Five Things

Every year, Travis and I meet over the summer to pray and plan for the upcoming school year. We often meet at the Route 40 Diner over breakfast. This year, my heart was heavy with five words that were impressed upon me for my children. Five words that were beginning to define how we wanted to raise our children and that which we desired to impart to them.

This is not a list that sits on our desk but is impressed upon our hearts. They were manifested through reading God’s word, a reflection on how we were living our lives and how we were not, prayer, and who we are as God’s children.

Its how I desire to live my walk with God, my relationships with my family and neighbors, and our ministry… and what I want to impart to my children.

Identified. Called. Obedient. Influencing. Loving.

My understanding with what these words mean grows and deepens with my own walk. On the Sunday after Easter I had the opportunity to share with our church family a snapshot of these five things through a reflection of the appointed scripture reading. The heart of this message is based on the question “What is the most important thing you will do today?”

As a parent, I am responsible for the spiritual upbringing of my children. We teach, we admonish, we train, we nurture and we also help lead our children to an encounter with the risen Lord. In fact, at their Baptism, we made a commitment to help them grow in the knowledge and love of God, and in their responsibilities as members of his Church. To help understand “spiritual upbringing” and an “encounter with God”, consider Job and Thomas…

The story of Job unfolds as we understand who he is and his life goals, as he lives through and endures physical and emotional suffering, as he spends time before God and finally exclaims “My ears of heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” Job has heard the report of God… but now he has physically, mentally, and spiritually encountered God. His response? Repentance.

Repentance is a mark of one who has encountered God. They have become identified with Christ. Their identity is in Christ.

The gospel of John for this Sunday is the passage that is often referred to as the story of doubting Thomas. Thomas doubted when he did not see. (Let’s not forget that it took Job 42 chapters before he saw!) But when he did encounter the Risen Lord, he fell down and cried out “My Lord and My God”. I would understand this to be the first recorded instance of the praise and worship of the Risen Lord.

A mark of one who has encountered God is praise and worship. They acknowledge His presence and humble themselves before him.

We can learn about God but we must be identified with His death and resurrection. We must be transformed and take on the image of Christ; identified with him.

We can know our gifts and our talents, inventory our interests and capabilities, but we must seek the calling and purpose of our Creator. We are called.

We can be obedient to the law, but we are not under the law. We must be obedient to the will and commands of God… out of love.

In the midst of our identity, our calling and our obedience we live a life of influence. We must go into the world…

And finally, love. Follow the way of love. Love of God, love of neighbor… the most excellent way.

Identified. Called. Obedient. Influencing. Loving.

It should be noted that the appointed readings for this Sunday are
Job 42:1-6
Acts 5:12a,17-22, 25-29
John 20:19-31

Encounter

A few Sunday’s ago, I ran into one of our former students. We were on our way home from church and stopping at the mini-mart to pick up supplies. I was walking across the parking lot among the traffic, cars, and the people. A young man was calling my name and walking towards me. I recognized him but just couldn’t remember his name. He quickly updated me on his life since graduation while his friend kept telling him to hurry up, people passed by and I started to feel uncomfortable. Things were not well for him.

He celebrated his 18th birthday with a drug arrest, he has a child, he’s confused, and he’s helpless and maybe even hopeless.

If you were approached by a family member, a friend, a neighbor who was reaching out for help… mentally, emotionally and spiritually battered and abused; what would you do?

His court date was in a few days, his child was living apart from him, he was moving from house to house, lacks a job… What would you do? What would you say to this young man?

I froze and gave him the safest and easiest answer… “I’ll pray for you”. He thanked me and we went our separate ways. The cock crowed. The man lay on the side of the road and I made a commitment to pray for him when I was in the safety of my home. I did the least I could do to the least of them. God forgive me.

My commitment is to find this man and respond to God, with or without words, in thought and deed.

Catching Up and Kicking Out

It’s been several weeks since I made a posting about Bible Released Time. We didn’t have class for three weeks in a row and that threw me out of kilter. First, my chronic back problem put me on the floor and out of commission, then we celebrated Easter, and then I was out of town. We’ve been back in the saddle but not without incidence.

We did have the pizza party for the class. Wicked Pizza. At the end, four of the boys thought it would be cute to sneak out the back door; they returned but then 3 of the 4 thought it would doubly cute to hide when the bus came. A sad state of their hearts to express their gratitude with abject disobedience.

I would have left them but by time I called the school to have security take care of it, they ran out. As I sat in class, a bit angry, the three versus that came to mind were

Proverbs 29:18
Matthew 7:6
Matthew 10:14

Needless to say, they have been removed from class. I will talk more about this in a future post; but, for now, will say that we have seen greater interest in the word and perhaps even the hints of spiritual fruit among those remaining in the class. Amen!