“I don’t know a single Christian who isn’t expecting to go to heaven. I know I am (or at least I hope and pray I will), but how much time do I actually spend planning the journey?”
“One of the significant issues in this election is somewhat hidden from sight – religion. We’ve heard lots about Evangelicals, Catholics, and others expressing their religious stances on things. Still, there are those of us who quietly look at what God has asked us to do and tried to get on with it to make God’s wishes reality.”
“Could dreams be a way of passing the message of the Kingdom on? Dreams in the Bible were important and respected as such. Do we need to look to our own dreams to see what can be learned or possibly put into action?”
” I wonder – did Jesus go through the terrible twos? If so, how did Mary handle it? Whether he was naturally a good child, taught well by Mary, or representing God authentically, he left us lessons to follow and to apply to our daily lives, showing others the love that God and Jesus wanted us to demonstrate to one another.”
“Undoubtedly Jesus knew of the illness by this time and very probably offered to help. Immediately after he rebuked the fever (which people associated with possession of evil in those days), the mother-in-law immediately got out of bed and headed for the kitchen to cook for the whole group as if she’d never been ill.”
“Even if I physically back away from those who want to show their love for me as I did for Classy when I was trying to get him to let me pet him, it’s hard to back away from God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit sometimes, especially as they have ways of being persistent and loving during the process. Like a cat, I may go and try to hide under the bed or in the closet or even outside somewhere, but they always find me and lure me out and one step closer. Slowly the trust is rebuilt, and all is well.”
“Thinking about the bumper sticker, America truly needs prayer these days. Instead of becoming more polarized, the citizens of this nation need to come together to help one another through the tough times we encounter every day. Fires, floods, heat, sickness, death, homelessness, violence, supremacy, divisiveness, fear, and anxiety are situations affecting millions every day, and, whether specifically called out by those names in the Prayer Book or even the Bible, Jesus encouraged us to pray and to love our neighbor, which sums it all up rather nicely. It’s impossible to wish ill on your neighbor and love them at the same time. So perhaps in addition to prayers for the nation and its leaders, victims, and situations of peril, we should pray for our country and its problems.”
“As much trouble as we have realizing that the writers of the Bible lived and wrote in very different times and cultures, we can’t assume that our understanding is the right one until we have checked to see what the first hearers would have heard and comprehended. Things that the people at the sermon on the mount understood would be very different today.”
“Praise the Lord for all that is good, and even stuff that may be bad at the time but which later on may be revealed as something quite the opposite. The pandemic may have shown us that we are all brothers and sisters in the same boat, we are all responsible for one another, and we can still pull together to help each other get through this time. We are stronger because we can do things we didn’t know we could, and that’s a lesson we can take with us throughout the rest of our lives.”
“We often hear that we should sit quietly in prayer to God daily, not merely presenting our petitions, thanksgivings, or whatever, but simply sit with open minds, still hands and feet, and just listen for what God may wish to tell us. I remember the first time I tried centering prayer. The instructions were to sit quietly, without thinking of anything, and, should any thought appear, simply note that it appeared and then dismiss it and return to the empty mind again. It was hard because my mind was so used to taking control of silence, but gradually I found it got easier. I can’t say I can do that for long periods of time, but I know the more I practice it, I can increase the stillness of mind for longer and longer.”