Thursday, June 11

Today’s Readings: Psalm 28; 1 Samuel 11:1-15; John 17:1-8; 2 Corinthians 7:2-9; Psalm 56

I'm sorry I missed yesterday's posting. I'm in the process of adapting to a new schedule (writing late at night and not in the moring so I can walk the dogs in the morning while it is still cool). I was so tired last night that I posted my entry on a different web page. Sorry! With all that said, let me move on to today's post :)

Growing up, I thought my parents had a really strange marriage. I say that because it seemed that the only time my father would respond to my mother’s requests were those times when she got him upset at him and went off. Once my mother went off, my father would finally get around to responding to whatever request my mother made. “If dad really loved mom,” I remember thinking, “then he would readily do the things she asked of him and NEVER make her ask twice.” Fast forward twenty-five years. Now I’m in my own relationship, and I find some of those dynamics at work in my marriage. Mike, for instance, will gently ask if I’ve returned the movie I rented to Blockbuster. I’ll tune out his request a few times until he finally pushes the issue, and then I get around to doing what I had promised to do. So what’s going on in this scenario? Well, I’ve learned that when you are in an intimate relationship it’s easy to get so comfortable with one another that you start to tune each other out. The tuning out isn’t a sign of disrespect; rather, is a sign that you are incredibly comfortable with one another. There are times, however, when one or both of the partners need to be jarred out of their complacency to tend to the issue at hand. Paul was dealing with a similar dynamic in the community of Corinth at the time he wrote today’s passage from 2 Corinthians: he was dealing with a group of people who felt so comfortable and connected with one another and their God that they started getting a little lackadaisical in tending to their spiritual lives. Consequently Paul jumped into action to shake them up. “I know I distressed you greatly with my letter,” Paul reflected. “Although I felt awful at the time, I don’t feel at all bad now that I see how it turned out. The letter upset you, but only for a while. Now I’m glad – not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around.” So where are you at in your relationship with God? Are you in a comfortable place where perhaps you’ve grown a little complacent and tuned God out? If so, don’t feel too bad if something dramatic happens to upset your equilibrium and get your attention. That “something” might be just the thing you need to jar you into turning things around. Til next time…