I don't know where to start, and what to include or exclude from this post, because the span between the last post and now has been so full of events, thoughts, and emotions. The following are chosen at random as they occur to me at this moment(s).
Sunday morning's preaching was fun, I felt no rust, and I feel - whether they'd agree or not - that God answered my prayer for clear thoughts and apt speech. Any preacher knows that sometimes things click and on other Sunday's we feel "slow of speech and tongue" (Ex. 4:10). This was, thankfully, one of the former.
T'ank you, Fadder.
Sunday night was OK, but didn't go quite like I'd planned. Many times after preaching or teaching I think back on it and realize I didn't say what I'd planned, or in the way I'd planned, and this was one of them. Also, their clock in the back of the room wasn't working and in my enthusiasm for my topic (missions) I went overtime with the Q&A. So I spent some of the six hour drive home kicking myself over that. Grrr.
As always, time with my folks was golden. We're blessed to still have them with us and every hour with them is treasured.
Sometimes what others would think of as relatively small things are big blessings. Being at my home church and seeing people I've known since childhood is an example. But chief among those moments was a visit with Alisa after the morning service. She was just a little girl when I left for college and is now a wife and mother of two young men. We've been praying for her for over a year, asking God to heal her of a diagnosis of Stage 4 colon cancer. Talking with Alisa and Rick in the foyer before heading off to lunch was her response to my specific request ("If I don't see you please find me"), and to see her smiling and looking so healthy ... I can't explain it except to use the old expression: it blessed me up real good. The battle continues, but she's doing very well after quitting the brutal and endless regimen of chemo and going to a naturopathic therapy.
T'ank you, Fadder.
There are two kinds of wealth-seekers. Some want more money for what it will get them, more stuff. Money is a means to an end, and the end is the accumulation of whatever particular things they set their heart after.
The other kind want more money because the money itself is their reward. The don't care about trappings, just an ever growing number at the bottom of their balance sheet. These are the people we occasionally read about in the paper after their death when it's discovered that the old man who lived in the small, simple house on the edge of town and drove a 14-year old Chevy had an estate well into seven digits.
The former are susceptible to many traps, including the use of credit, spending money they don't have to buy things they don't need.
The latter are susceptible to a Silas Marner-esque idolatry that worships the coins themselves with an obsession that closes the heart to those in need.
In our culture the greater number want more money for what it will buy. Advertisers are very good at stirring a lust for things that, convincing us that having those things will bring happiness, meaning, and the admiration of others. But those who covet an ever bigger balance have an obsession most don't know about because they don't see that bottom line number.
Lust comes in many forms.
This afternoon the State Department of Forestry approved me to burn the slash pile tomorrow. I had to get an OK the day before I wanted to burn so they could verify that the weather forecast didn't include winds that would cause the fire to spread beyond the pile's edges or blow smoke into more heavily populated areas. We're supposed to get rain starting late Wednesday, with 4.7" falling over the next six days. So yeah, I want to burn tomorrow.
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