Today’s Readings: Psalm 115; Song of Solomon 6:1-10; Matthew 9:9-17; 1 John 4:1-6; Psalm 128
We human beings face a HUGE temptation when it comes to creating our theologies. That temptation is to conceive of a God who acts just like us. Nowhere is this tendency more evident that in some of the Psalms. Take today’s second psalm, for example. The psalm begins by noting: “All you who fear God, how blessed you are! how happily you walk on his smooth straight road.” It goes on to equate material rewards (i.e. “your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes, your household lush as a vineyard”) with blessings from God. Wouldn’t it be nice if things always worked that way? But as you and I both know, things don’t always work out that way. Good-hearted, faithful people get cancer and divorces just as often as mean-spirited people of no faith. So how can we take this notion of being blessed and interpret it in different ways – ways that perhaps better fit with our life experience? Well, we can look at blessings as things that come to us in a variety of forms. We can, for instance, look at blessings in terms of the peace that we derive from our relationship with God – a peace that we experience even in the face of a cancer diagnosis. Or we can look at blessings in terms of knowing what it means to be truly loved – even perhaps in the midst of a painful divorce or separation. So how do you understand the term blessing within the context of your own life? How you define the term will strongly impact your ability to find them in your life. Til next time…
We human beings face a HUGE temptation when it comes to creating our theologies. That temptation is to conceive of a God who acts just like us. Nowhere is this tendency more evident that in some of the Psalms. Take today’s second psalm, for example. The psalm begins by noting: “All you who fear God, how blessed you are! how happily you walk on his smooth straight road.” It goes on to equate material rewards (i.e. “your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes, your household lush as a vineyard”) with blessings from God. Wouldn’t it be nice if things always worked that way? But as you and I both know, things don’t always work out that way. Good-hearted, faithful people get cancer and divorces just as often as mean-spirited people of no faith. So how can we take this notion of being blessed and interpret it in different ways – ways that perhaps better fit with our life experience? Well, we can look at blessings as things that come to us in a variety of forms. We can, for instance, look at blessings in terms of the peace that we derive from our relationship with God – a peace that we experience even in the face of a cancer diagnosis. Or we can look at blessings in terms of knowing what it means to be truly loved – even perhaps in the midst of a painful divorce or separation. So how do you understand the term blessing within the context of your own life? How you define the term will strongly impact your ability to find them in your life. Til next time…
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Choices
Do I celebrate relationship with the Spirit of love and mercy or do I do succumb to the self idolatry of judgment and criticism?
Which do I choose today?
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