"I touch the future. I teach."
Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who lost her life in the ill-fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger Who has invested in you? Who has God placed in your life to form you into the person you are today? Who are you investing in? Who are you teaching and influencing? Who is your future? Who will one day say, "God used . . . to make me who I am today." Deuteronomy 6:4-9; I Timothy 1:1; II Timothy 2:1-2
0 Comments
Part of being a pastor is listening. The question of the month is a way for me to listen to you. Each month, a question will be asked from a broad range of topics. I invite you to respond freely and honestly. I may comment on responses, but I will never publish names or information. _ The following is a guest post from my dad, Paul Cloeter, a fifth generation Lutheran pastor currently serving in central Minnesota.
A Point of Reference Memory loss, when it comes with age, doesn’t often affect the distant past. That’s why I paid particular attention to a story told to me by my wise and now-sainted grandfather (that would be ‘thirdgen’) not long before he died at 95 years of age. It was a simple story of an incident in his life – in the year 1907 to be exact – and it was etched in his memory. He had been sent out in a winter storm to get some grocery items at a store 2½ miles away. In the prairie, there are straight roads that intersect at 1 mile intervals. In the prairie, there are also blinding snowstorms. Being a typical 13 year old, he tried to “cut the corner” on a mile section, but instead found himself lost in the middle of the field. He kept walking what he thought was a straight line, but in fact, had walked in a complete circle and came out right back at the road where he started. It was then that he learned the lesson I learned for the first time listening to him: that one leg is stronger than the other and will, without a point of reference, out-stride the weaker leg, sending the traveler in a circle. He also learned that shortcuts don’t always produce the desired effect! A “point of reference” is what I was thinking about while reading a recent USA TODAY article about a large and growing secular subset in our culture whose response to religion – in fact, any spirituality – is described as “So What?” Call them “apatheists”, folks who have come out of the closet to publicly confess “no spiritual curiosity . . . they simply shrug off God, religion, heaven or the ever-trendy search for meaning and purpose.” I know: it’s nothing new. I remember a conversation I had in my first parish with a father who was trying to encourage his daughter and son-in-law in their spiritual walk. With grave concern in his voice he asked me: “What do you say to someone who says, ‘I don’t see the need’?” There are many ways one can get lost in this life. Attempting self-serving short cuts to contentment and thinking only in terms of the here and now come to mind. So can short-sightedness about ‘who I am’ and ‘why am I here’; ‘where am I going’ and ‘who am I going to meet there’. Without answers to those questions, life becomes a vicious circle, and those who say ‘so what’ ultimately find themselves with no leg to stand on. A new year is a good time to sight in a point of reference, get our bearings, and proceed –one step at a time. Past Christmas and Good Friday to Easter we go; “in green pastures” and “beside quiet waters”; into fiery trials and finally, through “the valley of the shadow of death.” No shortcuts . . . just a Father’s love! "Uncle Sam is a friendly old man, but he has a spine of steel."
- President Ronald Reagan describing the American character to the Soviets. The perception exists in our society that Christians are just (or should be) really nice people. They are the Ned Flanders, the nice guys, the "friendly old man." As much as there should be a friendliness to Christians, there is also a steel spine. A "Jesus-turning-tables-in-the-temple" steel spine. Or like Paul who braved shipwrecks, torture, and poverty in order to take the gospel worldwide. Faith takes guts. Responding to Jesus' words, "Follow me" is risky. Our compassion is accompanied by courage, and our service by strength. "The pastor is always telling me to read the Bible. But how do I read the Bible?" Here are a couple of resources on how we read the Holy Scriptures. This may be helpful in a New Year's effort to greater devotion to God's Word. The first is a way of reading the Bible based on Martin Luther's "Prayer, Meditation, and Testing." The resource below it is a list of principles we use when approaching the Bible.
How to read the Bible. |
JOIN My Tribe
|