Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Good Morning! 

 

Today's Scripture:   

 

Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong.  Let all that you do be done in love.

 

1 Corinthians 16:13-14

 

The interesting thing about this verse is the mixing of the ideas of courage and strength with love. We often think of love as something soft.  But to live out the command to have all you do be done in love is not easy.  There are people and situations we encounter where love is difficult to bring into the equation.  There are time where those around a situation do not want you to address it with love, but with meaness.  That is where it takes courage and strength to extend love to others, in spite of what your first instinct or the instinct of others might be.

 

I had an occassion yesterday where I was writing a short memo about a proposal a newspaper had sent in to one of our clients.  It didn't really make sense of the client to advertise in this newspaper, and I had some various points to make in the memo about why the client should not do it.  At the end of my memo, I had the temptation to be catty and mean-spirited in my summary, in an effort to be funny and flip,  but I fortunately backed away from putting that in the memo. There was a meaness about it that I recognized at the last minute that I didn't like.

 

I'm not making a bid deal of this all -- in the grand scheme of things, it probably didn't mean anything one way or the other.  It is just an example of one of those little things that I think adds up over time to make the culture what it is, and it was an opportunity for me not to contribute a little bit more to the meaness that is around today.  I think those are the kind of little things, little opportunities that we are confronted with everyday that we can influence with our faith.

 

Today's prayer request:   Our church

 

Need to remember our Pleasant Hill church family, and pray that our church continue to be a place of ministry to the community that we serve.

 

Today's class member prayer: 

 

Melissa Herring

 

Have a great day.

 

Jay