Pastor Kerry Nelson
a few interesting quotes
a few things that have caught my eye and my mind and that I've been meditating on...
- Spiritual disciplines are not ways to eradicate all our desires but ways to order them so that they can serve one another and together serve God. ~Henri Nouwen
- We live between the trees, in a world drenched in God. And some people seriously ask, you know, "Where is God?" Maybe a better question would be, "Where isn't God?" I mean, his fingerprints are all over our world. Or maybe it's his world and they're our fingerprints. ~Rob Bell
- May you trust that Jesus, when he says that death has been taken care of, and that you can live forever with God, that you're never, ever, ever going to stop living. May you believe that death has been taken care of, and you can be a partner with God in redeeming and restoring this fallen, broken, hurting world. That you can literally be a partner with God in making this the kind of place that God orginially intended it to be. May you be the kind of person who, when you live this way, the very trees of Paradise are being planted. ~Rob Bell
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
I read this today in one of the devotions I receive:
"Christ isn't really Christ until He makes it into our homes. We don't attend Sunday worship, maybe a mid-week Bible Study, and consider it over. Our transition into Christians occurs when Christ is the center of our lives every day. This is a challenge. This is difficult. It necessitates change within our lives."
It's the challenge I'm struggling with. The question I don't know how to answer right now. Reading this makes me feel challenged, called, scared, and as though I'm failing.
Create in me a clean heart O God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence O Lord,
And take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of your salvation,
And renew a right spirit within me.
"Christ isn't really Christ until He makes it into our homes. We don't attend Sunday worship, maybe a mid-week Bible Study, and consider it over. Our transition into Christians occurs when Christ is the center of our lives every day. This is a challenge. This is difficult. It necessitates change within our lives."
It's the challenge I'm struggling with. The question I don't know how to answer right now. Reading this makes me feel challenged, called, scared, and as though I'm failing.
Create in me a clean heart O God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence O Lord,
And take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of your salvation,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Where am I going? What am I doing?
I was talking with a friend from college a few days ago who is currently working on a PhD, and we were commiserating about not yet being where we want to be - that we feel like we are treading water, waiting for life to start. I've been struggling with this feeling quite a bit lately - that I'm not doing what (a) I want to be doing and more importantly(b) I'm not doing what God is calling me to do.
But then, what is God calling me to do? I can remember so vividly a time in college (spring of my freshman year) when I truly felt God calling me to real mission work - leave the comfort of the states, go to some third world village, and be with people and love them. At the time I felt torn between walking away from college and parental expectations and this strong call, and in the end expectations won out. But then I said, when I graduate, I'll do the Peace Corps or LVC or something.
But then, I met this wonderful goofy guy and got married instead. So now, I have this "great" life - wonderful husband, great friends, good job, a house, etc. And I feel like a sell-out, like I've totally walked away from the call that was so clear and strong 8 years ago. I'm trying to work towards getting my MSW so I can find a way to work with those in need and fight for social justice, but that reality is at least 4 years away right now. I just feel so frustrated - that I'm not in the place God wants me to be and I don't know how to reconcile that.
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
~Thomas Merton
But then, what is God calling me to do? I can remember so vividly a time in college (spring of my freshman year) when I truly felt God calling me to real mission work - leave the comfort of the states, go to some third world village, and be with people and love them. At the time I felt torn between walking away from college and parental expectations and this strong call, and in the end expectations won out. But then I said, when I graduate, I'll do the Peace Corps or LVC or something.
But then, I met this wonderful goofy guy and got married instead. So now, I have this "great" life - wonderful husband, great friends, good job, a house, etc. And I feel like a sell-out, like I've totally walked away from the call that was so clear and strong 8 years ago. I'm trying to work towards getting my MSW so I can find a way to work with those in need and fight for social justice, but that reality is at least 4 years away right now. I just feel so frustrated - that I'm not in the place God wants me to be and I don't know how to reconcile that.
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
~Thomas Merton
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Scripture Meditations for Lent
Readings from today that summarize what I had been trying to articulate as my meditations for Lent:
Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Matthew 6:19-21, 24
Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourself treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
No one can serve two masters. Either she will hate one and love the other, or she will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Matthew 6:19-21, 24
Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourself treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
No one can serve two masters. Either she will hate one and love the other, or she will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
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