Snow day...ahhhh sweet relaxation!

Would you believe me if I told you?

Simplicity

Looking at the discipline of simplicity. Richard Foster's book Celebration of Discipline has ten sugestions:

1. Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status.
2. Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
3. Develop a habit of giving things away.
4. Refuse to be propagandized by custodians of modern gadgetry.
5. Learn to enjoy things without owning them.
6. Devlop a deeper appreciation for creation.
7. Look with healthy skepticism at "buy now, pay later" schemes.
8. Obey Jesus' instructions about plain, honest speech.
9. Reject anything that breeds oppression in others.
10. Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the kingdom of God.

That's a hard set of suggestions. I'm not there yet.

Never Forget...

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

Who the hell do you think you are!

I wonder sometimes about how comfortable we've become with God. Is the God of the universe so easily approached that we can jump in or out of his gaze like we do the TV during a commercial break? If God is beyond our puny concepts of her/him -- if God is massively distinct from any other thing we have EVER experienced...if God is so OTHER, so holy, pure, light, essence, truth, supernatural and beyond...then wouldn't it stand to reason that our encounters with God would either melt us or move us. God terrorizes and haunts. Possesses and penetrates. Pure holiness could instantly vaporize human finiteness.

HOLY

There is never a time when you need God less. Always, to live before God is to see the mind-numbing enormity of our sin, and our need for forgiveness, but also to see the overwhelming enormity of God's grace! To cry out from the depth of our soul--be merciful--OH DEAR GOD be merciful to me the sinner!!

H.G. Wells was no friend of the church, and yet he served us well. A few decades ago in the New Yorker magazine, he told a story about an Episcopalian Bishop. He could have chosen a baptist or a mennonite, or...you, but that was too small for H.G. Wells. This Episcopalian Bishop had a counseling ministry. He was the kind of guy who when people came to him with problems, he always had a right word to say, and he could say it with just the right tone of voice. One of the phrases he liked to say when people came to him with their problems was: "Have you prayed about it?" He found that if he said it with just the right emphasis, it seemed to satisfy people.
Now, the Bishop never prayed much himself, he really didn't have to--he had life all wrapped up in his back pocket. But one day, life crashed in on him. He faced a crisis he had not expected and so he decided that he would take his own advice. He decided that he would go to the cathedral on a Saturday afternoon and he would pray. So he did. When he got there, he went up to the front, in front of the altar and knelt down on the crimson carpet.

folded his hands...

he couldn't help but think of how much like a child he was at that moment.

He said, "Oh God!"

Suddenly there was a voice. It was crisp. It was clear. It was business-like.
The voice said, "Yes, what is it?"

The next day when people came to the cathedral to worship, they found the Bishop sprawled face down on the crimson carpet. When they turned him over they discovered he was dead.
And lines of horror were etched on his face.

What H. G. Wells was so skillfully saying is something like this:

There are a lot of us who are talking a lot about God, who, if we met God face-to-face, would be scared to death.

...and I think he's right.