Weary

 Weary: exhausted of strength, endurance, vigor or freshness. 

    We are a weary world. We're human, and one of the downfalls of our humanity is we often lack the self discipline of consistency and enduring through life. How many times have we worked a job that was the same thing day after day and it just wore us down physically and mentally. we grow weary, we lack strength, we loose a freshness that we had when we first started that job. You start taking PTO just to escape the stress and life sucking work of that job. Sometimes its it might not be a job, it might be an illness, or long term condition that just makes you...Weary. One way or another, we've all become weary. exhausted. tired. run down. a lifeless zombie going through the motions. 

    As the lyrics of the classic Christmas song 'O Holy Night' goes, 'Till He appears and the soul felt its worth, A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices. Before Jesus was born the world, our souls, were lost. God sent his only son, in the most miraculous way. Prophesied in a way that the chance of it actually happening as it was spoken was astronomically obtuse. You have better odds of hitting the lottery 10x in your lifetime than the odds of the Prophesy of how the Lord is born would come to pass. But God looked upon his creation, his children, and sent his Son. the only part of him that could grace humanity, to live, and die, and rise again. God seen our weariness. He seen humanity needed him. we needed his reminder we need his strength, we need him to refresh us, we need him to give us everlasting life. When Jesus was born the weary world rejoiced. 

    We were given a gift that never expires, it never goes away. a forever gift, so when we're tired, exhausted, run down, we have Jesus, God With us, Emmanuel! REJOICE! Because God sees you're weary. God sees you're tired. God sees you! He cares! Lean on his Son, Lean on the Holy Spirit, Lean on God and Rejoice and be glad for he is good. He gave us the gift no one else could. Love, Sacrifice, Grace, and Life. No expiration date. No cost. Batteries not included, but thankfully not needed. Holy Spirit powered, Amen to that! 

    What do wo do with the gift God gave us? we all know God sent his son, we know the scriptures, what do we do when we're weary? Matthew 11:28 Jesus said "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest". What does that mean? That means you need to pursue Jesus. you need to talk to him, pray to him. give all your worries and cares to him. He wants you to. He cares for the weak, the tired, the lost. He's there waiting for you with open arms. Reach out to him in praise and worship. Reach out to him in prayer. learn about him. find him in scripture. find him in loving on others. giving to those who despise you. Luke 6 27-36 tells us, its easy to love those who love you, even sinners can do that. Love your enemies. do that and you will find him. he will give you rest from their stress and angst. 

    A weary world rejoices indeed. Just remember, if you're tired, worn out from the hustle and bustle of life, or even the holidays, God gave us a an opportunity for rest and rejuvenation. 

Teacher

     Do you remember the teacher you liked the least of allllll the teachers you ever had? The one's you wanted to skip their class, and sometimes some of us did. The teacher that gave you homework over the weekend or over a holiday? Remember them? Did you learn anything from that teacher? I bet you did. Even if you think you didn't, you did.  It might have been that you learned you don't want to grow up and be like them, but you learned something didn't you? 

    No matter what age we are, we need to be teachable. No matter how much we thing we know about something, we need to remain open minded and able to learn from others. Sometimes in life, the best thing to do is just listen and learn. At the time I'm writing this, I'm 41. When I tell you to be teachable, we need to allow ourselves to be enriched from people and sources of any age. The ageless wisdom of the Bible, the Word Of God, to the kindergartener child who teaches us to share no matter how much we have to CEO, to janitor and all the in between. 

    We're particularly blessed to have a Lord and Savior that came to earth to give us knowledge and teach us. In fact some of the disciples even referred to Jesus as "Rabbi". They knew that in the presence of the Lord, to be open and teachable, by the teacher. THE Teacher. Can you imagine what it would've felt like to be able to learn first hand from Jesus? I feel blessed being able to share with everyone what Jesus has taught me. But to have learned from Jesus, walked by him and was able to consume the wisdom he spoke as it came from his mouth! I wish I could've heard all he shared. However I'm blessed to have what I have from those who were martyred so we may hear his teachings. 

    God has something he wants to teach us. Every day of our lives, he has something for us. Staying grounded in the word, reading it daily, reflecting on it, taking the time consume it. Its a teachable moment we need to take advantage of. its a discipline we often struggle with. I for one, am not a fan of reading. English was one of my worst subjects in school. But as I grow, as I learn, I remain teachable. I seek out knowledge, wisdom, and understanding for what God has for me. We're blessed with amazing pastors that have such a talent for preaching, and teaching us about the word. Telling us more and more about the one we adore. The GOD the most high. And he wants us to pursue him. He wants us to learn from him and learn about him. We'll never know it all. 

    Psalms 25:5 says Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. Lead me, allow me to be taught. Are we missing out on an opportunity to be lead for fear of giving up control? Are we missing out on an opportunity to serve God because we're fearful of not knowing, or messing something up? Are we unwilling to be lead? Are we afraid to be lead because we feel that we should be the one doing the leading? If God is the one doing the leading and teaching what do we have to fear? What do we have need to hold onto? He's in control. We just have to listen. Answer him with "Yes" and "Amen". We should be open to the teachable moments when they come because we never know when the next one will arise. 

    Part of being teachable is knowing that you're not always going to succeed. In life we're going to face set backs, failures, and doors closed that God did not want opened. If we're called to be taught, we learn. We don't let adversity stop us. We learn. We pick up our brothers and sisters and dust them off, fix their crowns and we say "Rabbi...Teacher...Lead US!". Be open to the opportunities both good and bad. God's making you walk it for a reason. I might be for a day, it might be for a season. But rest assure he's leading you and teaching you and forming you to be what he wants you to be. HIS. His child. His good and faithful servant. His friend. His beloved. 

Muck and Mire

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtVBSEpvXAM

 

I’ve been listening to this song, and one line in particular has been on my heart. It comes from Psalms 40:2 “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the miry clay; he set my feet upon a rock, steadying my footsteps and establishing my path”.

 

I feel like this week at service we started off in the sludge. Pastor Kelly in her wisdom and experience seen that, and magnificently started to shepherd us back on path. The Holy Spirit was truly working through her. Like a heat seeking missle, called out the needs of the church and prayed through them. Guided us to shake off the funk and praise God and invest in the word he had to share with us. If we just come to consume and not put anything into our relationship with God and not invest in the message he’s bringing us, then we’re lacking. We’re not getting out of what he has for us. This week we were taken from the miry clay, we were pulled from the slimy pit of ourselves, he put us on a rock and set us on the right path. AMEN and AMEN! Shout out to our Pastor on doing such a great job! We are blessed to have her guiding us. (on a side note, the word “Pastor” wasn’t used as a reference until like the 1700’s or something like that. Pastors and priests in much earlier times were referred to as shepherds)

 

I know before coming to SCC I went through a season of sitting in the slimy pit. I became complacent and was just going through the motions. I wasn’t connected. I wasn’t pursing God. I wasn’t invested in the word and reading it daily. I wasn’t participating in service. I tried serving on the welcome team at APC but it was just going through the motions again. I knew I needed to get back to pursuing God. I made up my mind I was going to stop putting off visiting Pastor Kelly and Pastor Ben and go visit. The week I made that decision I felt God telling me to hold on. Pastor Jeff was preaching at SCC and I didn’t want it to be just more of what I was experiencing at APC. So I waited till the following week. I was super excited to see my friends again. It’s been too long since I seen them too. When I arrived at SCC, no doubt, God was with me. I could feel the Holy Spirit renewing my soul. I could feel him working on me. I was greeted by a few familiar faces, and a few unfamiliar. But each person I encountered I felt the sense of community with them. Terry, who I served with said hello and expressed his joy in seeing me, Bryan who I never met before shook my hand and gave me complements on my Steelers gear. And everywhere I turned I was just simply welcomed. I sat down and felt like I was home. God pulled me from the slimy pit I was in. out of the miry clay, out of the funk I was in. Sunday was another reminder that God delivered me from that and so much worse. He’s always there and always pursing me.

 

Jesus, lover of my soul, my savior, my closest friend, I’m sorry I took my eyes off of you and let myself slip into a complacent state. Thank you for delivering me from that place. Just as we all experience the moments of our lives like Peter did when he stepped off the boat, you’re always there to pull us up. Be it unsteady waters, storms, slimy pits, self-inflicted wounds, selfishness, sin, or whatever the case, you’re there, reminding us you paid the price, and set us back on our path.

 

In addition to that, the song reminded me that we too came from clay. We’re the miry clay. There’s topsoil and the organic layers of the earth that sustain life. The subsoil helps support that. Below that is the clay, and below the useless layer of clay, is the bedrock which holds it all in place. The clay layer doesn’t serve much purpose. On its own it’s nothing. God took us from that nothingness and breathed life into us. Took nothing and made each of us in a special way. If you take the clay and mold it, it can be made to be a vessel used for many things. It has to be formed, molded, bent in ways it wasn’t supposed to, folded over and over and formed into something of use. It takes care, put through a furnace, and time to develop the clay into something of use. So no matter what we go through, what fire, what pressure, we must remain flexible and allow God to form us into what he wants us to be. Isaiah 64:8 says, “you are my Father, we are the clay, and You our Potter, and we all are the work of Your hand.”. We need to remember that when we’re broken, we’re God’s blank slate, the miry clay, the blank canvas that God creates a masterpiece from. 2 Corinthians 12:9 the Lord said My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Know that in our weakness, in our brokenness, God’s grace, his love, his power, is made perfect in that moment. He’s there for US! Always pursing, always loving and always there. We are blessed!