Sunday, October 18, 2015

Opening Prayer

Father,  we come together,  before you, and we recognize we're in a weird place.

Father, we're stuck.
We're stuck in between what we know about you, and what you're showing us.

We're stuck in between our understanding of worship as something we do, and what you're showing us - sharing our lives together as worship, as who we are.

Father, draw us together, closer, despite our urges to run.
Show us the one thing that we run from is the one thing we need most.

With your resurrection life inside of us, let us be what we each need for one another.

Amen.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Offended

As long as we remain "offended", we'll never be able to ask why.  Why something is the way it is, or why someone is the way they are, or why something is happening.

Being offended by something just proves how self-centered we've become.

When the words or actions of others have to be pre-approved by us, then we've effectively made ourselves (and our view of the world), a god. This makes everyone else around us subject to our demands, desires, and limitations.

This stifles relationships, and throws any kind of equality or partnership out the window.

This also crushes creativity and freedom, because now the people around us aren't free to discover their own paths or purposes, or giftings, or strengths on their own; they have to conform to a worldview that's only as big as we are.
God forbid those around us have a purpose that's different from ours.

But fear does thatdoesn't it.
It keeps us focused on ourselves, paralyzing us into a short of self- preservation mode, which we then project onto everyone around us.

Maybe the next time we're offended, we should focus on something that isn't us.
We might just learn something.