I’m standing in the garden next to a bird bath…graciously donated by a kind parishioner. The birds love it. In the morning and evening, I watch them come in and take a drink, cool down, even take a little swim. It’s a way of coping with the heat, and staying at one’s best in moving through life.
We as humans need the same. We need a place to keep cool, both physically and spiritually. We need to find “living waters” that nourish us both physically and spiritually. For me, daily prayer and Bible reading take care of keeping me spiritually cool, especially when the stress of life wants to heat me up. As for quenching my thirst spiritually, I continue to be filled with the times I allow for worship, and for the Spirit of Christ to have its time with me. When I am feeling spiritually dry, I need to be sure that God is being worshiped and Christ is being celebrated as the Lord of my life. Otherwise, I become spiritually parched.
As you move through the summer and the heat that it brings, do know that there are both physical and spiritual waters here at Church to help you in your quest for “living waters”. Do know that you are always invited at NHUMC, and that there is a place here for you. However, wherever you are, be cool, drink a lot of water, both physically and spiritually. Celebrate life the way that God meant it to be.
I’m sitting here with various members of the Church Staff. A dear parishioner took us out for lunch as a way of expressing her appreciation to the Staff.
How do you express appreciation? After the recent French plane going down off the coast of South America, I heard various mourners share how they wished they let the deceased know how much they appreciated them. That happens. Doesn’t it? So often, the ones we appreciate the most, are the ones that we many times most take for granted. Now is the time for appreciation, for encouragement, for putting our feelings of gratitude out where others can enjoy them.
I once heard a piece of poetry that stated:
“I want the flowers while I’m alive; be they pink or white or red. I’d rather have one blossom now than a truckload when I’m dead.”
This day you have an opportunity to be a blessing to someone and express your appreciation to them. When you do, it’s like giving them a flower. Now is the time to give the flower(s)!!
Come on by; visit; tell me whom you have appreciated over the years; I’d love to hear from you. The lights are on, the coffee’s fresh, and I believe that there is a flower here for you with your name on it.
You are looking at some of our NHUMC staff, but probably what might capture your attention more is the picture of faith before us. All those tulips (and there are more all around them!) signify that faith is an action word. Those tulips were planted as bulbs on a cold late November (Bachman’s sold them to me, while they were putting up their post-Thanksgiving Christmas lights). 24 hours later a cold snow came upon them, and they lay in the ground for an extended stay. Now they have sprung forth in May to boom out a circus of color and beauty.
Faith, if not acted upon, is not a faith. A faith should lead us to action…whether it’s caring for and feeding the homeless, caring for the orphans and widows, ministering to the hurting. James, in his New Testament book, asks the question, “You say you have a faith; show me then the fruits of your faith, show me the works of your faith, show me how your faith results in coloring the world with beauty and making it a better place in which to exist. Show me how your faith honors God.”
Our faith was never meant to be some private, filed-away-deeply-in-the-bottom-of-our-mind kind of thing. It was meant as an action verb to be actively engaged and in the open as we daily seek to honor God and care for God’s world. How’s your faith? Would I see it if I walked with you for a minute, an hour, a day? My prayer for you: that your faith might be a visible display of a strong and ongoing belief in a wonderful and awesome God.
Stop by. The coffee’s fresh and the lights are on. If you’d like a Bible, let me know.
All of a sudden, spring is hitting Minnesota. 80’s and 90’s for temperatures. With it all, I had time to open up ground for a new flower bed. Soon, I’ll put in it some some celosia, zinnias, petunias, and who knows what else in an attempt to add a bit more beauty to the Church Circle and a bit more beauty to the world.
The empty flower bed offers a visual reminder to each of us as we move into another season. It reminds me of the gift of time. We all have a block of it. What will we put into it that brings beauty to the world, brings honor to God, and gives us purpose in life. It would be so easy to let the flowerbed go empty, and let it fill with weeds. That happens with time also, failing to plan…equals planning to fail. To not decide is to decide. I’ve heard some of that before. I believe that there’s some truth to each, and so I’m careful not to let my flowerbed of time fill up with the weeds of life.
What are the weeds of life for you? What would you put into a flowerbed of time? It can be a day , it can be a week, a month…you get the idea.
Your flowerbed of time can be time spent with children or with a lonely senior citizen. Your flowerbed of time can put you serving at a homeless shelter, or encouraging a discouraged pastor. Your flowerbed of time can be spent in the scriptures and seeking in a very special way to engage in God’s will for your life. Ah, the challenges of an empty flowerbed…..how will you fill it? I’d appreciate your responses.
Stop by and visit…the coffee’s fresh, and the lights are on.
Happy Easter! Best wishes to you during this Easter season. Of course, as Christians, Easter is not a season like “Open Fishing” or “Duck Hunting.” Easter is always the season for Christians. It is who we are. We are an Easter community. While we give thanks daily for a Christ who died that we might be forgiven, we celebrate daily that he rose again, and gives us the assurance that we will also. Christ is risen!
And yet, there are those who would say, “Well, where is the risen Christ?” I had a little 7 year old girl tell me that Christ lives in the heart of the believer. Bless her heart. She’s spiritually wise beyond her years. As Christians we can choose to be cynical about life, wring our hands and complain about all the bad things going on in the world. Or we can choose to celebrate what’s right with the world, and that starts with a great loving God who seeks the best for each of us. It starts with understanding that we serve a risen savior. It starts with acknowledging that because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone.
For the Easter community, life is not about looking down, it is about looking up and around and understanding that life is about possibility and opportunity. With that comes the understanding that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” He is a risen Christ. You ask me how I know He lives. He lives within my heart.
If ever you’d like to visit with me about the Easter promise, stop by; the coffee’s fresh and the lights are on. Happy Easter!!
Spring is in the air! Here at the NHUMC Garden Center, I’m celebrating a new arrival…a bird house. It’s part of inviting birds to come in and find refuge, some bird seed, and peace. Along with it, they’ll enjoy the beauty of a flower garden that is soon to be.
To be inviting and encouraging is certainly a part of the Christian’s agenda. To offer a place where one finds one’s needs met…physically, socially, and spiritually, ah yes, the Christian Church. That place can be a building like NHUMC or it might be a person (after all, Paul challenges the early Christians to be a “temple of God”). How does that work for you? Someone once asked, “Does the room light up when you enter or when you leave?” How does your hospitality grow? Are you helping others to find their needs being met, or are you creating more needs for them to meet?
I encourage you to be inviting, even as I invite you to Normandale Hylands UMC. I encourage you by your example and witness to be an invitation to the refuge and peace that comes in knowing Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life. Blessings to you.
Feel free to drop in. The coffee’s fresh, the lights are on, and the hospitality is grand.
Lenten greetings! While engaged in worship on March 1, I had something brand new happen to me. I became a grandfather. While one never seems to think that they are old enough to be a grandparent, nevertheless the reality is such that I am now one.
Here we are, granddaughter and me; her name is Alexis Lucille. We’re doing a little bonding. Hopefully, we will become good friends. Of course, that will take time, as anything of value does. In so many ways, love is spelled, “T-I-M-E.” And of course, I will dote and try my best not to “spoil.” I’ll probably get her outfitted for a BWCA canoe paddle and get her acquainted with Mother Nature. But beyond that, perhaps the best thing that I can do for her as a grandparent is to help her “to know Christ and his resurrection.” That way, I know that her life on earth will have purpose, joy, hope, love, and faith. What more could a grandfather offer a granddaughter? And…that way, I’ll know that even after I pass on (as grandfathers eventually do), I’ll see her for an eternity.
So…stop by; catch up with a grandpa and share with me a little of your own faith story or of the gifts that you seek to offer the children. The coffee’s fresh, the lights are on. Blessings to you on your spiritual journey.
Greetings. Here at NHUMC, we’re thinking about Lent. Lent is a season (not a piece of string in your pocket) that the Church has used traditionally over the years to prepare for Easter. Symbolic of Lent is the cross. What does the cross do for you?
For some, it’s something that they don’t want to deal with. Thus, there’s a real push to go from Christmas to Easter without pausing for Good Friday. And yet, there’s no Easter without Good Friday, is there? There is no resurrection without death, is there? There is no atonement for our sins without crucifixion, is there? Someone had to pay the price for the garbage that we’ve made, for the sins that we’ve committed.
Look at the cross. What do you see? Does it make a difference in your life? Does it make a difference in how you treat others, how you treat yourself, how you treat God? I look at it and I see a plus sign. It’s a sign of uplifting rather than deflating; a sign of encouragement as opposed to discouragement; a sign of love as opposed to hate.
Isaac Watts, looking at it, stated that the cross, a symbol of love, was a love so amazing, so divine, that it demanded his soul, his life, his all. The cross of Christ: what does it do for you? Come on by and talk with me about it. The coffee’s fresh. The lights are on.
How good are you at waiting? Do you do it with a sense of impatience, patience, calmness, anger? Some people wait well; others not so well. One of my friends gave me a good heads up for traveling when he said, “Have low expectations.” In other words, don’t get so bent out of shape that you lose your sense of priorities.
And yet this waiting business: in the scriptures, it says, “Wait upon the Lord.” However, as I read the scriptures, I find that waiting upon the Lord does not mean sitting around doing nothing and waiting for the Lord to suddenly appear in the clouds or to perform some miracle.
I have found that it’s more like being at a restaurant. And there you discover that waiting on the Lord is like a waiter/waitress waiting on a table. There the waiter/waitress takes the guest’s order and fills the order with dignity and patience, and with a sense of service.
Isaiah says it well: “They who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not be weary; they will walk and not be faint.” Enjoy your wait. Hey, come on by. I’ll wait with you. The coffee’s fresh. The lights are on.
Question: Other than standing outside in a snowstorm, wearing a red parka, what makes you stand out? Your physique? Your intellect? Your pink shoe laces?
In 2009, where will you stand out? Pushing the button a little farther, where will you stand out for God? It’s interesting as I read the Bible, I come across such terms as, Found favor with the Lord, Did what was pleasing in the eyes of the Lord, and had a heart for God.
As we move into the year 2009, there can be a tendency to somehow neglect God and ultimately seek to stand out among peers, others, and society. However, God does call us to march to the beat of a different drum in our compassion for the weak, our empathy for the hurting, and our sensitivity to the struggling. Each of us will be making choices; choices that will affect how we stand out.
My prayer for you is that in 2009, you will stand out for God in how you speak, how you live, how you give, how you love, and how you believe. May it be such that others would be drawn to God and the Lord we serve because of the way that you stand out for Him.
Have a great year. Stand out! Stand out for God! As you do, come on by! The light’s on and the coffee’s fresh.
On Flowerbeds…
