To Seek and to Save…

by Rev. Kim Dorr :: To Seek and to Save…the lost. Something struck me the other day as I was watching the news – a story about a missing child. I watched the story covered by all the major news networks showing hundreds of volunteers scouring a certain location, searching for this lost little one. I stopped and said a prayer for the child and her family. I always do whenever there’s a story like this – stop and pray that the child will be found and safely returned to his or her family. Whenever there is an Amber alert here locally, I always find myself looking with intention into cars that drive past me on the freeway and at youngsters dining with grown ups, wanting to make sure they look like they belong there. If I can do an extra little bit to help find a child – isn’t that worth any and every effort?

I even scan neighborhoods whenever I see a poster for a lost cat or dog. “Wouldn’t it be great to find that pet?!” I think to myself. I can imagine the homecoming – the shouts of glee from children, wagging tales, tears of joy – all for a lost pet. When I drive by the same poster week after week, it creates an actual pain in my heart, imagining the sorrow of those still looking, in waning hope, for that one that is loved.

The other day, as I prayed while the news story played on – God interrupted me and showed me His perspective on HIS lost children. He showed me what it would look like if we took more seriously HIS sorrow and driving desire to find HIS lost children – posters on every corner, news coverage 24/7 with stories on who was lost, where to look and how very much God, the child’s Father, suffered in the loss and wanted to have that child found. What if we started looking with ardent intention for those that God desperately wants to find? Can you imagine the homecoming? Luke showed us a picture of it: a Father running without regard to anything other than that child returning home, embracing that son or daughter and showering them with tears and laughter; the child, long beaten and ravaged by things of this world, in disbelief and joy, surrendering to this embrace and knowing that he or she is HOME.

In these last few weeks before Easter, let us remember why Jesus came to us and why he laid down His life – to seek and to save the lost. Let us be stirred, the way a report of a missing child stirs us, let us pray, let us look, let us expend every effort that we can to do our part in finding that child and walking that child safely into the presence of the Father who never stops looking for anyone who is lost…

2009 SE

by Glenn Reph :: During Lent we may prayerfully consider giving up something dear or pleasurable to us.  May I suggest an item for you to consider. This item is special.

I refer to something we secretly enjoy, making it a little more difficult to release; we do not let go easily. This special item ubiquitously permeates our culture with seemingly small differentiation between race, wealth, social status, education or religious view. The general appetite and appeal of this item has increased over time and has grown in popularity and approval, both unchecked and unchallenged. On the surface it seems innocuous enough, but in larger portions can tear up the fabric of relationships within families and communities, even churches.

The item I am referring to is “special entitlement” (SE). Special entitlement is a sense of deserving, simply because of who you are.

Looking at this as a wine, SE’s fruit has a pungent odor with a hint of narcissism, and a not so subtle undertone of “it’s all about me”. SE is deeply entrenched in a current vintage of spiritual thinking that says, “I deserve therefore, I dream, I wish, I ask“.  SE produces an arresting aroma of “If I think in my mind, if I wish it, I can have it and have it all“. SE has a texture and composition of “I must be in command of my own special life“; with a long finish declaring, ”I am master of my own special universe“. While there may be shades of wholesome truth hidden somewhere in this vintage, any real fruitfulness has been covered and masked by the spice of ”specialness“. The alure of this vintage SE screams, “I am so special.  I deserve much more and much better!“. (WS 100)

For some of us SE came early in life.  You may have discovered it in the initial childish sense of grabbing objects and saying “mine, mine, mine”, like the seagulls in Finding Nemo.  The youthful bud produced a healthy cluster of fruit. Truth be told, you repeatedly heard the phrase “you are special“, and you drank, deeply believing it to be so.  That fragrant phrase blossomed into the mind fruit used to create your own case of SE.

Being recognized, appreciated, or served when and where appropriate is not improper.  But we find ourselves standing in expectation, curiously shaking our head when not being served in the right way, not properly recognized for our most excellent accomplishments, or not being fully appreciated for a job well done.   Giving up SE is a good thing regardless of Lent.

Here’s a good starting point. Years ago in Sunday School I learned an acrostic for JOY:  Jesus first, others second, and you last.  Get it?

And lastly, when you find yourself perplexed and thinking, “Don’t they understand that I’m special. Don’t they understand who I am?”  Adjust your thinking heavenward and give your SE up to the ONE who came to serve, not to be served…

Slowing Down

by Dr. Mark Brewer :: It is fascinating to me that the first thing God sanctified was not a place…but time. The Sabbath. God knew we had to have time to rest, or we could not become Holy. “therefore the Lord sanctified the Sabbath for on the seventh day God rested from all He did.” Jesus helped fight the tendency we humans have to always confuse the means and the end. “Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.” God doesn’t need our rest and focus. We do. God wants to share His goodness, and power, and love, and dreams. But He can only do it with people who slow down enough to actually hear Him. I am going to give myself permission to not answer every email, phone call, and urgent voice…so I can hear the One Voice Who knows how to refresh me.