Most of us, including this writer, are run-of-the-mill types. I live an ordinary life, often ho-hum, conventional, a nondescript yawn. I am not renowned, nothing particularly noteworthy, living Thoreau’s “quiet desperation,” sharing humanity’s unglamorous cameo knowing in three or four generations my memory will be wiped clean from the earth. Fresh from reading how the Greeks influenced western civilization, the ancient dictum, Apollo’s Delphic Temple’s know thyself came to mind. Socrates’ an unexamined life is not worth living was derived from this adage.
Good comments Greg. In God’s perfect wisdom He offers love and redemption to all. He used the educated Luther & Calvin and He used what Luther explained was the lowly stable keeper who doing his duty faithfully to God was more righteous than the most righteous Carthusian monk.
God uses all types and calls all types into His kingdom. Most, who this world does not recognize.
Cheers,
Pat
In Augusta there was a widow living in government housing.She sat on the front row next to the piano and would sing her heart out off key. Many in her complex were infirmed. On a monthly basis she would collect the money for their gas bill, electric bill etc and take the bus to each local office and pay their bills. for this they would pay her a small sum of which she would tithe and make an offering. Now that in heaven tops the million dollars the GC failed to share.
Greg, during your soliloquy about how ‘average’ your life is, I couldn’t help but remember what God said to Jeremiah in Jermiah 1:5. ‘while you were in the womb i knew you’, Each of us is like a small stream of water flowing ultimately to the ocean. Will your contribution to humanity be a clear one or a muddy one? I can only speak for myself when i pray that i will be remembered, not by humankind, but by God!
God designed the family for just such a reason. In the small group of the household, you matter to someone not because you might be brilliant, talented, capable or beautiful to look upon – but because you are a part of your little family. And more than that, when you reach adulthood, God gives you the gift of love, someone with whom you live happily ever after; as it is written, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Gen. 2:24
God does not ever refer to you as a citizen of a kingdom, but as His child. In his eyes, you are not a member of a church, but His child. Your worth is not derived from some title, but in being His child. Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” Rom. 8:18-19
Love heals and therefore when you express love for the less fortunate, it revives their heart and creates in them a new spirit. Such active empathy is reflective of God’s love for us. Hope springs from the very center of our being and we go out happy and at peace. May the glory of our Father flow through us to a world in darkness. May the children remember their parents and parents return to their children that families everywhere may be the oases of life that God designed them to be.
This, my friends, is why Adventism is in the mess it’s in, and why we’re pawns in the hands of demagogues.
Perhaps, in understandable reaction to Adventist megalomania, we’ve retreated to, “Well, I’m nobody special, but God loves me.”
One wonders why God bothered creating such a boring species.
What? No vision left?
Our Deepest Fear
By Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.
We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
I’m sorry, but that message serves no one, least of all God, in my opinion.
Do you really want your children to think of themselves that way? Run-of-the-mill?
That is sacrilege, and insulting to the Great Creator!
One of the TV stations in this country had the tag line “Seven Billion stories and counting”. Everybody has a story to tell. Some will recognise the presence of God in their lives and their story will be of His salvation. Those that don’t will tell of His “absence”. It is not our lives that are average or not. That is the perspective of onlookers. Any story where God is the central character is a great and wonderful story.
