daily life as life goes on . . .

I sat with two others today and worked  on activities to make our fall intern feel welcome.  Simple things like having an office ready and food/meals to welcome them.  We will also plan open invitations to all in the congregation to meet with Ryan and Sharon.

As the date comes closer, I’m really looking forward to this.  My talks over the phone encourage me.  They are purposeful as we discuss plans, but at the same time there is a constant hint of laughter and enjoyment in the conversation.  That is a sign of a relationship that should work well.

Our best planning?  To put our spirits into daily reminder in prayer for them, and our actions into action to welcome them.

Oh, and Sharon is due with a baby mid-June.  Another event to celebrate with them!

I’ve just watched TV ads and seen posters and talked to addictions workers about a new Saskatchewan government program called DEFY (“alcohol denormalization”).  There is no sugar coating the destruction that alcohol abuse causes.  In one ad the young man beats up his friend.  In another a young girl contracts herpes.  Our society gets it!  You don’t have to wait until you die.  Life can be a living hell.

So, grace needs to be offered to those around us – mercy for those whose sky is falling in.  A Muslim infidel (she has become an athiest) was speaking on a radio show yesterday.  Although she does not now believe in God, if a Muslim were to hang on to a God, she implores them to chose the Christian God.  She claims the Muslim God is angry, unforgiving and vengeful – with seemingly no mercy.  She looks at a Christian God who is loving and forgiving.  Chose life and love.

An interesting evangelist for Christianity!  I’m not sure she has a well rounded perspective on God but the point is made.  With hell around us, walk to God who is revealed in Jesus Christ.

Who are the evangelists now?

The church has been active for years in the arena of life around them.  We celebrate William Wilberforce dealing with slavery, Mother Theresa opining the state of the poor and others over the century seeking for the right.

At the same time, we have been trying to bring people into an understanding of the grace of God to right wrong.  Sin is conquered, not by our own efforts or ingenuity.  It’s not what we do that rights the wrong.  It’s what God has done.

The combination of these two is a balance we often strive to understand.  Right now, much of North American Christianity is leaning on grace and light on moral actions.  I’m trying to understand this in light of newly inducted Christians wanting direction while at the same time trying not to steer them into legalism and bondage.

That’s all nice words.  But, at what point do we set out a list of right action that must be followed and what would that look like?  The ten commandments seem fairly acceptable in this area.  At the same time, the sermon on the Mount drills further into the question of motive and not just actions.

I guess I would start with the action of worship (first commandment in the ten commandments) – not sexuality or thievery or murder.  Start with Jesus.  Get people to commit to complete allegiance.  Commit to asking Jesus what should be done minute by minute.  Commit to checking what Jesus has already laid out in the Bible.  Commit to giving God credit first and letting any credit that remains also go to God.  This is the work of the saint – to believe fully in Jesus such that our life is affected completely by Jesus.

Follow those guidelines and you will run across all sorts of instruction on same sex relations, abortion, fraud, slander, and a myriad of other daily problems.  Start with Jesus – end with Jesus.

I’m not one to enjoy the earth. 

My heritage has been a group of farmers.  My father and my father’s father both farmed within miles of where I live today.  Plows and harrows and seeders and combines were part of their vocabulary.

My father ventured from the farm in his 40’s.  The farm never ventured from him.  He loved to garden.  His chosen vocation, weather forecasting, was one way of staying close to creation.

But, I’m not one to enjoy the earth.

A few weeks ago I was confronted with a new (probably old, but new to me) reality.  A person who shuns nature may also be shunning a vital Christian truth.  This world is very much a reality that God created, and called good!!

So, I’ve been stretching, exercising once again with a new vigor the senses God has given.  Stretching to look out a window.  Stretching to consider what it would take to nurture a lawn.  Stretching to thank God for that which I touch each day, smell in the moments of waking, hear as the sun rises, taste as my meals are served and see as shadows emerge.