God, my God, I yelled for help and you put me together.
God, you pulled me out of the grave, gave me another chance at life when I was down-and-out. – Psalm 30:2-3 (The Message)
Have you ever yelled for help? Had you fallen apart? When have you been down-and-out? Have you experienced God giving you another chance at life? Putting you back together?
This was e-mailed to me:
When you are tired and discouraged from fruitless efforts...
God knows how hard you have tried.
When you've cried so long and your heart is in anguish...
God has counted your tears.
If you feel that your life is on hold and time has passed you by...
God is waiting with you.
When you're lonely and your friends are too busy even for a phone call...
God is by your side.
When you think you've tried everything and don't know where to turn...
God has a solution.
When nothing makes sense and you are confused or frustrated...
God has the answer.
If suddenly your outlook is brighter and you find traces of hope...
God has whispered to you.
When things are going well and you have much to be thankful for....
God has blessed you.
When something joyful happens and you are filled with awe...
God has smiled upon you.
When you have a purpose to fulfill and a dream to follow...
God has opened your eyes and called you by name.
Remember that wherever you are or whatever you are facing...
GOD KNOWS!!
And maybe you are saying, “Yes, yes, I know all of this already!” Sometimes we get tired of hearing that God is with us because it just doesn’t seem to make a difference. Maybe that is because we haven’t yet yelled for help. “If God is with me, and God knows everything, why should I pray?” we have each thought. We pray because we are the ones who are down and out, we are the ones who need to be put back together, and because God knows but we don’t. So let us yell out to God, we might even be pulled out of a grave we didn’t know we were in.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Thanks God All the Time
Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (The Message)
Read the passage again, are you living that way? If not, why not? Have you tried thanking God no matter what happens? Why can we live this way if we live in Jesus?
This story was e-mailed to me:
A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.
That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"
The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way. I wrote: ‘Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.’" Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
A lot of life is how we look at it. Now don’t get me wrong, that is not all of life. But sometimes we get so down about what we do not have, we forget about what we do have. A friend told me about seeing a little boy watching his father complaining in a store about all what life had dealt him and his family. The poor boy started crying and his dad angrily said, “Why are you crying?” He hugged his father’s leg and said, “Daddy you have me.” We each have great reasons to give thanks and to rejoice, let’s hold onto them and thank our God that we have them at all!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Read the passage again, are you living that way? If not, why not? Have you tried thanking God no matter what happens? Why can we live this way if we live in Jesus?
This story was e-mailed to me:
A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.
That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"
The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way. I wrote: ‘Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.’" Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
A lot of life is how we look at it. Now don’t get me wrong, that is not all of life. But sometimes we get so down about what we do not have, we forget about what we do have. A friend told me about seeing a little boy watching his father complaining in a store about all what life had dealt him and his family. The poor boy started crying and his dad angrily said, “Why are you crying?” He hugged his father’s leg and said, “Daddy you have me.” We each have great reasons to give thanks and to rejoice, let’s hold onto them and thank our God that we have them at all!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Minister's Minute from November Issue of the Journal of Hope and Joy
I was at a cafe with a new friend a couple of months after my arrival to Georgia in the spring of 2008. There we sat enjoying a cup of hot coffee, and even as I drank it I knew that soon I would want iced coffee. Spring does not seem to last long in this part of the world. This last year we had a cold winter (for us that is), and spring lasted all of two weeks before temperatures were topping out at 100 degrees by the end of May.
As I sat there with my new friend and bemoaned the approaching summer, the summer that many told me would let me know if I could make it in the South, he told me, “Wait for the fall, the fall down here is great.”
“How long until the fall comes?” I asked in response.
He laughed and told me that the fall would seem like it would never come, but then “once it does,” he said, “it will be beautiful, you will appreciate it, and I promise you, you will give thanks!”
During the midst of that first summer, when the heat index would top out at one million degrees and the humidity would cause me to ponder if I was breathing in more water than air, I forgot his words completely. That happens to hope sometimes. We forget all about it in the midst of the misery, but just because hope is forgotten does not mean it does not exist. Hope was there even if I did not know it, and then when October rolled around and fall became a reality I remembered his words, “It will be beautiful, you will appreciate it, and I promise you, you will give thanks!”
And so I did. First I appreciated it. I appreciated not having to wear insect repellant as if it were cologne. I appreciated not having to shower just because I went outside. Then I noticed the beauty. It was incredible. Some trees turning colors, others not, but the beauty was all around. I noticed it as I walked and travelled, I noticed it in the sky and on the ground. And then the last part came; I gave thanks because I could not help it. I thanked my God because it was too wonderful not to thank God.
Here it is again. Fall, or autumn, or whatever else you want to call it, and it is beautiful. I hope you appreciate it, and should you notice, I promise you, you will give thanks. Give thanks to God because after all this is God’s handiwork. And surely we celebrate Thanksgiving now partly for the beauty that surrounds us.
That leads me to a question I suppose. For what else are we truly thankful? Are we even able to be thankful, or are we too weary to notice all the beauty that surrounds us? I hope not! I pray that we are not too beaten down by the world to give thanks.
How do you give thanks to God? At this time of year our church, along with many churches, will begin a stewardship campaign. We could come up with some catchy phrase or slogan, but let’s just leave it at giving thanks. Sometimes I am able to see how glorious the world truly is. Sometimes I am able to see blessings mount up even among concerns. Sometimes I know with all that I am that God’s goodness surrounds me and I want to give thanks. Let us join together in giving thanks to God by giving a portion of what God has given us back to God in order that God might make this church become God’s hope and joy!
Riding the Wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
As I sat there with my new friend and bemoaned the approaching summer, the summer that many told me would let me know if I could make it in the South, he told me, “Wait for the fall, the fall down here is great.”
“How long until the fall comes?” I asked in response.
He laughed and told me that the fall would seem like it would never come, but then “once it does,” he said, “it will be beautiful, you will appreciate it, and I promise you, you will give thanks!”
During the midst of that first summer, when the heat index would top out at one million degrees and the humidity would cause me to ponder if I was breathing in more water than air, I forgot his words completely. That happens to hope sometimes. We forget all about it in the midst of the misery, but just because hope is forgotten does not mean it does not exist. Hope was there even if I did not know it, and then when October rolled around and fall became a reality I remembered his words, “It will be beautiful, you will appreciate it, and I promise you, you will give thanks!”
And so I did. First I appreciated it. I appreciated not having to wear insect repellant as if it were cologne. I appreciated not having to shower just because I went outside. Then I noticed the beauty. It was incredible. Some trees turning colors, others not, but the beauty was all around. I noticed it as I walked and travelled, I noticed it in the sky and on the ground. And then the last part came; I gave thanks because I could not help it. I thanked my God because it was too wonderful not to thank God.
Here it is again. Fall, or autumn, or whatever else you want to call it, and it is beautiful. I hope you appreciate it, and should you notice, I promise you, you will give thanks. Give thanks to God because after all this is God’s handiwork. And surely we celebrate Thanksgiving now partly for the beauty that surrounds us.
That leads me to a question I suppose. For what else are we truly thankful? Are we even able to be thankful, or are we too weary to notice all the beauty that surrounds us? I hope not! I pray that we are not too beaten down by the world to give thanks.
How do you give thanks to God? At this time of year our church, along with many churches, will begin a stewardship campaign. We could come up with some catchy phrase or slogan, but let’s just leave it at giving thanks. Sometimes I am able to see how glorious the world truly is. Sometimes I am able to see blessings mount up even among concerns. Sometimes I know with all that I am that God’s goodness surrounds me and I want to give thanks. Let us join together in giving thanks to God by giving a portion of what God has given us back to God in order that God might make this church become God’s hope and joy!
Riding the Wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)