God's time and in God's way

Well... I am going to take a different path in today's blog. I am realizing that I need to redo yesterday's blog. Blogging post cortisone shot and with a good pain killer in the system made for a very loopy all over the place blog yesterday. We will try that one again later.

But alas-- thoughts for today.

Alot of my friends, with this economy and place the world is in right now, are between jobs, losing jobs, just taking new jobs. That is a scary, uncertain place. I have been there. The times in your life when you are so so happy but something snaps and you realize that God is taking you somewhere different. Some of my friends have family that is deployed or they are waiting for their new station assignments. There again lies lots of uncertainty. It is not a fun place. On positive side, two of my friends are preparing for marriages. Wow... those are times of uncertainty that are really happy times.

So what do we do with all that? I am preparing a sermon for Sunday. The readings are interesting. We start with Exodus 16:1-12. The Israelites are cranky because things aren't happening their way on their time clock. They don't understand why, if they are chosen people, they can't just have it NOW. Burger King had a slogan with this very sentiment "Have it your way, right away at Burger King Now."

The Psalm, 138, talks about giving thanks, God always providing... but the last line is somewhat troubling "do not abandon the works of your hands." So David is praising and praising and praising God, but then that power of uncertainty comes back, even to David. I put all my trust in you so please don't desert me.

And the Gospel -- Luke 12:13-21. This one is an eyeopener for me. The parable talks about a rich man who has a really great crop. He decides to store everything so he will live comfortably on all of his good fortune. But God says to him that his life is going to be demanded of him. So it is those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God. Ouch. We live such a "mine mine mine me me me" mentality that when we are reminded of sharing and giving we don't like it. Not that we are greedy people, mind you, but we work so hard for everything we have and we are supposed to share. As I said alot when I was little "THAT'S NOT FAIR!"

One of my youth groups had an interesting sharing opportunity once. We were headed into this really cool pizza place (think Gattis only the size of HEB). This place had tons of pizza, games, you name it. As we were headed in, we were approached by a family (mom and 3 kids). They were looking for gas money, food, anything really. I forget the whole situation but basically the 2 older kids had not eaten in 2 days and the mom in 3. Everything they had they were feeding to the 5 year old girl.

It was another of those "leaps of faith" moments. They could have been lying. They could have known what "America's Incredible Pizza" was. So, the group all decided that they should come in and eat with us. How could we in good conscience go in and engorge ourselves on pizza, pasta and salad when these people outside might have really been hungry.

The group sat separate from us. I did not push, because you could tell they were overwhelmed. They didn't realize it was an "all you can eat" buffet. I have never seen anyone put away SO MUCH FOOD. The teenage girl grumbled about pizza (which knowing teenagers made me laugh) but when she realized there was salad and pasta, she had 3 plates FULL. The five year old must have put away at least a pizza and a half.

I remember my group of 3-6 graders. They were unsure if we did the right thing. It was cool though when they, too, realized that these people were in fact hungry and we had shared something so simple as a meal with them. It was beautiful.

I know I am as bad as everyone else when it comes to "me me me" "now now now!" I know also though how rich an experience it is to put the me's and the now's away and to let God take over... to take that leap of faith.

AMEN