Month: November 2010

Special Thanksgiving Message 2010: The Gospel of Giving

“If a woman has ten silver coins, what will she do if she loses one? She’ll light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully. When she finds it, she will call her friends and neighbors and say to them, ‘Let’s celebrate! I’ve found the coin that was lost” (The Lost Gospel Q, Q72, Pp. 107).

This morning when I awoke, I took a drive early in the morning. I saw the streets where empty and few cars on the road. It was as if everyone was still asleep and or already at their relatives houses where they were to spend this most special of days we call Thanksgiving. As I drove I remembered how I used to get up early and would make my way into the kitchen, letting my noise lead the way. Upon arriving there I would find my mother and grandma preparing the day’s feast. Their warm smiles as they looked down at me filled my heart with love. I remember being greeted with a tight, good-morning hug and wonderful smells of delicious foods. My grandmother would offer me some of her prized rolls she had just finished cooking and they were piping hot and the heat would instantly melt the butter she would spread on top of them. For most Americans Thanksgiving is about delicious foods, carefully prepared, served with love. But most of all Thanksgiving boils down to time spent with one’s family. Spending time with those whom we hold most dear. In the years following as I grew older and family either moved, or went to meet God, Thanksgiving was never really the same. As time passed I guess I have been searching for a place, a smell, and hug, even the warmth I had felt when I was a boy. In the many Thanksgivings since, I have spent many of them alone, far away from family, at first because I was serving my country in the United States Navy, then because I was married and lived to far away to be present with my parents and sisters. Then in the many years after my divorce I would spent time with my daughter and never had much money to make Thanksgiving as special for her as it had been for me. In this past year and a half of strife with my ex-wife the time with my daughter became nonexistent, which was all very unnecessary. I allow you to see my life through a window, not to gain sympathy, but rather to illustrate my search, this journey I put myself on, one which left me longing for that one most basic of human needs throughout the holidays. A search which has left me more alone than words can express. It was as if I had ten silver coins and had lost one.

Human nature drives us to look more closely at what we are missing than to be thankful for what we have. As hard as it is to admit my lonely holidays where spent searching for the love I still had, but I was more concerned about the physical celebration of that which I perceived I was missing out on. In truth I have become spiritually blind to the presents of God in my life during the holidays. I put way to much importance on this notion that the room was empty, the morning smells of food being prepared was not there anymore. My house was devoid of laughter and good cheer, when in fact God was calling my name, to which I never responded, partly out of anger for God allowing me to be so alone at such a joyous time of the year. I now can see how mistaken I was.

I write this because I know there are many people who are not going to spend the holidays with their loved ones, for a myriad of different reasons. I know your pain; I know what you are thinking and what you are feeling. Know I have been there, to that dark place of emptiness and despair. So the first part of this message is for you. God is calling you, he is reaching out to you, and it does not matter where in the world that you are, God loves you, cares for you, and wants to comfort you. Don’t make my mistake and reject his call this Thanksgiving or holiday season. Don’t allow yourself to fall into that great temptation that everyone should be together before you feel that holiday spirit. Because in truth no matter who is with you, be them friend, co-worker, or stranger, lift up your head as if you found that missing silver coin. Celebrate and rejoice in what you have, and God will fill your spirit, he will lift you up and give you that warmth you crave.

“Give, and there will be gifts for you. A full measure of grain, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back” (Lost Gospel Q, Q18, Pp. 51).

As I drove this morning another thought came to me, one of the history of Thanksgiving. Each year I take great joy in teaching this to the student at my school. I love showing them websites and videos that illustrate the giving spirit that allowed enemies to become vast allies. In truth, as I say to my many students, “The American Indians did not have to take pity upon the pilgrims.  They did not have to show them any kind of mercy what so ever. After all it was the pilgrims that was invading their land, there sacred space, but the natives did anyway.” I think in the back of my mind for as educated as the pilgrims thought they were they had no clue how to survive in the wild places of the Earth. They left Europe because of religious principals, but when their stomachs grew hungry, the many diseases set in, and the chill of the long winter nights began to claim lives, it was the Indians who showed more christian attributes than did the pilgrims. How strange I think for a native people who had never been thought the word of God, to be more christianly than those who fleet their own country because they felt others were not being christianly towards them. But it was through the hardship, God worked out a wonderful miracle, for as one people reached out to another a bond was formed and a nation grew out of that bond. God truly blessed it, and Thanksgiving is that great celebration we all hold dear in remembrance of that bond of charity. It is very true, what you give to others in need you will be given back a thousand fold.

If you are a follower of Listening Faithfully you know I normally don’t endorse websites, or ask for money or donations. I try very hard to stay away from that on this site. However, in the spirit of this Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday I would like everyone to simply go to a new blog I am writing, one that is very much in the spirit of giving to those who have not or less than. This new blog is called, The Gospel of Giving, and can be found @ http://gospelofgiving.wordpress.com/. This blog is dedicated to raising money for special causes and I pray that these are shared with everyone whom you know, and that if there is something extra you can give you take the time and give in remembrance of these two special sayings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I also simply ask that if you have a cause that will greatly impact the lives of children, the elderly, or any persons who are in need of relief from tyranny or abuse to please feel free to email me @ listeningfaithfullyblog@gmail.com. Also stay in touch with Listening Faithfully and The Gospel of Giving through Twitter @ http://twitter.com/Listeninfaith.

Happy Thanksgiving to all whom have been present in my life over the years and to my daughter to which I love and miss greatly. I want to take special note and thank those at my College whom have held my hand through all my strife and misfortune. Thank you for never giving up, never wavering, even for a moment. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the many words of encouragement and for constantly finding radical new was to support me throughout my journey through the vast world of Higher Education. I also want to thank all those whom are already giving to the private elementary school in which I have so faithfully served for over four years of my life. I think you all know that we serve through good times and bad not for the monetary reward, but for the many tiny blessings bestowed upon us each time one of our children smiles in recognition of the lessons we spend so much time in trying so desperately to teach them.  A special blessing goes out to all those teachers whom I have worked so closely with over my entire professional career in education in all three elementary schools to which I have poured out my heart for. Last but not least, to my mother, father, sisters and nieces and nephew, and to my most special new found love and her family, there is no greater joy than to see each one of you, to hear your laugh, to see your smiles, and to feel your love through each warm embrace. You all have helped to shape me into the man I am today, and I thank you for all the time it took. I also want to call attention to my closed of friends whom are within my inner most circle that which has bestowed upon me great joy, I thank you for being there through thick and thin, for making me smile when I was sad, for being taught with me when I wanted nothing more than to give up. It is these bonds which I cherish more than any of you shall ever know. I also want to thank each and every follower of this blog, I put so much time and energy into it, and hope you gain from my labor of love. We all have many things to be thankful for in this life, but mainly for having each other.

May God bless you all and keep you safe this holiday season.

Amen

Reflection 4: When God Listens

“Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” (John 11:41-42, Pg. 1039, NKJV).

Sometimes it feels like God isn’t anywhere to be found especially in the loneliness of the cold and still night. Deep within the gloomy recesses of our mind we feel a darkness come over us, a terrible nagging feeling that can only be described as being alone. For most people this is a scary thing, the realization of being alone, and being isolated within it. As this feeling slowly emerges and  then swells taking over our inner most thoughts we become convinced that we are in fact truly alone. But the truth is though the room is dark and there might not be anyone around, you’re not alone. Your husband or wife may not be physically with you, holding onto to, sharing the best parts of their day, the truth is you’re not alone. Your child or children might not be with you, smiling, laughing, playing, or listening to your bedtime stories anymore, all of which warms a parents heart to no end, the truth is God is with you. We sometimes lack that spiritual confidence that Jesus had in abundance. He knew his father in heaven heard every single word, he never second guessed it, he never shied away from that special reassuring knowledge that God was with him, in everything he did, in every word he spoke, and in every action he took. When Jesus prayed he was reaching out to his Father that which yes, “technically”, was not physically present where He could be seen by everyone,  but God is there spiritually. Jesus talked to God as if he could see Him, hear Him, and feel Him. Each word exuded confidence that he in fact was being heard. So it is no wonder that when our Savior prayed to God, he was also giving Him praise.

It is a wonderful thing I think, that we have such a loving God, that he does listen to each and every word we utter, how we uttered it, and what was going on in our mind that was responsible for how those words where selectively chosen before  they came out of our mouth. God hears every whisper, every wish, and every salutation that is in our hearts. God listens so intently that He knows precisely how to calm each fear and He is ready to do so at a moment’s notice.

What so many of us fail to realize is that God only intervenes when we are ready for him to do so. That means we must give all we have, all our worries, and frustrations of this life willingly to him. We might pray and say, “Hello God…I am ready…where are you?” But he knows we are not ready even when we have convened ourselves that we are. Our words give us away; they betray our inner heart, and our doubts that God can’t possibly help us. The longer the perceived silence, the angrier we get at God. We get so worked up and over powered by the world, our life in the world, we stop believing, we stop listening, not to just God, but to everyone else around us. When we do this we become weak, and spiritually starved, because God can’t help you until you really want Him too, until you give it to him.

“43 Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” 44 And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with gravecloths, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go” (John 11:43-44, Pg. 1039, NKJV).

Lazarus died and Jesus was nowhere to be found. His sisters looked everywhere for Jesus and he did not come to heal Lazarus his good friend, before he died. The sisters became angry at Jesus, that he after hearing of Lazarus’s illness still took his time in coming. In fact it was if Jesus didn’t care about Lazarus at all. But Jesus had a plan. The salvation of the world was Jesus’ mission, and he used the death of Lazarus to bring so many people to God. Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus from the grave to please his sisters, to answer their prayers, but yet their prayers were answered because Jesus did come; Lazarus was resurrected from the dead. Jesus could feel their pain, their anguish, he heard their cries at the realization that Lazarus had passed away. When reflecting on this, the truth of the miracle comes to light. The one unshakable truth is that we are never alone. For God knows all things, and has power over all things. To think we are alone, is akin to losing faith, the loss of faith brings forth doubt, and doubt is Satan’s favorite weapon. So it was so perfect of Jesus to pray confidently to God, before raising Lazarus from the dead.

I was reading this book called, God Is In The Hard Stuff, written by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz, who wrote, “If you mistakenly assume that God is not present, you’ll be spiritually blind to His presence. But if you take God at His word and expect to find Him in the darkest hours, you’ll be surprised that you see Him all around you. Suddenly, the severity of your problems will shrink in comparison to the magnitude of God’s presence in your life. God doesn’t remove the difficulty and pain. But He will be there with you through it all” (Bickel & Jantz, 2005, Pp14-15). Moreover, it has been within my own personal experience that God purposefully places people in your life when you need them to be there; they are there to help you through those difficult times.

So God might not answer your prayers directly as in the example of Lazarus, but he will use those prayers to bring you and thousands of others closer to Him. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t care. He wouldn’t listen if he was not interested in your prayers, your words, your wants and desires. God wouldn’t have sent his only son to die on the cross if he didn’t love us so much. This very point ties so perfectly into last week’s reflection, “Paying Attention to Detail”.

“We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Challenge Question: If Jesus hears our prayers, and God knows our deepest desires, and our prayers get answered but not directly, our we to then assume it was meant for us alone, or for thousands of others who had prayed the same prayers?

Amen

If you have been moved by this blog I humbly invite you to leave a message telling me your thoughts and how this reflection has touched you. May peace and love be with you all the days of your life.  May God keep you and bless you. Amen.

Reflections 2: Paying Attention to Detail

“And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:18-22, Lost Gospel Q, Q30, p.64).

It is no accident that when we look at the human spirit we all have a common need to know God. It is no accident that Jesus chose to come as a sheep to be slain, only to rise on the third day. I say it is not an accident because God chose to give us all free will, in doing so He knew we would sin, and fall away from Him but our God did it anyway. God is so magnificent, so perfect in all His works that He was so precise that He paid such close attention to detail in the creation of us that which He had already made room for our sins in His overall plan for humanity. It is no accident that our creator made us in His likeness took such delight in giving Adam his first breath of life, as He does for each and every one of us. God paid such close attention to detail that He recognized when Adam was lonely, thus He created Eve. The miracle is in the fact there is no difference to how closely God observes us, each one of us, and knows when we need Him, answers our prayers, and plays such an active role in our individual lives once we have accepted Him into our hearts, under that most perfect design called free will.

Simon Peter could have said no, as well could have Andrew. In fact each and every one of the twelve disciples could have said no. But because each one of us has that built in need to know God, they followed him, they made a choice. They walked away from their lively hood, their families, their worldly responsibilities, and made the choice to follow him. To their credit they listened to Jesus and followed him upon blind faith that they were making the right choice. The most compelling aspect to this was Jesus knew they would slip in their faith while following him, he knew they would argue, complain, have many doubts, even question him on topics they all struggled with, which we all still today struggle with. Jesus knew they would abandon him in the end, run away in fear, deny him, and even betray him. Jesus knew this just as his Father in heaven knew Adam and Eve would sin, but instead of fixing this one trait, our Lord and Savior used it to our greatest benefit, through his death on the cross. Perhaps the greatest of Jesus’s acts took place during the last super as found in John 13: 1-5, when he washed his disciple’s feet. The attention to detail was so perfectly executed that Jesus did not hesitate to wash the feet of Judas Iscariot, knowing that within moments of him doing so, Judas would betray him.

“2 The evening meal was being served and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13: 2-5, Pg. 1656, NKJV).

How do you reconcile the example of doing for those who would do you ill? In truth I don’t know anyone who could have washed Judas’s feet if they had the forward knowledge that Judas was going to betray them. Moreover within hours from that moment such torture and pain was going to be unleashed upon him. But it took the unyielding, agape love of God to become the servant, to wash the feet of his betrayer. But yet we are all called to do this. In retrospect it is no different from when God gave Adam life, knowing Adam would eventually sin against him. In fact every human on Earth has sinned against God, but yet He still pays such close attention to detail as to love us anyway, to show us His grace anyway, and to choose to send His son Jesus to save all of us from eternal damnation anyway.

Jesus still chose out of free will, the twelve flawed, conflicted, non-patient men to be his disciples, and they accepted his invitation through free will and blind faith. Some of the most powerful words Jesus ever uttered in his ministry were his most simple of words, “Follow Me.”

Often times we get so wrapped up in our own lives we forget to do for others as Jesus so plainly gave the most perfect of examples. Some of us have such brilliant excuses as using the lack of time as the culprit in not obeying God. The simple miscalculation of this is found in the fact there is no one busier than God, but yet He so passionately spends personal one-on-one time with each and every one on planet Earth. There is no excuse for not showing others kindness, love, mercy, and forgiveness. Worse yet some of us openly betray God, in all their words and actions. They harm even those they love, and call this twisted pool of lies and rebellion love. But such is free will, we are free to think, feel, react, learn, and breath, as we choose. But we all have a choice, we all make our own destiny, we all have a loving forgiving father in heaven who is always there waiting, watching, hoping we will call upon Him, to ask for His forgiveness. Such is the very nature of God, as so expressed by John,

“8  He who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8, Pg. 1170, NKJV).

Furthermore John explains,

“16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19, Pg. 1170, NKJV).

Because we are left with the unyielding love of God, we are never alone, never left without hope, never subject to fear. Within our faith we are made perfect in God, we are molded and shaped by God. He takes so much pleasure in each wrinkle, every scratch, every pour and cell in our bodies, for He alone pays such great attention to such details. Ironically this takes vast amounts of time, and this is what God does for us just like He did for Jesus’s twelve disciples. One of the greatest reliefs is that whenever there is a huge worry, a meeting, assignment, or task that is life changing and a bit scary to face, know God is in our life and that there is noting to fear. For if we know God in our heart, we know love, in that love cast out fear and we then have perfect confidence our task will be completed just as Jesus faced down death, only to rise on the third day with God’s perfect confidence and love.

Challenge question: Knowing we are commanded to love one another, to love our enemies, to wash clean their feet, to show mercy and forgiveness, then when we choose not to do so aren’t we really in rebellion? Aren’t we really telling God we know better? Then if this is the case aren’t we all very lucky to have such a forgiving God who has paid such attention as to give us the agape love we need to come to him once we realize our mistake, our sin?

Amen

If you have been moved by this blog I humbly invite you to leave a message telling me your thoughts and how this reflection has touched you. May peace and love be with you all the days of your life.  May God keep you and bless you. Amen.