Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Be Still...

When we get tangled up in our problems, be still.
God wants us to be still so He can untangle the knot.


I get so many emails and usually I'm very fast with that delete key. This one stopped me in my tracks. It was the beginning for a candle prayer chain sent to my by my friend and hairdresser. Like a bolt from heaven - and my first thought was 'of course'.

I think I have mentioned before that my life seems to have weekly themes. This Sunday, Traci told us to 'be still'. The youth choir sang 'be still'. Today's email actually gives me the 'why'.

I learned as a scouter that when your rope had a knot you couldn't untie it until you stopped pulling. These last few weeks have found us flailing around trying to find answers. So stop. Sit back. Let God direct our actions this time.

Ps46:10 Be Still, and know that I am God.

later man, jan

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Judgements...

After all the hoopla this week over the Susan Boyle audition on Britain's Got Talent... I received an email from my Godfather that just ends my week with an exclamation point. Sometimes the theme for the week appears to be directed to a point where I can no longer ignore the message and I have to dig deeper inside myself to find answers. Of course, the more I dig, the more I find. I usually need to be slapped awake now and then :)
I did an internet search and found 'author unknown' so I will copy the whole thing here. Hope you have time to read it...

Clay Balls
A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock . Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.

Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

later man, jan

Thursday, April 09, 2009

This Is Priceless...

You have to go see for yourself.
The Passion Narrative According to Facebook

(hat tip to Frodo)
later man, jan