Worship Service Cancelled for 8/28
Our Governing Board has agreed to cancel our /28 worship service because of Hurricane Irene.
Please pray for God’s mercy on the millions affected by this storm.
Uncategorized
Before You Begin Your Crazed Week…
Some poetic words of wisdom from Oran Crain:
Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me,
Amidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music
Of the singing streams
That live in my memory.
Help me to know
The magical power of sleep,
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations
Of slowing down
To look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend
Or make a new one;
To pat a stray dog;
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day
That the race is not always to the swift;
That there is more to life
Than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
In Spite of That, We Call This Friday Good
Our soul’s disease required a surgeon, so He plunged His nail-scarred hands into our wounds.
from “East Coker”, FOUR QUARTETS
by T.S. Eliot
IV
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
How to Pray A Lament
I’m preaching this Sunday about Jesus’ lament — speaking a prayer out of pain — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s good for US to honestly pray OUR laments to God, akin to what we read in Psalm 22 or Psalm 88.
Here is a great example of a Lament from Daniel McConchie, a follower of Christ who has been paralyzed from the waist down since an accident in the summer of 2007:
Oh Lord, my God! Why do you wait to show up?
I cried out to you when trouble struck.
I asked for your restoration.
I know that you heard me. I know that you answered.
Yet nothing—nothing of meaning happens again today.
Infinitesimal changes dog my days.
I am hounded by the prayers of the fickle
Looking to me to prove their faith.
Wearily I drag on
Tiring of the waste, hating the horror,
The pain, the suffering, the never-ending trial.
The endless story drags on, and on, and on.
When will the clouds break?
When will the night cease?
When will the tunnel end?
When will you smile again?
What a two-edged sword your voice is!
You speak. And then wait?
You give hope. And then vanish into the mist?
Have you forgotten me? Have more important things arrested your attention?
Hope turns black. This evil I have seen.
Nightly my dreams show me restored,
And in the morning I am broken again
Cursed to relive the horror of suffering’s first day.
Please slay me! Blot my name from the ranks of the living!
For in the grave can I finally rest.
My wife can have her dreams again;
My children a father who can provide as I should.
I wasted my youth. I dismissed the joys I should have embraced.
Now I am a mere spectator
Pretending to be consequential while others take my place.
A position I threw away one fateful day.
How long? How long must I wait here in the middle?
Between healing and hell,
Between heaven and horror,
I am unable to move … unable to see … lost in eternal confusion.
My demons torment me
Batting me about like a toy, I spin and crash in endless cycle.
I no longer know which way is up,
Which way is right, which way to go.
Which way is the path to life?
Is it up an unclimbable mountain?
Or on a path tread by all but me
And the others who are broken like I?
Surely it is impossible for me alone to find
And impossible for me to transverse.
Alone I am finished,
Dust left for the broom.
Who am I that God should remember me?
My only salvation is that he should not forget his image,
Or let his word be broken.
He is faithful to us because he is faithful to himself.
There is nothing I can do,
In no way can I help.
I sit in the ruins and wait,
And take comfort in those who lie in the ashes with me.
But one day, by his promise, I will stand;
Restored as his message of hope is fulfilled.
The Lord will turn this horror into a fading dream,
And I will honor his name forever.
More Than Shamrocks & Snakes
Beyond the hazy traditions of casting out snakes and talk of a three-leaf clover, St. Patrick’s life showed the power of Jesus Christ. Through the Gospel, St. Patrick and his monks transformed pagan Ireland from a people who lashed their enemies’ heads to their belts to a people who passionately followed the crucified and resurrected Christ. So much so, that after Patrick’s death, other Irish monks took the Gospel to Europe, then immersed in what we call the Dark Ages. Check the coastline of France, and you’ll see all of these Celtic-named villages, which were Christian outposts created by Irish missionaries! You can read more about this in How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill.
How to Help Earthquake Survivors
The churches of the Christian & Missionary Alliance are providing on-the-scene help to the Japan Earthquake survivors. To contribute, go to www.camaservices.org (Compassion & Mercy Associates, an arm of the C&MA).
Why Lent?
“The purpose of Lent is to arouse. To arouse the sense of sin. To arouse a sense of guilt for sin. To arouse the humble contrition for the guilt of sin that makes forgiveness possible. To arouse the sense of gratitude for the forgiveness of sins. To arouse or to motivate the works of love and the work for justice that one does out of gratitude for the forgiveness of one’s sins.” Edna Hong in Bread & Wine, Readings for Lent & Easter
Need to Be Set Free?
If the Son sets you free, Jesus said, you will be free indeed. Anyone laid low by long-engrained bad habits, vices or destructive lifestyles will certainly long for that. That’s why I can never hear enough testimonies of Christ’s healing from the women at Walter Hoving Home. The Home (www.walterhoving.com) sent their 30-member choir to our church last Sunday. Individuals spoke of God’s grace delivering them from alcohol, drugs, thievery and prostitution. Then the choir sang like angels and the Good News of Jesus poured from their lips. We wept.
Prayers for Christmas
The editors of “Pray” magazine (www.praymag.com) published these Scripture prayers for Christmas:
LOVE: Lord, help us follow the way of love–let the love of Christ compel us. (1 Cor. 14:1)
JOY: Restore the joy of Your salvation to us (Ps. 51:12)
PEACE: Let Your peace rule and guard our hearts (Col. 3:15)
GENEROSITY: Make us rich in ways that result in generosity on our part so You will be praised (2 Cor. 9:11)
Christmas Grows Our Love of Christ
An Advent Devotional from Harbor Presbyterian Church, San Diego, CA:
Isaiah 7:14 The Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us.
When God makes a promise about the future we call it a prophecy. We know that it will come true because God never lies. And his most important future promises are about the gospel—the good news that he would send a Savior.
Have you ever worked with a broken or a dull tool? It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Dull saws don’t cut, and crooked nails can’t be used. God has this problem working with people. As his tools, we are damaged and dull. We need to be fixed and changed, and we need his power if we’re going to do our part to fix and change the world. What we need is the gospel, the good news of “God with us.”
God promised this through the prophet Isaiah, and the Gospel of John says that when Jesus was born, this promise comes true in an amazing way. John 1:1 and 14 says, “In the beginning was the word and the word was God… and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.” The word “dwelt” is actually the word used for “tabernacle” in the Old Testament. The verse could be translated to say, “The word tabernacled among us.”
What is John saying? Jesus is like the tabernacle, only better. In the tabernacle, God came very near to his people. He came from heaven to live with them. Having God live in a tent in the middle of Israel is good, but access to him was limited. With the coming of Jesus, God does more than live near us, he lives with us. He’s not just our neighbor, but he moves into our house! And he’s not just with us, but now he is one of us!
Jesus knows our struggles and weaknesses. By living a life like ours, by being “God with us,” Jesus rescues us from our sin, he fixes our brokenness, and he sharpens us so that we can be good tools for God’s work.