Sensitivity/pride/humility

I was reflecting in a letter to my daughter about pride and sensitivity--so I copied it here and would love if any of you bloggers have an opinion on this to share it with me.

So why do any of us tend to be overly sensitive do you think.
We all have this problem to one degree or another--I know some is pride--

In a Bible study last few weeks we were talking about humbleness. Well actual in different studies we touched on the subject. In Romans we were talking about how we are all sinners and when we judge someone for their sin we are equally guilty---we were looking at how the Jews judged the Gentiles and how the Jews were also guilty--Rom 2 :1--"Therefore you are without excuse, every man of you who passes judgement, for in that you judge another you condemn yourself: for you who judge practice the same things." --this is so true and if we really understand this we will realize what we criticize others for ,we are guilty of too---maybe in just a different way.

Secondly we were looking at Christ's humility---I think part of his great ability to live so humbly (humanly speaking) was the fact that He knew who He was, He knew He was loved by the Father and when you have this intimate knowledge of God's love you can serve others with humility, it does not matter what they think of you because you know what God thinks--that He has this great love for you. However with Mother Teresa she did not feel God's love for her yet because she chose to love Him she wanted to do all for Christ.--she also realized all Christ did for her so I guess she could not do enough to serve the outcasts of society.

I wonder why we are so defensive--is it because we don't fully realize who we are in Christ? Why are we so proud--Christ who is God was humble! I know it is sin that causes pride--but as Christians why don't we do a better job at coming at things with a lowly mind? Would we do better if we came to realize the greatness of His love for us. What do you think on all of this?

Living in Pain and love

I was just thinking about how many people are living in some kind of pain. One time we had a women's meeting and one after another were standing up to give testimony. Each of them had different kinds of pain, but pain none the less. There are all kinds of pain that relate to our being and some are interrelated ...ie physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, psychological. Some had lost children to horrendous accidents, some lost loved ones to drugs, some had experienced divorce, some had crippling pain, some suffered from depression, some from loneliness etc. But I came away amazed that almost every testimony dealt with some pain and then the grace of God in it.

I think of the wider world ---if we don't always know what our sisters and brothers in the church are going through, neither do we know what are neighbors, fellow workers, strangers are going through---we just have no idea. How much I need to be careful in what I do , what I say. Jesus is so full of compassion---I again think of Mother Teressa and how she reached out in compassion to so many even though she struggled with feeling Christ's love for herself! Christ fully knew the Father's love and Christ's compassion is wider, deeper, higher, etc as I think Eph. 3 states it---I need to figure out on a daily basis how this love in me is to be expressed--it is sometimes hard to know the right avenue of expression, ....again the need to depend on the Spirit, the Word, etc.

Eph 3 : 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Walking

Well , I need to get back to some daily walking instead of inside exercise as I have been doing in the heat/ this weather is so nice and crisp. I like this quote by Annie Dillard:

It's all a matter of keeping my eyes open...Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will sense them. The least we can do is try to be there....so that creation need not play to an empty house."

Also this quote of Buechner's got me thinking that Yancey mentions that God gives us only "momentary glimpses into a mystery of such depth, power and beauty that if we were to see it head on, in any way other than in glimpses, I suspect we would be annihilated."

Awesome God--someone has said that there are about (as far as we know) 9 galaxies for each person alive on earth---no wonder we can't handle the great mysteries of God. No wonder why God answers Job's questions about pain the way He does---there is no way we can understand the mind of God.

I thank Him for what He does reveal---for the Beauty and Light there is in Christ. And then again it is amazing to think of the way Christ ministered to the divorced woman (divorced over 5 times and living with a man), the way He touched the lepers, the way he ministered to prostitutes, the poor, the children, etc----He had such a heart for people in a way that I fail to have in my own life---it is so hard to know the how , and what, where and when of my daily life --guess I need to listen more to Him---be sensitive and look for what He wants.

Ps 77: 13 But we your people, the sheep of your pasture,will give thanks to you forever;from generation to generation we will recount your praise

Nehemiah di what Ps 77 says above--recounted your praise---wow--God is so merciful even when we mess up big time:
Neh9:17b:
But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 18 Even when they had made for themselves a golden [8] calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, 19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 21 Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell..

A Blogger meal

Well tonight we had a nice quiet dinner with recipes from two different bloggers. We ate dinner on some old plates I grew up with as a child--they have winter scenes on them [but they are covered by the food!] This above is Country Coq Au Vin with vegetables on the side. It is a Chicken, bacon, onion, wine dish on mashed potatoes. I got the recipe from Penny's Nov. 3 post at http://lavenderhillstudio.blogspot.com/. It was wonderful--she gives step by step pictures. I will have to add this to my recipe blog later.

The picture below is the crockpot applesauce that I found at Sharon's http://roseofsharonmay.blogspot.com/ I altered it because I had very sweet apples--see my recipe blog.

So we had a nice quiet, comfy night of blogger meals and scrabble and a coffee at Port City Java for dessert. Wonderful night!!

True Church verses Virtual Reality

Reflecting on religion verses relationship. Listened to a guy talking about this---it was about the fact that many people go to church and have a religion and are basically in a virtual reality. --playing at but not having the reality! It is a form of relationship without God---a relationship that denies the power thereof----a form of godliness without the power of God in it.

I need to examine my life to make sure that I am listening to God and that I am doing what He wants---living in that dynamic relationship and allowing Him to form His image in me (see post below). Need to make sure I am not just playing in a virtual reality, but that I am responding to what he tells me to do. I can't conform my life to this culture, or even the church's culture but to Christ.

picture from flickr --jeff cr.

Book Discussion

We are each such individuals--as seen by this picture (hey--every opportunity I take for looking at this kiddo) I like how Bonhoeffer discusses this fact and its relation to the ministry of bearing: "It is, first of all, the freedom of the other person, of which we spoke earlier, that is a burden to the Christian. The other's freedom collides with his own autonomy, yet he must recognize it. He could get rid of this burden by refusing the other person his freedom, by constraining him and thus doing violence to his personality, by stamping his own image upon him. But if he lets God create His image in him, he by this token gives him his freedom and himself bears the burden of this freedom of another creature of God. The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by a person's nature, individuality, endowment. It also includes his weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces frictions, conflicts, and collisions among us. To bear the burden of the other person means involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept and affirm it, and in bearing with it, to break through to the point where we take joy in it."

God has given such a variety of people and we need to let God create His image in the person--yes we are all made in His image--but there is much more here as we continue to be sanctified by God---being made like Christ. We really do need to bless God for all the infinite variety He has created--not only in all of nature, but in individuals. How wonderful this is--and how UN-boring it is ;-)----how amazing that we all reflect His glory in unique ways!!

Linked together

For the Christmas season I am going to hang this stained glass looking chain near my bay window area. Actually I think I will leave it up now because it is so colorful. No--I changed my mind--I will wait and put the leaves back up ;-)

It is made by using these tags (sold at Walmart craft section)

And by using colored paper clips (but you can use regular ones too)--I used the large clips. I found these at Office Depot, but Walmart may have them.

I think it will be fun to link the smaller colored paper clips together to make a colored chain for the Christmas tree and it would make fun necklaces and bracelets!! Any color or colors you want!!

Now for the spiritual side of all of this: In Bonhoeffer's book, "Life Together" he writes: "In a Christian community everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable..........It will be well therefore if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable.

Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship."

He also speaks about the fact that all of us are here to serve each other and each other's needs.

I found Mother Teressa was a real example of this--she lived to serve and to serve humbly. She, like even Gandhi (who was not a Christian , but was moved by the power of God's truth in the beatitudes ) "understood that the direction of charity is not condescending, but rather ascending: in serving the weak and the poor, we are privileged to serve God himself." But it is hard to put others ahead of ourselves!!! I do love the concept of a community being individuals linked together and that each of us are indispensable to the rest. --kind of like Paul's description of each of us being a part of the body--like a hand, a toe, etc--we each need each other.