Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness. [Luke 4:8 (MSG)]
In The Book of Common Prayer, Psalm 100 begins with the words, “O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands; serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.” As a girl, I frequently read those words in my prayer book before worship began. I thought of them again last Sunday. Following the recessional, the visiting pastor exclaimed, “Our worship has ended, let our service begin!” During worship, I’d made a joyful noise and come before the Lord with a song. The minister’s words reminded me that now was the time to serve Him with gladness. The hour or so spent in worship on Sundays is just a small part of a Christian’s life. God blesses us with another 167 hours in the week. How will we choose to serve Him in that time?
Heavenly Father, thank you for the reminder that when our worship ends, the real work of furthering your Kingdom begins. May we not just hear your word, but comprehend it. May we not just say your word, but live it. Let your word turn into our works and cause our faith to turn into action. May we always serve you with gladness.
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. [Kevin Max]
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. [Rabindranath Tagore]
Like many, I mistook the phrase, “just deserts” for “just desserts.” The phrase comes from a now obsolete meaning of the word “desert” which was something deserved or merited. However we spell or say it, we tend to take a certain amount of pleasure when our enemies, adversaries, and those people who manage to make our lives difficult or downright miserable get what they deserve. “Poetic justice,” we say while watching them reap the consequences of their actions. Bad attitudes, excess drama, inappropriate behavior, substandard performance, selfishness, pettiness, laziness and insubordination all have a way of catching up with people. It’s hard to have any sympathy for them when they end up in a world of hurt of their own making. Jesus doesn’t tell us we have to be sympathetic but He does say we have to love and pray for them! We don’t have to allow their poison to seep into our lives, make excuses for them, enable them, tolerate horrible behavior, or become embroiled in their drama, but we do have to love and pray!
Warm summer nights at the lake mean campfires, s’mores and fireflies. As the darkness descends, bug jars appear and the children start chasing these fascinating insects. How odd that the same child who will shirk away from any insect during the day will give chase to and capture these flashing winged beetles at night. By the end of the evening, the children have collected a jarful of tiny flying stars (that will be released as soon as the little ones are tucked into bed).
When my children were younger, there were several occasions that I wanted to pretend I had no idea to whom they belonged! There was that time one noticed (and used) the red emergency stop button on an escalator, or another discovered the meaning of the “domino effect” after pulling over one stanchion at the airport and seeing another ten follow suit, or one managed to be so nasty to the babysitter that she went home in tears, or when hotel security came knocking because of spitballs dropping from the window of our children’s adjoining hotel room. I really didn’t want to admit I knew them, let alone had given birth to them. We expected better from our children and their conduct certainly didn’t bring honor to our name. Unfortunately, their behavior, while unacceptable, was a somewhat unavoidable and unpleasant part of their growing up. Fortunately, those times of boundary testing are long over and I am now proud that they bear my name.
“Be mindful to be a blessing…” After reading Paul’s words as translated in the Classic Amplified Bible, I thought of a comic I recently saw in the newspaper. (Oddly, I get lots of inspiration from the comics and I’m not sure what that says about my intellect.) Nevertheless, in “Nancy,” written by Guy Gilchrist, it’s Nancy who is reading the comics page. The speech balloon says, “Today’s Motivation: Let your presence be a gift to all you meet!” The next panel shows her walking down the street. Instead of her typical hair ribbon, she is wearing an enormous bow and a gift tag that says, “To you!”
Back in 1765, Dr. John Fawcett became the pastor of a small church in Wainsgate, England. Although his congregation of farmers and shepherds paid him a modest salary and donated wool and potatoes to them, the growing Fawcett family struggled to make ends meet. When a prestigious London church extended a call to him, Fawcett accepted and preached his farewell sermon. The family’s belongings were loaded on their wagon when parishioners gathered around him and begged him to stay. When his wife cried, “Oh John, John, I cannot bear this,” the pastor agreed. He ordered the wagon unloaded and remained at that parish for 54 years. Tradition has it that Fawcett wrote the words to “Blest be the Tie” in commemoration of that day.
