Robinwood Rapids!

As I was waiting for a dental appointment this past week, I noticed that there was a Hope Chapel across the street.  They had a typical word sign you see at some churches where this week’s concept of the day could be put for all to see.  It stated that, “The Greatest Wisdom Is Kindness.”  Reading it caused me to pause and it wasn’t clear to me that the virtue of kindness was the greatest one.

I think we all can see where being kind is a good virtue.  Kindness is a virtue that I like to often practice.  But I don’t think it is the greatest one; being kind may not fit all situations.  Pastor Hous has preached that practicing the virtue of ‘grace’ should be high on our lists, and I would say that ‘grace’ would be higher on the list than ‘kindness.’

For example, here are some of the definitions of Grace:

1. elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.
2. a pleasing or attractive quality or endowment.
3. favor or good will.
4. mercy; clemency; pardon.
5. favor shown in granting a delay or temporary immunity.
6. the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.
7. the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.
8. a virtue or excellence of divine origin: the Christian graces.
9. moral strength: the grace to perform a duty.

I think this list better depicts what what I would want from someone practicing wisdom.

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I really enjoyed today’s mini-play, which put on by our sister church Amistad and their high school troop.  It was very moving and inspirational. 

For those not at church today, the skit, which was non-verbal, featured a young woman who in the beginning was influenced by Christ in her movements.  But then “life happened.”  First, she was wooed by a young suitor for her attention.  Then another suitor offering money and drugs grabbed her attention.  This was followed by partying and booze, and then trying to look hip in today’s society.  Finally, the grim reaper then appeared, coaxing her into suicidal activities, finally providing her a gun as a possible solution to her problems.

The play then had the woman being tormented by all those that had courted her attention.  At the side, Christ was also trying to pull her out of her misery.  Finally, Christ interceded in between life’s torment and herself.  The play ended with Christ becoming the central figure in her life.

The play aligned well with Pastor Hous’ message for 2009 of focusing on inner peace amidst life’s turmoil.

Have a great 2009!

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The sermon a couple of weeks ago was on Forgiveness.  When I listen to John Mayer’s song ‘Say’, the lyrics seem to be appropriate.  You can find the lyrics here.

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I really enjoyed the sermon this past Sunday.  Not necessarily the topic, but that Pastor Nelson highlighted that the Bible seemed to have different opinions on divorce depending on the context.  Maybe when the Book of Luke is finally finished, more sermons and discussions on where the Bible differs would be interesting.

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In the various blogs that I read, I was pointed to a nice article by Margaret B. Hess entitled ”High anxiety: Dealing with critics.”  It discusses her approach on dealing with criticism, especially when the critique is on a sermon she has given.

An interesting excerpt that I had never heard about was:

“Edwin Friedman’s notion that criticism is a form of pursuit has helped me to understand criticism from a new angle. Behind Friedman’s idea is the understanding that human beings always engage in an emotional dance of approach and retreat. This concept comes from Murray Bowen’s theory of family systems. Bowen asserts that every two-person relationship is essentially unstable; the dynamic of the dyad is always to move toward or away from the other in an effort to achieve homeostasis. All communications can be understood as expressions of this dance of closeness and distance. When the comfortable balance of closeness and distance is disrupted, the partners seek to restore the balance by taking a step forward or back in order to restore a comfortable distance.”

I recommend reading the article, as it gives a nice example of the ‘dance’ between two people on opposite sides of an issue, including a misunderstanding of what the root issue really was all about.

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Back on February 12, 2008 I wrote a blog entry that included a video of Randy Pausch’s last lecture entitled, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”  Randy lost his battle with pancreatic cancer yesterday.  He was my age, 47.

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This past Sunday I was reflecting on the Robin’s Nest sermon series.  Looking at the painting of the various stages where the robin’s nest comes into play, it struck me that the time period involved is just a minor time phase in the robin’s life.  Although life can be risky for the newborn robin, the life phases that follow can be even more risky and complicated.

These thoughts led me to an analogy of Robinwood Church’s support of His Nesting Place.  While support of unwed mothers is important, I wondered if the church should be investigating long-term partnership support of those children that come through that facility.  Evidence shows that children that are raised in a fatherless home are at higher risk of running into long-term societal problems.  Should we be offering some form of big-brother/sister support?  Something the church can be thinking about.

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Pastor Hous talked about each of us being flexible enough to be shaped in what the Lord wants for our lives, such as clay on a potter’s wheel.  I wondered whether God wants us to be taken to the oven and baked, or are we to be constantly shaped? For some of us, does God want the ability to ball us up and start over, including the ability to do this multiple times in our lives?

When things are not going well in our particular life’s sandboxes, many people would be willing to be balled up and be allowed to start over.  However, if there are long-lasting issues in our lives that will take many months to reshape, one’s ability to have the fortitude to wait for God to ball us up is quite the challenge.  Here’s a prayer to us all that God has plenty of water at the potter’s wheel to shape our lives as painlessly as possible.

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Did Jesus ever make any mistakes?  He certainly lived without sin, but did he do something where his initially intended results did not succeed as he envisioned.  Were there times in his early life, where he wanted to make inroads with religous leader’s thought processes, and his arguments to sway them changed over time as a result of the initial the reactions he received?  If that did indeed occur in his life, was that a mistake, a lesson learned, or a sin?  Or was Jesus so perfect that if his intended arguments did not succeed, it was a result of the imperfections of the people he was dealing with.

We each find ourselves in life situations where we make sincere efforts to cause a positive effect on life, but the resulting effects do not turn out as envisioned.  There are many quotes about learning from life’s mistakes.  When you look at the definitions of sin and mistake, both refer to some error, but to sin is more egregious.

When Pastor Hous encourages us to be Pro-Ourselves, I believe that means that we should not stop pursuing life at the risk of making genuine mistakes.  Not all of us are quick-witted as Jesus was, with a parable for every situation involving evil. 

God loves us for who we are, which is that we are human beings that are flawed and we have the ability to learn from mistakes.  However, despite this love, we should all do reality checks when we are about to make a mistake that is blatantly egregious.

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Pastor Hous does a great job of building us up during his sermons.  This past Sunday was no different.  He pointed out that before we critique others lives, we need to be “Pro-Ourselves”.  We need to establish a relationship with the Lord in our hearts. 

Pastor Hous’ teachings are very much in line with the Who We Are write-up on the Robinwood Church website.  They are focused on understanding that the Lord loves us and wants us to succeed. But, just when you feel all is right with the world, then the realities of the world hit. 

As he typically does, Pastor Hous concludes his sermons by praying for the various ills that congregation members are facing.  Financial issues, substance issues, family issues, issues facing the nation, issues facing the world; there are numerous ones.  The tears that flow during this prayer time are due to the quaking occuring between a world where heaven is envisioned, but the realities of the world are just not in alignment.  It can be during this time of quaking when questions of, “Does God really love me?” come to the forefront.

It was particulary painful for me this week during prayer time to see someone I admire having tears flow due to the complexities of their family’s life. Questions of what is my responsibility to help versus letting the Lord take control of the situation come to mind.  When one’s earth is shaking extremely hard, keeping order in life is very difficult.  I guess a prayer of, “Lord there a many paths that could be taken; please shine your light in the path you want the family to take,” is the primary one that comes to mind.

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