Friday, July 29, 2011

I read Luke 8 today. The entire chapter spoke directly to me. For instance, the parable of the farmer casting seeds on the path, rocks, and good soil spoke to my having fallen on hard, stony soil; it is only by the grace of God that my roots weakly stretched out and found the nearby rich farm dirt before I withered and died.

Then, there was Luke 8:18 - Consider carefully how you hear. Those who have will be given more... That is so true of my students. Those who already have whatever it is that permits them to hear and understand are given more, while those who are in the dark only fall into deeper darkness.

Jesus calms the storm: The apostles were terrified at the storm, but Jesus slept. They finally woke him up and begged him to save them...which he did. He could have prevented the storm from ever arising, but he didn't. The storm and their ultimate rescue was a faith-building event. Perhaps God lets storms arise in our life so that our faith can be built. That is not quite right. It did help the apostles eventually be completely unafraid. Then again, most of them were martyred, willingly martyred. That takes some thinking about. They became completely different people. How different they were at the end that at the beginning.

The demon-possessed man in the Gerasenes: The cured demoniac wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus told him no. The man had to return to his own people and tell them how he was saved. Jesus said the same thing to me. I would have loved to have a church ministry, but I wasn't called to it. If anything, church people have historically cold-shouldered me. My job is outside church buildings, ministering there. That makes me sad.

Finally, in another part of the Gospels to which I accidentally flipped - I did not notice the exact location - Peter denies Jesus. Do I do that? I work in public education. How many times have I soft-pedaled my beliefs? I have a statue of Jesus on my office window given to me by a Palestinian Muslim; that is about the only way I testify. I hope that I act so wonderfully, everyone will know without my saying anything. Hmmmmm.