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The Discipline of Lent: How to Be on Top of Your Game
From: John Murtari (jmurtari@AKidsRight.Org)
This is a message from a mailing list, members@kids-right.org Unsubscribe instructions at bottom of message. ====================================================================== Good People & People of Faith, For many people, this is the season of Lent. A time of spiritual preparation before the celebration of Easter. A time for somber thoughts and frank self appraisals -- a reminder to "Be on Top of Our Game." Many of us have so many decisions to make with regards to our children: Do I compromise? Do I fight? Leave town? Keep struggling to be a parent? Give up? I thought I would be able to win yesterday, but today I'm not so sure... It's that last one we should think about as people of Faith. These decisions are life altering and difficult to make (since we don't have perfect information) -- how and when do we decide? I'd like to share something that has left me with a life of few regrets: Make those decisions when you feel your "On Top of Your Game." As people with Faith in a Living & Loving God it means make that tough decision when you: * Feel that the power of God is real, that nothing is impossible. * Know that your child's other parent is your brother or sister. * Accept that the Judge/Lawyer/Psychologies/Social Worker are loved by God as much as you. They are no more Devil or Saint than you are. * Realize that God loves you very much and we all have a chance to begin again no matter what has happened. * Love your children and know you are irreplaceable in their lives. On those mornings when you wake up and have that "feeling." Then decide, and stick with your decision (and pray). ----------------------------------------------------- Isaiah 58: 7-10 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am! If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday. ------------------------------------------------------ I want to share a few thoughts of my own, many of which were triggered a few weeks ago at a church dinner. I was talking to a Sister who told me she didn't really enjoy the Old Testament readings very much -- imagine that! Perhaps because God appears as vindictive as an old Goat and the stories, what fantasy! Jonah living in the belly of a whale -- really! We're educated people now. Maybe we miss the forest for the trees? No one can deny those are books of Faith. They are books written by someone trying to describe the experience of the Divine in their lives. Trying to make sense of good and evil and the randomness of life. Maybe trying to tell us all how to 'Be on Top of Our Game.' In this season of Lent, I feel uncomfortable at one message they send: To see the power of God, we must act with Faith and against human reason. There is a high standard expected of those who have (or had) Faith, to back-slide is not an option and the physical consequences can be severe. Adam and Eve are thrown out of the garden... Moses is told he will never enter the promised land... King David faces disaster after bedding Bathseba and arranging her husband's death. What is obvious is this continues into the New Testament. While Christ certainly reminds us that God is the ever loving father (and no goat!), I have to say some of the parables make me squirm. I still feel uneasy at the story of the "talents". Of the servant who was given one -- and instead of investing it and using it, just buried it in a field. Even as a child, I felt sorry for the guy -- even now, I'm not sure if I wouldn't have done the same thing. I don't like risks.... and Christ's summary: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Take therefore the talent from him, and give it to the one with ten talents. For unto every one that has -- more shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him who has not -- shall be taken away even the little he has. And throw this unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." ------------------------------------------------------------------- - the above was taken from a Web Site which had Thomas Jefferson's commentary on the Bible, http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible To decide and act without Faith is disaster. In this season of preparation, it is something we should all think about. Not to cry about the past, but to better engage the future. This message will end with another great favorite, David & Goliath. There is more here than just how to use a sling shot! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I Samuel 17: 33-47 The Story of David and Goliath. King Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine (Goliath), to do battle with him, for you are only a lad, while he is a man of battle since his youth!" [In his own words, Saul shows he is unfit to be King of Israel. The man who has had close experience with the power of God, still does not understand that it is God who fights and wins the battle...] David said to Saul, "Whenever your servant would Shepard the flock for his father, if a lion or bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock, I would go after it and strike it down, and rescue it from its mouth .... God, who rescued me from the hand of the lion and from the hand of the bear, he will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine!" [The future King David, makes a bold and correct proclamation.] Saul clothed David in his uniform: he put a helmet of bronze upon his head and clothed him in armor. David strapped on his sword, over his uniform, and he tried to walk, but he was not used to them... David said to Saul, "I cannot walk with these, for I am not used to them." [Even David has some doubt of how all this will happen? He tries on the armor and the sword -- but it doesn't feel right. Finally, he goes back to what he knows best, "The Top of His Game."] So David removed them from himself; he took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones .... and he approached the Philistine. The Philistine (Goliath) said to David, "Come to me, that I may give your flesh to the fowl of the heavens and to the beasts of the field!" [Goliath brags, but they are empty, human words. He draws confidence from his own perceived strength ...it will cost him.] But David said to the Philistine, "You come at me with a sword and scimitar and a spear, but I come at you with the name of Lord of the Heavenly Armies...whom you have mocked! This day, God will turn you over to my hand so that I will strike you down and will remove your head from you; I will give your carcass... to the fowl of the heavens and the wildlife of the earth, so that all the earth may know that Israel has a God .... that it is not with a sword or with a spear that the Lord delivers -- for the battle is God's, and he will give all of you into our hand!" [David brags in the power of God to carry the day.] ... David hurried out and ran toward the ranks to meet the Philistine; and David stretched out his hand to the bag, and he took from there a stone, and slung it, and he struck the Philistine on his forehead ... and he fell on his face to the ground... David ran and stood over the Philistine, he took his sword and drew it from his sheath and he dispatched him, cutting off his head with it.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Best Wishes. John Murtari jmurtari@AKidsRight.Org ================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list at anytime, send email to Majordomo@kids-right.org with the following 1 line in the BODY of the message (Subject is ignored). unsubscribe members
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