Seeds For Thinking

Link: http://seedsforthinking.oldgleaner.com/

Scripture: Jesus said, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” John 24:44, NIV

Of all the words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these -”It might have been.”

Perhaps the saddest of all events is the death of someone in their youth. Their life has not, and will never be, brought to fruition. One can not help but to speculate what additional years may have wrought. The promises of talents and skills, the contributions to society never realized.
Time may dim but never erase the memories, nor quell the occasional thoughts of “what might have been.” Such are thoughts of a brother who was lost to our family more than a half century ago at age thirteen.
Accidents, violence (including war,) and illness of various sorts take their toll. Grief is an expression of the loss that takes something from our very souls.
For those of us who are truly close to the Easter Passion, knowing the final outcome does not lessen the sadness we feel as we experience the reality of Christ’s arrest, trial, and crucifixion. We read in the Gospels once again of the disciples scattered, the women keeping vigil near the cross, the mockery of the crowds around Golgotha.
How long had it been since Jesus rode into Jerusalem, to the cries of “Hosannah!?” A week? Surely much longer. A ride, and a week, that would see prophecy fulfilled. Yet the people swirling around that city, the events of that week, scarcely gave the past much thought. They were caught up in the present, and the hopes for the future. Jesus was so young, so filled with promise. Many did desire, yes, hope that this was the ONE, the promised Messiah, the Deliverer of promise. Surely those who followed Him to Calvary felt their very souls tear on hearing the crowds revel in their mockery, “You saved others, now save yourself. Aren’t you the Christ?”
Incense and myrrh, spices and perfumes - gifts at his birth, the anointments of last rites. A sword indeed pierced His follower’s souls. (Luke 2:35)
Who cannot but sympathize with those two walking away from the sorrow of Jerusalem toward Emmaus, their faces downcast. On “Good Friday” we join them in sorrowing, “They crucified him.” Our hopes that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel, dashed, ‘What might have been,” in our thoughts.
Because we are EASTER PEOPLE, we know the outcome. We rejoice with those who exclaim,
“Were not our hearts burning within us . . .?”
We rejoice at what is NOT there . . . the tomb is empty!
The saddest words have become these, of John 24:11: “They did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”
So many lost in the sadness of unbelief.

Link: http://seedsforthinking.oldgleaner.com

* Normal
* Scripture: Jesus said, . . ."I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth." John 14:6,7, NIV

I wonder how much of our lives we spend waiting for things to "become normal"? Take the weather, for example. The forecast may call for conditions to be "about normal," or perhaps "above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation."
That's fine, if we know what normal is supposed to be. If we look at the weather over many years of time, certain weather conditions may occur more often than others. The condition we call normal is not absolute; normal may be what we long for, but we can not be assured we will always know what normal is.
If we look back at our lives, and try to choose a period that we could label as "normal," we will realize that a lot of changes occur. Perhaps a more fitting term would be the word "typical." We had a typical childhood; we were typical teenagers. What was normal for those years is vastly different from marriage and childbearing years.
If we contact an illness, we may display symptoms that are normal for that affliction; we would definitely not say we were experiencing normal health, though. Not as we would want it to be.
That is today's "Seed For Thinking." Normal may in part be whatever we wish it to be. If we do not get our desires, our wish, we say things are "not normal."
The Bible is full of many examples where people want a certain condition to exist. "Have our cake, and eat it too." The dilemma - get what we want, but don't change anything. Do we eat the cake, or do we keep the cake uneaten?
Jesus' disciples had somewhat the same dilemma. They wanted Jesus to be with them, forever. That's an understandable feeling. But Jesus knew that the church needed something that would not be available if He stayed with the disciples. John 16:7 relates how Jesus told them that He had to go away, because the Holy Spirit would not come to them unless He went away.
They had all been with Jesus for several years. That was 'normal.' Now Jesus was going to leave them. Jesus observed that they were "filled with grief." (John 16:6)
Jesus was preparing them for a new way of life, and the world for a New Covenant.
His blood was shed for the salvation of all.
Normal ceased to exist;
Normal began on Calvary, and was confirmed at Pentecost.

SPECIAL NOTE: If all we ever do is what we've always done;
All we will ever get is what we've always got!

April 30, 2006

Link: http://seedsforthinking.oldgleaner.com/

Scripture: “And the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.”
(Acts 11:26b, NKJV)

The eerie, wailing, screeching sound woke me at a pre-dawn hour. This banshee-like scream was accompanied by a strange glow in the sky, punctuated by flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. This was neither a summer thunderstorm, nor a howling hurricane, but a January snow storm in central Ohio. I was witnessing the arrival of what has come to be known as the “Great Blizzard of 1978.”
The rapidly intensifying storm pulled bitterly cold air across Ohio on winds of 50 to 70 mph. Rain turned to ice and snow as the temperature plunged 21 degrees — from 34 to 13 — between 5 and 6 a.m. Temperatures hovered around zero but the wind chill made it feel like 60 below. Atmospheric pressure fell to 28.28 inches at Cleveland, the lowest ever recorded in Ohio.
This storm met all of the criteria for a true blizzard, as defined by the National Weather Service: Sustained winds or frequent gusts of 35 mph or greater, considerable falling and/or blowing snow reducing visibility frequently to 1/4 mile or less for a period of three hours or more.
The term “blizzard” is often applied to any snowfall amount, disregarding the wind and time factors, and is thus not a correct use of the word.
Clarity in communication depends upon the selection of the proper descriptive word. “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.” But what, exactly, does it mean if someone writes, “The windstorm decimated the forest”? Surely you know what a decimal is, or one tenth of something. A decade is from the Latin word for ‘ten.’ The verb decimate originally alluded to the Roman punishment of executing one man in ten of a mutinous legion. Was the legion utterly destroyed? No. Did the writer mean that only one tenth of the forest was destroyed? Who knows?
“Plethora” is a word that I find to be irritating in many uses. This word refers (and has always referred) to an overabundance, an overfullness, or an excess. The phrase “a plethora of” is essentially a highfalutin equivalent of too many.
Unfortunately, through misunderstanding of the word's true sense, many writers use it as if it were equivalent to plenty or many. So what does it mean to read, “There is a plethora of apples this year?“ The writer could have meant “many,” or “There is an over abundance; way too many apples.” Who knows?
When we go into a store, and see the words ‘Good’, ‘Better’, ‘Best’, on products, we form an opinion about the quality and resulting price. Most folks would be very upset if the merchant labeled the cheapest, lowest quality product as “The Best.” So why should we accept sloppy, inaccurate uses of words?
Consider the word, “Christian.” It should refer to one who’s life is manifested toward God and Christ, filled with and guided by the Holy Spirit. Christians should be known by their “fruitfulness” in internal graces: kindness, humility, gentleness, love, self control, and peacefulness. The Christ-like person should exemplify Christ in all aspects of their life, as befits an “heir of God, and joint heir with Christ.” (Romans 8:17)
Unfortunately, some toss the word “Christian” about as casually as they do words like blizzard, decimate, and plethora, disregarding the true meaning of “Like Christ.” ‘Christian’ is sometimes used as a default word to label a person who is not a believer of some other religion, or who lives in a predominately Christian country or region, regardless of their relationship to Christ.
May we who call ourselves ‘Christian’ exemplify Christ in all aspects of our lives, even as the disciples of the Church at Antioch.
February 14, 2010

Link: http://seedsforthinking.oldgleaner.com/

Scripture: Jesus said, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” John 24:44, NIV

Of all the words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these -”It might have been.”

Perhaps the saddest of all events is the death of someone in their youth. Their life has not, and will never be, brought to fruition. One can not help but to speculate what additional years may have wrought. The promises of talents and skills, the contributions to society never realized.
Time may dim but never erase the memories, nor quell the occasional thoughts of “what might have been.” Such are thoughts of a brother who was lost to our family more than a half century ago at age thirteen.
Accidents, violence (including war,) and illness of various sorts take their toll. Grief is an expression of the loss that takes something from our very souls.
For those of us who are truly close to the Easter Passion, knowing the final outcome does not lessen the sadness we feel as we experience the reality of Christ’s arrest, trial, and crucifixion. We read in the Gospels once again of the disciples scattered, the women keeping vigil near the cross, the mockery of the crowds around Golgotha.
How long had it been since Jesus rode into Jerusalem, to the cries of “Hosannah?” A week? Surely much longer. A ride, and a week, that would see prophecy fulfilled. Yet the people swirling around that city, the events of that week, scarcely gave the past much thought. They were caught up in the present, and the hopes for the future. Jesus was so young, so filled with promise. Many did desire, yes, hope that this was the ONE, the promised Messiah, the Deliverer of promise. Surely those who followed Him to Calvary felt their very souls tear on hearing the crowds revel in their mockery, “You saved others, now save yourself. Aren’t you the Christ?”
Incense and myrrh, spices and perfumes - gifts at his birth, the anointments of last rites. A sword indeed pierced His follower’s souls. (Luke 2:35)
Who cannot but sympathize with those two walking away from the sorrow of Jerusalem toward Emmaus, their faces downcast. On “Good Friday” we join them in sorrowing, “They crucified him.” Our hopes that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel, dashed, ‘What might have been,” in our thoughts.
Because we are EASTER PEOPLE, we know the outcome. We rejoice with those who exclaim, “Were not our hearts burning within us . . .?” We rejoice at what is NOT there . . . the tomb is empty!
The saddest words have become these, of John 24:11: “They did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”
So many lost in the sadness of unbelief.
April 20, 2003

Link: http://seedsforthinking.oldgleaner.com/

Scripture: But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter, and all we are the work of Your hand. (Isaiah 64:8, NKJV)

We are raw material - no bones about it! We are the tree standing in the forest, the block of stone in the quarry, the lump of clay on the wheel. We need to be hewn, shaped, thrown and molded until we become a useful vessel unto the Lord.
With the exception of Jesus, most of the people we meet in the Bible needed a little processing before they emerged as mature, spiritually fruitful servants in God’s kingdom. Perhaps there is a fitting simile in comparing the skills that Jesus had practiced in Joseph’s carpenter shop with the shaping and forming necessary to change the men who came to Him as disciples (learners) into the Apostles we see later in Acts and The Epistles.
Jesus went out to the mountain and prayed all night long before choosing the twelve disciples who would become the core group of Apostles. We sometimes wonder what He saw in these men whom from time to time fell so short of what we expect them to be. They came to Him as roughly-hewn as a fresh cut log, unseasoned, the grain of their being - what they might become - hidden by the ‘bark’ of the life that they had lived up until that time. They were men apparently living ordinary lives; fishermen, tax collectors.
The brothers James and John were disputatious and manipulative to the extent that they were called “Sons of Thunder.” Peter seemed to flip-flop throughout the Gospels, most notably stating that he would lay down his life for Jesus, and then denying that he even knew the man. (Luke 22:54-62) Judas betrayed his Master for thirty pieces of silver.
Creative people possess the ability to see ordinary things in an extraordinary way.
They envision the potential in the material, and create in their mind’s eye what it might become. Where others may see only a lump of clay, a chunk of wood, or a blank canvas, the artist, the craftsman, sees objects of beauty and utility. But more than vision, creative people possess the skills needed to shape, form, mold, or transform those images into a finished product. How much more so is God the skilled craftsman and visionary, the Potter, the Carpenter, the Sculptor.
Now suppose that a lump of clay, a chunk of wood, or a blank canvas sees the artist approaching, and refuses to be transformed. And the artist, sensing the reluctance or refusal of the subject of interest to cooperate, allows it to indulge in its own desires and impulses. In this earthly, physical world, transformation is more apt to be limited by the craftsman than the crafted object.
How different is the spiritual world, the world of mind and soul. The world of Us. We have to be truly willing to be transformed, and to repudiate and repent from our rebellious desires and impulses before God can do anything with us. Even as the rough-hewn disciples were shaped, molded and transformed into the Apostles, the vigorous and pioneering advocates, messengers and representatives of Jesus, so may we also be transformed, if we allow the Potter to shape us with His hand.