Good morning all of you who read my wonderings.  It is time to give my mind, and my fingers, a rest for a time.

Thank you for your interest in what I have to say.  I do appreciate it very much.  However, what I  hoped would be a two way dialogue;  has become just my own thoughts.  And that gets pretty boring.

So I am saying good-by for now.
                                                      m

Amazing Grace

2 Corinthians 12 continued.

Before I try to verbalize the Greek understanding of the terms weak and weakness.  I want to direct you to the place, in the book of Acts, where it describes where Paul was given this weakness that plagued him for so long. Please refer to Acts chapter 9.

Now on to discovering the puzzle of Paul’s words: for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

In the English language we define weakness as a quality or feature regarded as a disadvantage or fault — or possibly self-indulgent liking.

Something that we often strive to over come

In other words, something seen as an unfavorable quality or condition.  

In the Greek, and Hebrew, we find quite a different understanding.  It can be understood as a mark of a human in contrast to God’s strength.  Figuratively speaking, weakness can also have the form of inner-poverty or incapacity.(p83-84)

There is also the issue of sickness, or some kind of physical defect, or emotional challenges. That was, and is, seen as a weakness or disadvantage.  Which is referred to in the Greek and Hebrew understanding.

However,  what I found quite intriguing is the seemingly opposite definition to this all to common english perspective (of the term weak or weakness).

It comes with the root Greek word sterizo. Which is a verb meaning “to support, to strengthen, to be grounded in, to fix the asteritktos."   Asteritktos, is the noun, which means “unsupported,” “weak,” “but also agile,” “lively,” “tossing.” “It presupposes an assault the threatens faith or zeal.”

                                                                          (p1085)

The sterizo,  the strength that supports, is of God. 

It is God’s strength that supports us in our weakness.

That is basically what Paul is describing in his letter to the Corinthians, when he writes:  for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

There is then this possibility stated in scripture, and other wise,  that when we own our inability — our weakness.  Own it as difficult, or challenging.  We are then given a clearer perception as to our need for God to work within us; in order to be capable of living in proper and acceptable way before Him.

Or, that God can work, in our weakness, to better share God's love.  As he did in Paul.

With that realization we can begin to live with the ease of knowing, having faith in, and trusting in, our acceptability in God’s heart.

That is the “Good News” that Jesus came to bring to this messy earth.

The news that we are loved by God regardless of our imperfections, regardless of our weaknesses. 

It is rightly called “Amazing Grace.”

It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. ²I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. ³And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— ⁴was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. ⁵On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. ⁶But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, ⁷even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. ⁸Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, ⁹but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. ¹⁰Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.(2 Cor. 12)

Is Our Weakness Really Our Strength?

for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.(2 Cor. 12)

I have read this line many times; and it has alway been a source of positive  information. I have even preached a few sermons on the subject of weakness the leads to strength.  

But yesterday I heard it again, in someone else’s sermon, and it prompted me to write.

Being weak is not something that most of us tend to boast about.  Let alone fine pride in. 

So I invite you to think about how this line, written by Paul, can be true, logical,

or even desirable?

In this culture, of competitive prowess, how can we dare to champion the goal of weakness?

Or, is that what Paul means?

To answer that question I look for a commentary on 2 Corinthians 12:10 and found these thoughts for Jon Bloom ( the Executive Director for Desiring God Ministries Articles for Outreach & Missions. Should You Earnestly Desire to Prophesy?)  from August 1, 2010:

“Paul viewed himself as the foremost of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Apart from God’s grace in giving him the free gift of Christ’s righteousness, all of Paul’s achievements were “rubbish” (Philippians 3:8-9). Paul knew the impotence of self-righteousness (Philippians 3:6-9). He knew who had brought him to faith (Acts 9:5), called him to be an apostle (Romans 1:1), sent him to make Gentile disciples (Romans 1:5), and called him to suffer for his sake (Acts 9:16). Yes, Paul knew that he worked harder than just about everybody. But he knew that it was not him, but the grace of God that was with him (1 Corinthians 15:10).

And one reason he knew this so profoundly was that Jesus had disciplined him. Knowing how Paul’s indwelling sin might respond to the power and fruitfulness he would experience, Jesus gifted him with a “thorn in the flesh,” a “messenger of Satan” to harass him (2 Corinthians 12:7). It would be a continual reminder to Paul that he depended on Jesus for everything…..This opened up a world of insight to Paul. God showing his strength through weak things was laced all through redemptive history, culminating in the cross.

That’s why Paul said, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness” (2 Corinthians 11:30). He even went beyond that: “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10)...Here’s the secret: the more aware you are of God’s grace, the more humble, prayerful, thankful, patient, gracious, content and joyful you will be. And you are more aware of God’s grace when you are weak.”

Now, that I have your juices running through your brain, I am wondering.  How is it that you would have God’s grace work in you?

More tomorrow.

⁸Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, ⁹but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. ¹⁰Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.(2 Cor. 12)

It Is Thanksgiving Time

The time is Thanksgiving.

A time to gather with those closest to us, if we are fortunate enough, to feast on delicious food.  A time that often causes us to reflect on our blessing and all we are grateful for.  

I am at my daughter's home to do just that.  And this morning I was having an interesting conversation with a ten year old boy.  He was explaining his fascination the little Red panda.  Have you ever heard of a red panda?  I never have.  It is a darling little furry thing. I enjoyed his conversation about how he discovered this animal.  And that he was doing a report for school on the panda.  

I was actually quite impressed with his enthusiasm.  

Then the conversation turn to quite another subject.  He was telling me about some new technology called a “pip-boy.”  It is a device, a game, that you wear on your arm, down by the wrist.  The latest thing.

“Its only three hundred dollar for the newer model.”  He said.  

He explained that the one from last year didn’t have a screen that you could work on,  And that this “new model is much better.” The conversation with this child, who has no idea of the value of money, caused me to sit and wonder.  

Wonder about how we seem to always need the newest, and finest, and best of all products.  

How our old phone just doesn’t offer us all of the possibilities possible. 

And we are once again in pursuit of the best. No matter the costs. 

It brought to mine one of the commentaries I read last week. The commentator was writing about this need to have “better” and "the best." 

What he wrote something that now has my mind going:

“God says,  Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.  We are truly alive only in covenant (relationship) with God ...God calls us into covenant to be fulfilled and completely satisfied by God...Our happiness is assured only when we abide in God”

My question then, and my question this morning, is:  what does it mean to be “completely satisfied?” 

I’m thinking it is a very relevant question.  Especially as we move into the Christmas season. 

And then, what is it that keeps us tied to the competitive culture of immediate technology, and the importance of reason and logic?  

A culture that conditions us want to win, and be the best, and have the very latest there is to buy.  

                                And have it now.

Granted, it is true that God gave us minds that are imaginative.

Minds, as a matter of fact, that have produce the miracles of technology -- things that make our lives easier.  

Things like washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, electric cookers, television, trains, car, airplanes, computers, smart phones, tablets and much more.  

All of these marvels have taken what was once a chore and made life easier -- and more instant.  Right???

But games are not a chore.  

They aren’t even a necessity.

And yet, we seem never to be completely satisfied with what we have, or how life is going.  

There always seems to be something more we want.  

An interesting truth!!!

So I have to asked:  Why?  

                               Why do we want/need more?  

When is it that we will just be truly content -- "completely satisfied?"  

Or, when will we finally realize that God is the source of all we truly need?

The commentator asks a great question:  “Have we become so obsessed with all the toys -- and the latests ones -- that we have forgotten the giver?”

Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.

Without God’s gift of creative mind; all those toys would not be.

Then what would we do with all of our time?

An interesting question.  Right?

Happy Thanks Giving.

1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. 6 Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.(Isaiah 55:1-9)

What Is Justice?

I read this line, in a prayer written by Ted Loder:  

“Give me the courage to …act justly with those close to me, 

 advocate justice for those at some remove,.."

                                                  (Wrestling The Light page 12)  

And I began to reflect on that statement.  What does it mean to “act justly?”

When you give this question its due; the answer become very convoluted — tangled up with all kinds of defining lines of opinion and cultural interference.

To do justice — act justly — is often a matter of opinion; depending on who you talk to.  

So I went to the Greek and Hebrew.  The consensus is that to act justly , according to the Old Testament view of God, is to conform to God’s will.

“God’s law is an order of life that cannot be changed or challenged.” (p. 168) 

So then, God’s way is the right and just way!?!?!?  

In my personal assessment it is to live together in harmony, compassion and civil cooperation for the good of all.

That is still ambiguous isn’t it?

                                               My point exactly.

So I began to do my favorite thing — besides playing  tennis — and I wondered some more.  

I wondered:  Does that mean that we should use God’s model, of Old Testament behavior, to precede through life?

I entertain the question because the stories we read,  throughout the Old Testament, would cause me to wonder about how justice was done.

Say, between Pharaoh and Moses — The Exodus.  An event that the Hebrew people still celebrate, as their sign in history, when God chose them at be his people.  His “Chosen people.”

Which I suppose is lovely.

However I would imagine that the Egyptians would argue that they were treated unjustly. Or possibly that God plays favorites.

Then there was the “Great Flood” story.  Where is the justice in that?

Or what about how the Old Testament says it is okay to abuse — stone — children?  Or ban people for ugly sores on their skin?

The list is not short.

These days, in the nightly news, we often hear the phrase:  “We want justice to be done.”

The line between just and unjust, right and wrong, good and evil is tissue-paper-thin sometimes. So thin that it is almost impossible to ever determine where it is.

And yet, there is definitely a need to find a level balance.  As the famous scales of justice symbolizes.

When we look closely at the evidence, in the Exodus event, we will see clearly a need for some adjustments to be made.  At least when it come to the habits of Egyptian behavior that is.  There was adequate information to call for a major change.  Because there was clearly abusive, oppressive activity going on that devalued the human soul.  

The need for the hand of God was fairly clear in that case.

In the “Great Flood” event we are told, according to God,  that the people had turn to “evil.”  

So it would seem that the common denominator in many of God’s disciplines was, it seems, prompted by the presence of evil.  

I could simply say then that evil is opposite of God’s ways. 

And the tissue-paper-thin line of justice has much to do with behavior that is against God’s will.

We read this clearly in Jesus’ teaching.  But it was heard also before Jesus. 

⁶ ‘With what shall I come before the Lord,

   and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,

   with calves a year old? 

⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

   with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ 

⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

   and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

   and to walk humbly with your God?(Mic.6)

However, as clear as that is to me, it seems that even that simple definition of proper behavior can — and is — disputed.

So, again, what does it actually mean to “act justly.”

And, who is to say?

Is God's Dream Impossible?

I was listening to John Denver yesterday as I drove, my now daily trek, toward Milwaukee.  He was singing about the children in the world growing up; wanting to make a difference.  The line that caught me was:  

“We are living on the threshold of a dream —   

                                                             No more hunger, 

                                                                No more killing, 

                                                                  No more wasting life away.” 

Then the song, from Joseph Technicolor Coat, started playing in my mind: 

“May I return to the beginning

The light is dimming, and the dream is too

The world and I, we are still waiting

Still hesitating

Any dream will do.”

Which prompted my actually singing my all-time favorite songs, "Dream God's Dream" 

(Chorus)

“Dream God's dream Holy Spirit, help us dream... 

Of a world where there is justice, and where everyone is free  To build and grow and love And to simply have enough The world will change when we dream God's dream 

I'm dreaming of a world where the color of one's skin 

Will mean less than what's within the person's heart 

A world where water's clean, and where air is safe to breathe. And every child born has enough to eat. 

(Chorus) 

I'm dreaming of the call God is offering to me 

How to use my energy and my best gifts 

To do the work of Christ -- to say, God please use my life 

To spread Your healing love -- and to live your Truth 

(Chorus) 

I'm dreaming of the way that I want my life to go. 

I've got hopes and I've got goals I'd like to meet. 

I'm reaching for the stars, but I won't forget the scars 

Of Christ who died to show that the Dream's for all..”

So now I am wondering how the dream can become more the focus of our — this world populations — living action?  

I don’t mean verbal attention.  

But the actual top priority.  

                                      
God's love in action everyday. 

And yet, even as I am honest with myself, the dream seems insurmountable — to difficult — to imagine myself working on. 

No one person can do it all.  I know, I have tried for years to enable some tiny change -- in myself as well in others.

This society — the majority if this world,  has been so conditioned to look for easy, convenient, efficient, no-fuss-no-muss.  With the attitude of making sure 'I' have enough.   Enough money, food, things, time, peace, comfort, forgiveness etc..

I am not proud of this growing glitch in my character.  I can give all of the  various arguments for the ways we, me and the population,  have been raised. 

But that would be the “dimming,” wouldn’t it?  

It would be our innate ability to avoid the all too obvious need.

Excuses would invalidate a truth we don’t feel comfortable with. A truth that quite possibly forces us to work too hard, or give too much.

The small example that created all this dreaming came from a conversation at dinner the other night.  Paper towels!   A product, habit, I have grown to depend on.  

The issue at hand, in our dinner conversation, was our environment and the importance of being ecological.  Living as God first requested. Being faithfully mindful of the good earth, and fresh air, He provided for us.

That conversation set my mind on the avenue of guilt.  I have always been easily guilted.  But to be fair to myself — which is always important according to the phycologist of this world — I thought paper towels were biodegradable.  And as such were fine to use. 

As my mother use to say:  “Thats what you get for thinking (;”

AnD so, back to the dream — God’s (impossible) Dream.  

I'll use just one more song:

"To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

And to run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

And to love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest

To follow that star

Ooh, no matter how hopeless

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march, march into hell

For that heavenly cause

And I know

If I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart

Will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest."

How is it that we, as a population, find this dream again?

Or is it really an impossible dream?