Today’s Lectionary Readings: Psalm 54; Isaiah 45:18-25; Matthew 4:1-11; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Psalm 91
This week I had a conversation with a friend about the purpose of my daily blog. The conversation was an opportunity to clarify for myself the purpose of this blog. You see in these days when blogs have become trendy (i.e. folks trade the site of their blogs the way folks use to trade business cards), lots of folks think blogs are about the ego or needs of the blogger. They think of a blog as an attempt by an individual to show the world how deep and/or clever the blogger is. The purpose for my blog, however, is much different. Much of my purpose for the blog comes from the spirit contained in Psalm 91:14 – a portion of which Eugene Peterson paraphrased in The Message to read: “I’ll give you the best of care if you’ll only get to know and trust me.” Here’s how that passage expresses my purpose for blogging. After five years of parish ministry, I’ve realized that one of the reasons folks have such a challenge dealing with tough times is that they don’t nurture their understanding and experience of God during their day-to-day lives. In other words, to use the sentiments expressed by the psalmist, they don’t invest time in getting to know and trust God. Sadly, this often includes folks who are often active in the life of the church. In the face of this reality, I realized that as a pastor I had a choice. I could shrug my shoulders, say, “Well, in this world of competing demands that’s the way it is. Folks are just to busy to spend time getting to know and trust God so I’ll just accept that fact,” and then retreat to my study to craft a series of clever spiritual clichés to pull folks through their times of crises. Frankly, I didn’t like that option. My other option was to provide opportunities for folks to get to know and trust God each day through my ministry. Hence, my commitment to a daily program of readings that allows people to get to know and trust God through the sacred readings of our tradition. But providing a list of daily readings wasn’t enough – for I know that one of the sad consequences of the professionalization of ministry was that folks began to question whether or not their spiritual leadesr were living up to the standards they were espousing for their congregants. So I realized that a crucial component to get folks to realize this devotional time IS important was to show them its important enough that I do it myself. It’s a part of this radical approach that Jesus taught me called “practice what you preach”. So I create daily blog entries based on my daily encounters with God through our sacred readings. I do want to make one thing clear about my entries. I don’t think my blog entries are particularly witty. Nor do I think them clever by most standards. All I do know is that they are heart-felt. And each blog entry is written with one – and only one – purpose in mind: to help encourage you to get to know and trust God better for yourself. I fervently hope that you aren’t simply reading my words each day; rather, I pray you are focusing on reading the expressions of God’s word as contained in the set of daily readings for yourself. My consuming prayer is that each of us will grow in our ability to know and trust God so that we get use to meeting with God each and every day – and not just at our times of crisis. Til next time…
This week I had a conversation with a friend about the purpose of my daily blog. The conversation was an opportunity to clarify for myself the purpose of this blog. You see in these days when blogs have become trendy (i.e. folks trade the site of their blogs the way folks use to trade business cards), lots of folks think blogs are about the ego or needs of the blogger. They think of a blog as an attempt by an individual to show the world how deep and/or clever the blogger is. The purpose for my blog, however, is much different. Much of my purpose for the blog comes from the spirit contained in Psalm 91:14 – a portion of which Eugene Peterson paraphrased in The Message to read: “I’ll give you the best of care if you’ll only get to know and trust me.” Here’s how that passage expresses my purpose for blogging. After five years of parish ministry, I’ve realized that one of the reasons folks have such a challenge dealing with tough times is that they don’t nurture their understanding and experience of God during their day-to-day lives. In other words, to use the sentiments expressed by the psalmist, they don’t invest time in getting to know and trust God. Sadly, this often includes folks who are often active in the life of the church. In the face of this reality, I realized that as a pastor I had a choice. I could shrug my shoulders, say, “Well, in this world of competing demands that’s the way it is. Folks are just to busy to spend time getting to know and trust God so I’ll just accept that fact,” and then retreat to my study to craft a series of clever spiritual clichés to pull folks through their times of crises. Frankly, I didn’t like that option. My other option was to provide opportunities for folks to get to know and trust God each day through my ministry. Hence, my commitment to a daily program of readings that allows people to get to know and trust God through the sacred readings of our tradition. But providing a list of daily readings wasn’t enough – for I know that one of the sad consequences of the professionalization of ministry was that folks began to question whether or not their spiritual leadesr were living up to the standards they were espousing for their congregants. So I realized that a crucial component to get folks to realize this devotional time IS important was to show them its important enough that I do it myself. It’s a part of this radical approach that Jesus taught me called “practice what you preach”. So I create daily blog entries based on my daily encounters with God through our sacred readings. I do want to make one thing clear about my entries. I don’t think my blog entries are particularly witty. Nor do I think them clever by most standards. All I do know is that they are heart-felt. And each blog entry is written with one – and only one – purpose in mind: to help encourage you to get to know and trust God better for yourself. I fervently hope that you aren’t simply reading my words each day; rather, I pray you are focusing on reading the expressions of God’s word as contained in the set of daily readings for yourself. My consuming prayer is that each of us will grow in our ability to know and trust God so that we get use to meeting with God each and every day – and not just at our times of crisis. Til next time…
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