If every person...

If every person made the decision to do one unexpected and unprompted act of kindness every day just imagine how much positive energy would be released in the world.

Too true...

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” 

~ J.K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”

~Albert Einstein

As you start the week...

"Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily."

-Sally Koch

As you start your week, remember...

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

-Anne Frank

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails..."

-St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church

 "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince

“The righteous are those willing to disadvantage themselves in order to advantage the community.” 

"Older women teach..."

Two areas of my ministry have come together in a beautiful way in the last few days. 

I am teaching a class on Sunday nights on the Christian family and have spent the last two weeks discussing the roles of Christian wives and mothers.  I have found both studying for this class and the discussion it has generated to be enlightening and wonderfully beneficial.

In my personal, benevolent ministry, I have spent the last couple of days visiting widows in our community.  I have taken a small Christmas gift and spent some time talking with these ladies.  Ironically, most of these women attend the same place of worship here in town and it is not affiliated with the church of Christ that I grew up in.  In talking with these ladies, they shared freely the concerns they had about getting older, losing friends to death, the state of our country and a variety of other situations that they are each facing.  Some of these ladies have experienced the tragedy of losing children, troubled marriages, and, as widows, all have dealt with the grief of losing a husband. 

What amazes me about these women is that they, in different degrees, have learned to lean on God through all these experiences.  They each speak openly of daily Bible study and an involved prayer life.  Since many of them are members of the same congregation, they have learned to help carry one another through their troubling times.  One of these women had driven another to her cancer treatments on many occasions and others told of how they each had worked together to provide food and Christmas presents for several families in town.  These women are grappling with the problems of personal lonliness, wayward children, and the process of constantly growing older day by day.  My town will certainly miss these women when they are not longer a part of our community.

In seeing these precious women age with grace, I was brought back to the study I have been leading at Lebanon.  These women, and many others like them, have truly embraced their position in their families, churches, and communities.  Younger women (as well as men) would do well to imitate their examples.  The generation of which they are a part is quickly passing away and the ability to learn from these great matriarchs will soon be gone.  What the Bible teaches about the importance of learning from older generations cannot be over emphasized. 

May each of us take advantage of the opportunity we have to learn from our elders before they are gone and let us use the knowledge they have shared to be better people now and in our process of aging.

Shoeshine Pastor

Previous posting was missing the sound for some readers...here it is with sound!

"...I would gladly die ten times over."

Thanks

I wanted to take a moment to stop and thank everyone for your many kind encouragements over the last year.

  2010 was an extremely difficult year for me and your support has made 2011 a great deal better than last year.  The church at Lebanon provided me with a great opportunity to rest and recover during the later part of 2010 and I am so thankful for their continued confidence in my abilities and ministry.  My family has been a wonderful source of encouragement and support through the last several years in dealing with my health challenges.  My doctors and counselors have been a wonderful help in providing me with the best possible care.  My friends who I stay in contact with via the Internet have provided needed counsel and support.

Thanks again for all your acts of kindness.

"Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment."

-C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

"God's timing is always perfect."

Why dost thou call Me good?

In the often rehearsed story of the rich young ruler, we mainly concentrate on the fact that at the end of the account the man goes away sad because he can't part with his money.  We emphasis the importance of giving up whatever stands in the way of serving Jesus.  An excellent point to make.  I am in total agreement.

Something we seldom mention is the opening exchange where the young man calls Jesus, "Good Teacher."  Jesus gives him a fairly sharp rebuke saying there is none good but God alone.  Since Jesus is God, why doesn't He just graciously accept the compliment?  Maybe Jesus sees that the young ruler is just trying to butter Him up.  Also, maybe Jesus is trying to deflect praise to His Father who sent Him.  From my perspective, Jesus is trying to tell the young man that anything good He does comes from God.  This is the exact way we as Christians should receive compliments today.  I admit compliments make me uncomfortable.  When someone says, "Great lesson" or "Good job"  I often think in my head, "It could have been so much better if I had...".  Perhaps a better track for me (and others) to take would be to deflect the praise to the Source of our work: a good and gracious God.

I am going to try to work on this in my life this next week...peace to you.