We are the LTSS Dove. Our flag football team is at Luther Bowl in Gettysburg this weekend. The update has come out that we won our first game 6-0 over Chicago seminary (I forgot the name of the school). They have to play possibly 4 games today if they go all the way. You know why I am not there. I don’t come close to having the stamina to do that kind of thing anymore. In the past that wouldn’t have stopped me, but I am getting smarter.
This has been somewhat of a lighter week for us. That has been much appreciated. We have still had homework that is due next week in a paper and an Annotated Bibliography as well as our usual load of reading. We also have a video due in Pastoral Care on December 11th. That date is fast approaching. Chris and I got together this morning and prayed for help as we are using this model called the Holy Ground Model. It is a model of steps that help us to deal with life and life in ministry. It is good, I like having a process (through this class I also find out I am a monkey followed closely by a giraffe), more about that at another time. Monkey’s love process, sometimes more than the results. Who me? Anyway back to the story; it takes a little swimming in the pond to get this model and be able to use it. We are still swimming at this point where the video is concerned. We prayed for help, admitted that we didn’t really understand this and prayed more for the Holy Spirit to come upon us and give us what the Lord wanted us to present for our video. Sure enough out of this meeting came a good narrative and most of a script for the other members of our group to shoot and edit. Our God is an awesome God! We have 6 in the group so we are able to divide the tasks so that no one gets overburdened with this. Whenever we got together as 6 we did a lot of conceptualizing, but we were not really able to make any progress on details. Today we made great progress on details and I think, after presenting to the rest of the group for input and changes, we are ready to move to the steps of shooting the video. We have 15 minutes to show the video, present a paper about our experience and take questions. That might not seem like much, but you can get a lot of video in 10 minutes. We hope to tell a whole story. By the way our topic is homelessness. This is the project that is behind us going down to the coffee ministry early on Friday morning several weeks ago.
Remember I asked you to think about if God is happy? Here is why. I have been contemplating this for several weeks now; God is our creator, He is active in our lives through at least His Holy Spirit on a daily basis and His Son for our salvation and probably other ways that we don’t realize yet. Given that He is active in our lives and He is our creator (think parent?), does He not grieve over our sinfulness? The closest thing I can relate this too is being a parent. I would grieve in that situation. I have two great kids and I still grieve about certain things. Some of us, as a defense mechanism, need to disconnect from someone when they become especially sinful. Of course, that is a human reaction. I question, how could He be happy when His creation is the way it is? I know that Jesus came to save us, but according to doctrine that is only for those that come to faith and possibly those that were never given the choice (who never heard the good news of Jesus Christ). I go down the path a little ways that He could be happy if Jesus Christ came to save all of us, because He knows the outcome and it is all good. We all come back to him redeemed. Wouldn’t that be great? (I know where you are going with Hitler and Charles Manson and others. I prefer to hope that they are redeemed, which means they would somehow see the light and become remorseful of their sins and because of that Jesus Christ died for them also). At that point His reaction to our sinfulness could be “go ahead, it doesn’t really matter because my Son saved all of you”. I hope and pray that is the case, but have nothing on which to base that theory other than possible interpretation of some scripture. So, since I don’t know this is the case, I have to think that only those that come to faith will be saved, which will leave many wanting in on that day as we continue to increase our lack of respect and love for one another and continue to become a non-worshipping society. If this is the case, how can this not cause grief to our God, our creator? Can you see how He could flood the earth and start over? He has promised to never do that again, but it starts to give me a one millisecond in time snapshot of the emotions He must have. His love is so great that we will only understand it when we are with Him. Are His other emotions that great also? Think of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Great Flood, the wiping out of complete societies in Canaan, the Egyptians. What is your thought on this? If you can’t leave me a comment you can e-mail me at sje0424@yahoo.com . I look forward to replies as I continue on this contemplation. As I am learning here, we discern things individually and in community. Otherwise we are very prone to going down odd paths that lead to wrong beliefs.
Have a great weekend. I leave you with: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Romans 8:26-27 NRSV
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I agree with you that as God watches over us, He does seem like a parent. And as a parent, he feels for our sins, but also, loves us just as we are which is amazing in itself. Who or what am I that God still loves me, even though I fall short of what He wants. Again, He gives us the will to do better, but knows that since we are human, we cannot do all.
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