We have all read, seen, and acknowledge that we tell people we will pray for them, more often than not, to end a conversation or because that's what we are supposed to say...so I'm not going down that road. My problem/question starts further back...do we even believe in prayer?
If we truly believed in prayer, would we ever argue?
When we get to heaven will we be amazed at our lack of prayer on earth?
If we truly believed in prayer would we ever be afraid?
Do we talk more to our brother about Christ, than to Christ about our brother? Which should we? (and that isn't a rhetorical question)
Jake, Hannah and I were talking yesterday and we were teasing Hannah that she was asleep. She kept saying she wasn't asleep and dreaming, but with every reason she gave Jacob and I would come up with an excuse of why she could still be asleep. That lead to our conversation of living.
Hannah said, "what if our whole life was someone's dream?" I'm sure you and I have thought that before, but I wasn't expecting it to come out of a 6 year olds mouth. So this conversation lead to my question of, "how do you know you're alive?"
Hannah answered the way most Christians answer their second birth, "because I was born." In fact she commented about her passport (we were in the car, and since we have to have it to cross the border the kids are very familiar with what they are and what they stand for). Jacob however was quiet. When he finally gave his answer of how he knew he was alive it was very real.
"Grandfathers are kind...fathers are loving."-Peter Kreeft
Love is not God...God is love. I'm afraid of what I have confused love with. Many times I have confused love for peace, love for niceness, love for happiness. But that isn't love. It can be, but it's not always.
Do I love a brother more than I love him liking me? Am I willing to confront or inflict pain in someones life to protect them from something far worse? Do i love them enough to know the most merciful thing that I can offer is to seek for justice to have it's way? Do i love them enough to wait patiently and embrace them when the world would deject them? Do i love them enough to know when they need encouragement and when they need a firm hand? Do i even love myself in this way?
We've recently planted over 150 trees. Palm trees, fruit trees, ficus trees, Avocado trees. It has been one of the most inspiring, softening times in my life.
A college group from just outside Toronto has been here this week, helping do some of this stuff and also visiting orphans in Matamoros. As we were watering the trees, carefully pouring one gallon down the opening stem of the palms, then slowly releasing the 4 gallons onto the ground around it...but not too fast and not too close to the trunk, I was asked this question.
"If it's this much work, how do they survive in the wild?"
I paused for a second...looking around a saw a couple palms across the road. Definately in the wild. They were dwarfed, they had never been pruned and head dead palms hanging all over like a man who's beard was out of control. The palms thereselves were not the vibrant green of our palms.
They will survive in the wild, without the hand of man, but they will not thrive.
That's how God created nature. Linked it to the hand of man. The duties He gave to Adam haven't changed: gaurd, keep, cultivate...its just a little more work than before. But I must wonder this. What about us...when we are completely cut off...left alone in the wild we still survive. But do we thrive.
The Church of England used to ask this haunting question to any seeking to take up membership in their service. It is not a question we hear today.
"Are you willing to step into the service of the Christ, to submit to His desires over your life, even if it meant being damned to the abyss if that brought Him glory?"
I read the passage in Luke where the risen Christ joined the journey of 2 men on the road to Emmaus. What stuck out the most to me was Christs ability to love and care and be patient with them. Men He even called foolish, and stubborn, yet He joined Himself to them, to walk with them on their journey, and patiently began showing them...using their knowledge...how He was the King. To me this is beautiful. How Christ can join with sinful broken men, and patiently show them He is the King.
What is the most beautiful attribute of Christ to you?
What place, or what priority should be given to Politics by the Church? How interested-invested should the church be in political goings-on? Should the church debate, educate, picket? What do you think?
