“In our family we share!”
That’s the daily diatribe you hear around our house these days. Living with siblings can be an amazing and frustrating experience. As a parent, I am constantly confronted with the fact that children love to keep things for themselves. It is such a funny thing to see my 3 year old try to hold all her favorite toys in her lap to keep her brother and sisters from being able to play with them. And she has so many little trinkets that are her priceless possessions that she can’t possibly play with them all at once. But that doesn’t keep her from denying her siblings the joy of playing with her toys. The other day we were looking at a house and the power was out. So I handed a flashlight to my son so he could explore the house with his two sisters. I could hear them as they ran through the house, “let me hold the flashlight, shine it over there.” “Let me see it!” “Mom, Josiah’s hogging the flashlight!” “Abigail, stop it!” “Let me see it!” I later found out that my son, Josiah, was only shining the light on what he was interested in, and kept leaving his sisters in the dark.
"I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Gen 12:2-3)
God makes himself known to Abraham, and promises to bless him if he chose to follow God and walk in his ways. And Abraham did just that. And God followed through on his promise to bless him and the nation that grew out of Abraham’s family. And once they got into the land God had promised them, the blessing kept flowing. Eventually, they became one of the most powerful nations in the ancient world. Things just couldn’t seem to get any better for the wealthy nation of
And when the promised deliverer showed up on the scene he wasn’t too happy about how they were hoarding the blessings. They were enslaving the other nations around them. The poor and the widows were being ignored. People were being denied justice. They were keeping the light to themselves. And so God allowed them to be overrun by invading nations and they were carried off into slavery.
I have been learning recently about the key statement of the Lutheran church. It looks like this:
God is always moving down. It is simple and profound. We achieve nothing by our won effort. But as I have studied it I wonder if something is missing. But maybe it would better be expressed this way:
God is always moving down, but he still wants all nations to be blessed through his people. This also expresses the great commandment, “love God with everything you’ve got, and your neighbor as yourself.”
How intentional are we about allowing God to bless others through us?
Do we tend to hoard our toys in our lap?
Do we keep the light to ourselves?
Are we guilty of hiding away in our building?
What do you think?
9 comments:
Well, yes, I've already confessed to being a "God hog" during worship at times, but in truth my greatest prayer is that my children will feel God's presence in their lives even more powerfully than I have.
I am encouraged by the members of POP, who while sitting in their "God box" decided to fund a mission that would totally "flow through", with no expectation of "pay back"....hence, you, Mike Cramer. Also, once Pastor Bishop gave a sermon that posed a series of "Bible stumpers" including the Great Commandment. He was disappointed that so few people could answer anything more than knowing what the Great Commandment was. I suggested to him that his quiz should provide him with great relief to know that everyone in his congregation GOT IT. Of course, the difficult part is living it.
More concerning to me is the way our nation has hoarded the light. How can we continue to believe that we are the only nation that God blesses. How did we pull God into our selfishness and self-righteousness? When did Jesus ever say prove your point with violence? We are a country of immigrants originally seeking religious freedom. Yet the first thing our Puritan fathers did was to steal the land of the "heathen Indians". And most recently I can't check my email without finding another forwarded "immigrant bashing" statement. Not much effort to bless all nations through our own.(Sorry to politicize, but if we ARE the church....)
I want to focus on the sentence which says that Josiah was only shining the light on what he was interested in.
Although we are here to promote God's agenda, do we only shine the light on those parts of the agenda that we like, or only for those people we choose? Do we listen to others and then shine the light so they can see God from their perspective, and not expect them to see God from our perspective or by shining the light on what we are interested in?
Hey, I know this is off the subject, but what do you think about the discovery of the letters written by Mother Theresa describing her spiritual drought, questioning, and inability to feel the presence of God? "My God, my God...why have you forsaken me?"
Apparently she is the only one of us who struggles to be painfully honest in her search for God. I don't know about you, but its hard to let go and trust God. She admitted she doubted, she didn't then go out and rob a bank. She continued to be an advocate for the poor.
I haven't heard about Mother T's letters, but considering where she lived and worked 24/7, seeing the worst of the worst, seeing human suffering to such a degree every day, I don't know how anyone, even Mother T, could not have doubts about God at times--it is human nature. To her credit, she stayed true to her faith and belief, even in the darkest hours. The Bible has numerous examples of great figures who became angry with God, or doubted God, or outright disobeyed God. The key is learning your lesson, asking for and accepting God's forgiveness, and strengthening your faith through adversity.
I agree, Grant. Scot Occhionero told me about her letters last week and he found it discouraging and a little frightening to consider. I reminded him of Christ's own words on the cross, "My God...why have you forsaken me?'
These are perhaps the most moving words Christ ever spoke. At that very moment of doubt and disconnect from His own father Jesus fully assumed my humanity and weakness and His sacrifice was all the grfeater for it. How much more saint-like, too, that Mother Theresa lived her faith (WAS the church) despite her doubts.
Since you posted the initial blog mentioning MT, I saw a Newsweek article about the letters. Will these letters derail her fast track to sainthood?
Very interesting...the Roman Catholic road to sainthood is quite long and complicated. Personally, I believe she is already a saint. At the same time, coming from an RC background I'm not taking any chances. I am currently working on beefing up my resume for sainthood. A mission trip to Zambia would look good and I still need one major or two minor miracles. I doubt the fact that I have not needed to use an alarm clock for decades and still am never late will count as either.
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