Nostalgia and Today

Around 5 am this morning, at first consciousness, my mind was a tumbling group of images from memories … some years old, some from last week! Pictures of my late wife were a mental slide show, my children were little again, I was standing in my first pulpit so full of eagerness, I was back before the chapel at our now closed school … Isn’t it amazing how vividly those scenes can be recalled?

Nostalgia is the blessing and curse of those of us who are older. The memories can be bitter-sweet, regrets and celebrations inseparably mixed. Yesterday can be a snare to living fully today, too. Let’s talk about that for a moment. Are you trying to navigate life while staring into the rear-view mirror? Think about that idea.  It’s foolish, isn’t it? We need a clear view of the road ahead for successful progress.

A sure way to miss whatever opportunities exist today is to spend too much time flipping the pages of the picture albums of yesterday.  Were the 'good old days’ really that? Perhaps they were, but the truth is that we rewrite history all the time. We tend to exaggerate the BIG moments – joyful or sad – and forget the context of the ‘ordinary’ that surrounded them. Try to recall a single week from 25 years ago. Unless you kept a detailed diary, whatever was going on in your daily life has been largely forgotten. Birthday celebrations, Christmas, family vacations; they stand out. Deaths, divorce, job loss; they are there, too. But, the skinned knees, little dramas, the frustrations, arguments... they have been swallowed up by the fog of time.

Christians, particularly those of us on the larger side of 50 years or so, can easily become snared by nostalgia in our faith walk.  If we are not vigilant, we will become miserable critics of the state of the church, the youth program, the music …   because "It's not the way it used to be." You are right! It isn’t because the world keeps moving, whether or not we keep up.

Churches that lock themselves into some particular era, determined to remain the same - and many do – will lose their effectiveness for Christ gradually turning into museums of yesterday’s faith instead of remaining workshops for daily discipleship. Oh, I hear those sighs that object- "Jerry, Christianity is ancient. Traditions are important." Of course, they are. "Jesus Christ is the same; yesterday, today, and forever." The celebrations of Communion, baptism, Christmas, and Easter preserve continuity in the Christian community.  Novelty for its own sake can lead churches to ridiculousness.  Aiming at ‘relevance’ through compromise is a sure road to spiritual death. But, learning how to share the eternal Gospel of Christ with the world in which we live is what the Spirit desires and that demands new expressions of old truths.

Are you missing out on what God wants to do in your life TODAY, because you're attempting to recreate the spiritual experiences of another time?
Do you fondly remember a decade when, in your memory anyway, God seemed so close to you?

Rejoice in that! Don't try to erase yesterday. My great memories of family times with my children are foundational to my love for them today. But, if I attempt to relate to them today, when they are adults, as if they were pre-adolescents, I'll alienate them from me.  Similarly, grow in your relationship with your Heavenly Father.  What He did for for us  yesterday is basic to our walk with Him today, but those things are past, and He's doing a new thing in you, in me!

Ask God to help you to see and appreciate what He's doing today. If you think the Church has gone a little 'off the rails,' pray for those who lead, asking the Spirit to make His Presence known - and be ready for God to do a new thing - in you, in your church, in this world!

Here is a word from the Word. “Consider Jesus' parable - “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be torn, and the patch wouldn’t even match the old garment. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The new wine would burst the old skins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins." (Luke 5:36-37, NLT)  " I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven." (Philippians 3:13-14, NLT)

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Do It Again

Walking around these walls

I thought by now they'd fall

But you have never failed me yet

Waiting for change to come

Knowing the battle's won

For you have never failed me yet

Your promise still stands

Great is your faithfulness

Faithfulness

I'm still in your hands

This is my confidence

You've never failed me yet

I know the night won't last

Your word will come to pass

My heart will sing your praise again

Jesus you're still enough

Keep me within your love

My heart will sing your praise again

I've seen you move

You move the mountains

And I believe

I'll see you do it again

You made a way

Where there was no way

And I believe

I'll see you do it again

You've never failed me yet

I never will forget

You've never failed me yet

I never will forget

Chris Brown | Mack Brock | Matt Redman | Steven Furtick

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God on the fringe?

 

Do you have a hobby, something that you do in you that brings you pleasure, that connects you with people of similar interest?  A friend of mine loves baseball. He can recite the most obscure statistics, knows details of games played 2 decades ago, and follows his team, well yes, fanatically! It’s fun to watch.  In the past I knew a Trekkie. For the uninformed, that is a person who owns every Star Trek episode on DVD. Hey, what do I know? It’s fun for them.  Whatever our interest – music, sport, camping, travel – these hobbies can add value to our lives by giving us a creative outlet and by helping us to let go of the daily grind of life. 

Have you made your Christianity a hobby? How can you know? If you are giving the Lord whatever time is left over after work, school, home maintenance, or sports, He’s your hobby. If you fit in the daily spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, and Scripture intake after the other demands of life are met, He’s your hobby.  If your giving to God’s work in the world comes out of the checkbook last – not first – He’s your hobby.

When asked how best to please the Lord, Jesus answered this way - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30, NIV) That reads like a first priority, not a secondary interest, doesn’t it?  Some of you may be objecting that this sounds like duty, a life-killing religious obligation. When we serve from love, there is delight! Ask any fan if their sacrifice to get the best ticket, to find that obscure item, is dutiful and they will tell you it is not. Why? Because they love what they are pursuing!

The preacher Malachi received a word from God for His people. Seems that the Jews were blessed, but they forgot Who was blessing them. God was pushed to fringe of life so that they could pursue their own desires and plans. He was getting the left-overs.  He said,  “I am honored all over the world. And there are people who know how to worship me all over the world, who honor me by bringing their best to me. They’re saying it everywhere: ‘God is greater, this God-of-the-Angel-Armies.’  “All except you. Instead of honoring me, you profane me.  You profane me when you say, ‘Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,’ and when you say, ‘I’m bored—this doesn’t do anything for me.’ You act so superior, sticking your noses in the air—act superior to me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!  And when you do offer something to me, it’s a hand-me-down, or broken, or useless. Do you think I’m going to accept it? This is God speaking to you!   “A curse on the person who makes a big show of doing something great for me—an expensive sacrifice, say—and then at the last minute brings in something puny and worthless! I’m a great king, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, honored far and wide, and I’ll not put up with it!"

A 'hobby' God is unable to meet our deepest needs.  That is one of the reasons that so many Christians are unfulfilled – chasing experience, moving from church to church, abandoning Christ’s Body – the Church. God has not failed to meet their needs. They have asked Him to live in the wrong place on the fringe rather than at the center of their lives. 

So, ponder this word from the Word today.  Mediate deeply on it. "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13, NIV)

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Center Of My Joy

(A Gospel song that will bless you!)

Jesus You're the center of my joy

All that's good and perfect comes from You

You're the heart of my contentment

Hope for all I do

Jesus You're the center of my joy

When I've lost my direction

You're the compass for my way

You're the fire and light

When nights are long and cold

In sadness You are the laughter

That shatters all my fears

When I'm all alone

Your hand is there to hold

Oh

You are why I find pleasure

In the simple things of life

You're the music

In the meadows and the streams

The voices of the children

My fam'ly and my home

You're the source and finish

Of my highest dreams

(Oh yeah)

Jesus You're the center of my joy

All that's good and perfect comes from You

You're the heart of my contentment

Hope for all I do

Jesus You are the center of my joy

Jesus You're the center of my joy

When I'm lonely when I'm afraid

You are there to guide my way

You're my heart You're my contentment

Hope for all I do

Jesus

You're the center of my joy joy

You're my Joy

Gloria Gaither | Richard Smallwood | William J. Gaither

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Grip on Reality?

My late wife, Bev, had an irrational fear of flying. When she was a young woman, she felt near panic as time for boarding neared. Was there a miniscule chance the plane would go down? Yes, but the real danger was near non-existent. She would talk herself around her irrational fears, refusing to let them control her. 

Many people believe that the world in which they live is much more dangerous than it actually is and that the future is surely one of pending disaster. Let’s talk about tornados. Are they terrible and destructive? Yes! But, less than 50 people are killed on average by them in the US annually, while thousands die from asthma related issues. So why aren’t there more stories about asthma? Tornadoes make great news stories with graphic pictures of the damage they do. And then there are sharks. According to Wikepedia, there are only an average of 16 shark attacks per year and 1 death every two years here in the US, yet people are very afraid of sharks. Why?  There was Jaws!  And, there is Shark Week. We are strangely captivated by an irrational fear that is almost non-existent.

We have a bias towards the negative.  We report the few things that go wrong instead of the many that go right! We talk about the one divorce among our friends, not the dozens of happy marriages that surround us. We talk about the one traffic accident not the thousands of people who drove safely to their destination.   

There is a secondary issue involved in our sense of personal well-being. We often confuse ‘what is comfortable for me’ with ‘what is right for the world.’  That is one reason that as people age they tend to become critics of younger people.  Each generation brings about change. The very fact of change often feels ‘threatening’ and provokes both fear and anger as a response in many.

Am I suggesting that problems do not exist or that we should ignore them? No, I am not. To hide from reality is a silly, immature choice. My appeal is that we make sure to widen the lens to take in the whole picture. If we want to be healthy spiritually and emotionally, we need a context for our concern that makes our responses appropriate and proportionate.

Christian, make ‘thanksgiving’ lists right alongside of your ‘prayer’ lists. Remember to thank God for the gifts, the blessings, the good people, the kindnesses, the days that come and go without incident even as you also petition Him on behalf of those who are suffering and in trouble. The act of giving thanks will actually increase your faith!  Genuine praise, not the forced or fake words, flows from the Christian who takes time to ‘see’ the good, to recognize the hand of God, to really appreciate the beauty that is woven into life. If you think I’m naïve, I urge you to work at overcoming your negativity bias.

I leave you today with this song of David as our word from the Word.

Soak your mind in the truth! Take a cue from the words and let your heart be overcome with wonder. You will meet the real challenges of life with deeper faith.

"O Lord, our Lord, the majesty of your name fills the earth!
Your glory is higher than the heavens.
You have taught children and nursing infants to give you praise.
They silence your enemies who were seeking revenge.

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers
— the moon and the stars you have set in place—
what are mortals that you should think of us,
mere humans that you should care for us?

For you made us only a little lower than God,
and you crowned us with glory and honor.
You put us in charge of everything you made,
giving us authority over all things
— the sheep and the cattle and all the wild animals,
the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
and everything that swims the ocean currents.

O Lord, our Lord, the majesty of your name fills the earth!" (Psalm 8, NLT)
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10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)

(Matt Redman builds our faith with this song of praise)

Bless the Lord O my soul

O my soul

Worship His holy name

Sing like never before

O my soul

I'll worship Your holy name

The sun comes up it's a new day dawning

It's time to sing Your song again

Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me

Let me be singing when the evening comes

You're rich in love and You're slow to anger

Your name is great and Your heart is kind

For all Your goodness I will keep on singing

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

And on that day when my strength is failing

The end draws near and my time has come

Still my soul will sing Your praise unending

Ten thousand years and then forevermore

Worship Your holy name

Lord I'll worship Your holy name

Jonas Myrin | Matt Redman

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