This can relate to men or women, because from my experiences, I have seen it done by both genders. Imagine that you are sitting in the middle of a field. Let your imagination place you in whatever type of field you like. It can be summer and green, fall and golden, or it can be flat or rolling hills. But there you sit in the grass, legs crossed, just relaxing. You are feeling alone, you feel that there is one there. You begin to talk to God. You feel a hunger within you. 'God, if you would just give me something to eat, I could be content'. How many times in our lives have me made a prayer just like that one, only a different wish. We believe that if God is real, he will give us something to eat. It is funny how we feel disappointment when nothing is thrown our way. Funny how we sit in an empty field, by ourselves, and wonder why we go on hungry. But take that same situation, and place yourself instead at the base of a peachtree. How long do you think you will sit there before your prayer will be answered. It will only be a matter of time before you ask God to feed you, that a peach will fall into your lap. Is that God, or the laws of physics.
Moral- It is God. The point of that parable is to describe the reality of faith. Most of us, myself included, spend a good portion of our lives waiting for God to prove his existence before we believe in him. We are very quick to ask God for things, yet at the core of our beings still deny him. Put yourself in that situation. Would you thank someone who has not done anything for you, would you pay for services that are never rendered? Why do we draw a line in the sand and tell God that we need him to cross it before we believe. The simple solution is this, it is only when we truly believe, that God begins to reveal himself to us. The main point of the parable is this, we have to have an active faith. You cannot sit in an empty field, grow hungry, and expect God to materialize a peach out of thin air and provide it for you. This world was created with very specific laws, and something cannot be created from nothing. Now before you say, God can create something from nothing, yes, he can, why would he want to, who are you that God has to prove himself to you? In the terms of friendship, would you really care for, do for, and be a friend to someone who won't even look at you? Would you for someone who wouldn't speak to you? Would you for someone who even denied your existence? Why in the world, would you expect God to do that for you? The hunger is you wanting more out of life, the peach is your faith, and the peachtree is the church. How long will you sit in that empty field. JT
Monday, February 28, 2011
Do you smell that?
This blog uses an interesting relationship between our faith walks and garbage dumps. Have you ever been to the dump? It is an interesting area, it is enormous, there is garbage everywhere, it seems disorganized, but there is a method to the garbage madness. But the one thing that you cannot escape when you go to the dump, or even drive by it, is the smell. It is foul. It is years of decay of many different types of items, and the gas that they produce, is methane. Have you ever looked at what they do with all that garbage? The reality is, they bury it. Some is buried so deep you can never get down to it, because they bury it, cover it with dirt, put more garbage on top of it, and cover it with dirt. This is done many times over on the enormous site. Most dumps have gone to ventilation systems, basically where they run pipes up out of the ground to release the methane gas. Some industries have become very clever, and built next to the dumps to use the methane as an energy source. It is free, it is abundant, and it is a green way to eliminate a byproduct of our garbage. But over time, all dumps must close, like here in the county I live in, it is full ,they had to close it. If you drive by, it is amazing that what was once a garbage dump is now green rolling hills, with massive amounts of refuse underneath. Over time, the land will be developed, and yes, there will be a neighborhood on top of what is yesterday's trash. So how does this relate to you and me, lets see if I can put this together...
Moral- In our lives, no matter who you are, what gender you are, or what your age, someone has sinned against you. Some of those sins are what we call little sins, although I have spoken before that a sin is a sin is a sin, but they don't affect us much. Little sins are easy to forgive, they are easy for us to get over, and therefore don't affect us much. But all who read this have been sinned against with a major sin. Someone in our lives has wronged us in a very severe way, and left us feeling broken and beaten. We tend to operate our psych's like manager's of a garbage dump. We take those severe wrongs against us, and bury them. We bury them so deep within our ego's that most of us are capable of even forgetting that those sins even exist. But here is the problem. Just like the garbage, these deep seeded wrongs tend to seep out like the methane from the dump. What happens is, the people around us, our loved one's, tend to be the one's that suffer from the smell of our past. To put it much simpler, our significant others tend to have to pay for the mistakes that were made by someone else, we tend to make them carry baggage that they didn't pack. Most of us don't even realize that we are making our partners and family pay for someone else's mistake, we have so cleverly buried those negative emotions that we dont even realize that we are taking it out on our families. The problem with that is, just like the houses that reside on top of old dumps, the filth that lies underneath may make you sick, it seeps into the water we drink, and it is in the air we breath. Our families are not the source of the negativity, so why do we take what is essentially a small thing, and blow it up into world war 3. Have you ever been confronted by your partner or spouse and have no idea why they are so upset, and you think to yourself, boy, talk about overreacting? It is because you are fighting someone else's battle. So what do we do, is there a solution? I think there is. First, just like the people that buy houses on old dumps, they should have researched the area and found out that they are living on garbage. With us, we need to address the most significant moments of our lives, and saddly enough, we are seldom molded from a series of happy moments, we are, however, the people who we are because if the crap that has happened to us. We have to find out what ills we have within us that are unresolved. We have to learn forgiveness, and this is where God comes in. The basis for Christianity is forgiveness. You can make alot of points that faith is this or faith is that, and those points are valid. But it all boils down to our savior on the cross, and his last utterance of words, 'forgive them, for they know not what they do.' It is the obligation of every Christ child to learn forgiveness, to recognize the sins committed against us and find a way to make peace with those ills. With forgiveness, comes trust, we will learn to rely on, and trust our partners or spouses. With that trust, we will have a greater faith, you cannot expand your faith and get closer to God if you cannot trust in God. And with no trust in God, we have no forgiveness for those around us. Like the industry that builds near a dump,we must find a way to take the old garbage in our lives, and use it as learning tools for our future, George Bush said it best when he said, ' ya fool me once, ya can't fool me again.' Thats not actually how it goes. But we must take our pasts,no matter how horrible, and use them as teaching tools for who we become, and the only way it is possible is through forgiveness of those sins. If you expect to be forgiven for your sins, you must show that same forgiveness here on Earth, do not expect more favor from the Lord than you were willing to give, you will be judged on your ability to forgive. I can almost guarantee that there are many who read this, probably all, who think of their spouse when they read it, but this parable pertains to you. Remember that if you want to make things better in your home, the first step is fixing yourself. Find your peace, live in trust, find forgiveness. We are all sinners, there are no sins cast against you that you have not sinned against God. There are no little sins, there are only little minds. JT
Moral- In our lives, no matter who you are, what gender you are, or what your age, someone has sinned against you. Some of those sins are what we call little sins, although I have spoken before that a sin is a sin is a sin, but they don't affect us much. Little sins are easy to forgive, they are easy for us to get over, and therefore don't affect us much. But all who read this have been sinned against with a major sin. Someone in our lives has wronged us in a very severe way, and left us feeling broken and beaten. We tend to operate our psych's like manager's of a garbage dump. We take those severe wrongs against us, and bury them. We bury them so deep within our ego's that most of us are capable of even forgetting that those sins even exist. But here is the problem. Just like the garbage, these deep seeded wrongs tend to seep out like the methane from the dump. What happens is, the people around us, our loved one's, tend to be the one's that suffer from the smell of our past. To put it much simpler, our significant others tend to have to pay for the mistakes that were made by someone else, we tend to make them carry baggage that they didn't pack. Most of us don't even realize that we are making our partners and family pay for someone else's mistake, we have so cleverly buried those negative emotions that we dont even realize that we are taking it out on our families. The problem with that is, just like the houses that reside on top of old dumps, the filth that lies underneath may make you sick, it seeps into the water we drink, and it is in the air we breath. Our families are not the source of the negativity, so why do we take what is essentially a small thing, and blow it up into world war 3. Have you ever been confronted by your partner or spouse and have no idea why they are so upset, and you think to yourself, boy, talk about overreacting? It is because you are fighting someone else's battle. So what do we do, is there a solution? I think there is. First, just like the people that buy houses on old dumps, they should have researched the area and found out that they are living on garbage. With us, we need to address the most significant moments of our lives, and saddly enough, we are seldom molded from a series of happy moments, we are, however, the people who we are because if the crap that has happened to us. We have to find out what ills we have within us that are unresolved. We have to learn forgiveness, and this is where God comes in. The basis for Christianity is forgiveness. You can make alot of points that faith is this or faith is that, and those points are valid. But it all boils down to our savior on the cross, and his last utterance of words, 'forgive them, for they know not what they do.' It is the obligation of every Christ child to learn forgiveness, to recognize the sins committed against us and find a way to make peace with those ills. With forgiveness, comes trust, we will learn to rely on, and trust our partners or spouses. With that trust, we will have a greater faith, you cannot expand your faith and get closer to God if you cannot trust in God. And with no trust in God, we have no forgiveness for those around us. Like the industry that builds near a dump,we must find a way to take the old garbage in our lives, and use it as learning tools for our future, George Bush said it best when he said, ' ya fool me once, ya can't fool me again.' Thats not actually how it goes. But we must take our pasts,no matter how horrible, and use them as teaching tools for who we become, and the only way it is possible is through forgiveness of those sins. If you expect to be forgiven for your sins, you must show that same forgiveness here on Earth, do not expect more favor from the Lord than you were willing to give, you will be judged on your ability to forgive. I can almost guarantee that there are many who read this, probably all, who think of their spouse when they read it, but this parable pertains to you. Remember that if you want to make things better in your home, the first step is fixing yourself. Find your peace, live in trust, find forgiveness. We are all sinners, there are no sins cast against you that you have not sinned against God. There are no little sins, there are only little minds. JT
Stop Kicking and Learn to Relax
I had an interesting experience this last year that was brought to fruition at bible study some time ago. You see, a couple of summers ago we sent our two littlest to my sister's house for vacation bible school and for swim lessons. My son last year had a terrible time with swimming in deep water, he still had memories of almost drowning the year before, yes, he did almost drown. But this year we were a little wiser, he couldn't come crying to us because we weren't there, and the swim teacher was tough as nails, she just wouldn't let him give up. So needless to say, the boy has become quite the swimmer. Last week we were in Florida on vacation, the kids got to do a lot of swimming, turns out, the boy is part fish. One day it was just me and the boy, the girls had gone shopping or something. So T and I went down to the beach, we had gotten swim goggles from a place down there and I wanted to show him the sheer joy in swimming around in the waves and looking for shells in the water. I took him out to where I was standing about chest deep, so he couldn't reach the bottom at all. I noticed that he was swimming like he was in the swimming pool, he was pulling and kicking like the dickens to stay afloat and swim. I let him do that for a while until I saw that he was growing tired. So I grabbed him and started to show him something. I told my son that we were in salt water, and that all he had to do is relax, settle down, and realize, that all that kicking and paddling was unnecessary. I showed him how he floats in salt water. After that, we both kind of floated down the beach looking for shells, and he found a great conch shell for his mother.
Moral- Our lives can be summed up with what my son showed me last week. Here we are going through life trying our dangdest to make things turn out the way we want them. We spend a great deal of time trying to control our lives and every situation in it. The reality is, we are part of a greater plan, and grand design. No matter how much we try to control it, or how hard we struggle, our lives will turn out exactly as God wants them to. We tend to forget that we have to give our struggles up to the Lord, because no matter how hard we try, we can never handle it on our own. Our part is to relax, to stop struggling, and realize that this whole time we could just be floating down the beach, there is no need to try to keep yourself afloat, you are going to float anyway. The true moral is that if you allow this to happen, you will be amazed at what you might find.
Psalm 107:23-32
Mark 4:35-40
Luke 8:22-25
God never leaves you, he never abandons you, it is we who abandon he, JT
Moral- Our lives can be summed up with what my son showed me last week. Here we are going through life trying our dangdest to make things turn out the way we want them. We spend a great deal of time trying to control our lives and every situation in it. The reality is, we are part of a greater plan, and grand design. No matter how much we try to control it, or how hard we struggle, our lives will turn out exactly as God wants them to. We tend to forget that we have to give our struggles up to the Lord, because no matter how hard we try, we can never handle it on our own. Our part is to relax, to stop struggling, and realize that this whole time we could just be floating down the beach, there is no need to try to keep yourself afloat, you are going to float anyway. The true moral is that if you allow this to happen, you will be amazed at what you might find.
Psalm 107:23-32
Mark 4:35-40
Luke 8:22-25
God never leaves you, he never abandons you, it is we who abandon he, JT
Life is Like Vegetable Soup
Quite literally, faith is like a bowl of vegetable soup. So lets think about that for a minute, what does it take to make a good soup. Soup is a very simple meal, with the exception of the one making it. It is easy to heat up and eat, it only takes a bowl and a spoon. But if you have ever tried to make soup, you realize how difficult it can be. That is why I trust in God to be the chef of our faith soup, it would be far to difficult for us as simple humans to accomplish such a daunting task. But the reality is this, we are not the consumers of the great bowl of soup, life is the consumer, we are the ingredients. What I mean by that is, each one of us us uniquely different in our own way. Yes, there are many different types of vegetables, meats, and broths that go into vegetable soup. For every one type of vegetable there isn't one that is the same, simply put, it is nearly impossible without some outside interference to make to pieces of carrot look exactly the same. Yet when you put all of these ingredients together, a wonderful medley is the result. Ultimately what I mean by all this is what I have experienced recently in the church. From the confusion of certain people who forget they are not the master chef, and they are not the consumer of the final product, that they are just like me, a simple God made ingredient in a big bowl of faith. Just like there are not two carrots the same, I nor you can be compared to other carrots, we are similar, yet still not the same. The real point I would like to make is that if you happen to be a green bean in the soup of faith, you cannot expect the carrots or onions to act like a green bean. It is not within our nature or our creation to be like something we are not. It is shameful that we encounter green beans in our lives accosting us and treating us as if we have done something wrong simply because we cannot ever be a green bean, we are carrots, and vice versa. We have to learn that it takes all kinds of people in this world to make faith work, if we were all the same, it would be bean soup, not vegetable soup, and in faith we would be called a cult, not a religion. We must learn not just tolerance of people who do not know the Father, but also become more tolerant of each other. We must realize that God has made us all unique for a reason, and that reason is not for us to decide. In conclusion, God made me the way I am for a reason, and I offer no explanation nor should you expect any reason for the way I am. The Lord God accepts you for who you are just like he accepts me, and for that reason we must learn to better accept each other, regardless of whether or not we completely agree with what the other is doing or saying. I am a work in progress just like you, and I will stand before the man just like you, you are not better than me because you are a green bean, so let me just be a carrot, created unique by God, for the betterment of Faith itself. When they talk of the great feast in Heaven, I am willing to bet the first course is vegetable soup.
If the enemy attacks you, and if he hates you, you must be doing something right. JT
If the enemy attacks you, and if he hates you, you must be doing something right. JT
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