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Amazing Stories – Heart Surgery

June 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Amazing Stories - Wrestle Mania

Amazing Stories: Hearts & Kings
Sycamore Creek Church
June 17, 2012
Tom Arthur
1 Samuel 16:6-13

Peace Friends!

Have you ever taken one of those personality tests that tell you something about who you are and how you make decisions? One of the more popular ones is the Myers Briggs inventory. It measures your personality in four different areas so that your personality is described with four different letters: E or I, N or S, T or F, P or J. There are sixteen different possible combinations of these results. When I take the inventory I end up an INTJ (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging). If you’re familiar with the Myers Briggs, you now know a lot about me, but the one I really want to focus on is the T. In the Myers Briggs world you can be either a T (thinking) or F (feeling). Here’s how the website describes the distinction:

Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).” This preference pair describes how you like to make decisions. Do you like to put more weight on objective principles and impersonal facts (Thinking) or do you put more weight on personal concerns and the people involved (Feeling)? Don’t confuse Feeling with emotion. Everyone has emotions about the decisions they make. Also do not confuse Thinking with intelligence.

So I tend to like to make decisions based on “logic and consistency” rather than “people and special circumstances.” It’s not that I ignore people and circumstances, I just prefer logic and consistency. If you want to get a clear distinction between the two, put Jeremy, our worship leader, next to me. Jeremy, by his own admission, is a classic F (feeling) decision maker. He likes to harmonize with those around them whether it makes logical or consistent sense.

We all tend to prefer one way of seeing the world over the other, especially when it comes to making decisions and sizing up the people around us. And sometimes we’re dead wrong…

I went to college and roomed with my best friend from High School. This was something of a blessing and a curse. We didn’t make the transition well from quality time together to quantity time together. While we have retained our friendship even to this day, at the time we decided to find other roommates for our sophomore year.

When I finally got around to picking a roommate I didn’t have much choice. There was really only one other guy left on the floor who didn’t have a roommate. His name was Greg Coddington, and Greg and I had very little in common except that we both needed a roommate. I had grown up in a big urban area, Indianapolis. Greg grew up on a farm in rural Wisconsin. For me, guns were something that cops and gangsters used to fight each other. For Greg, guns were a way of life. For me, animals of any kind were something cute and cuddly. For Greg, animals were a threat to their farm’s livelihood. I remember the night we saw a possum run across the road. I thought it was cool to see a possum. It’s not something I had seen every day. Greg, on the other hand, grabbed his hockey stick and went running after it trying to bash its head into the pavement. How could I ever live with this guy?

Well, after three years of living together, Greg and I had become great friends. When I sized him up, I didn’t think we’d get along at all. But when it came down to it, we got along great (well, except for that time that I lent his TV to someone on our floor and he came home from hockey practice wanting to watch the Rush Limbaugh show). I had made a “decision” about whether Greg and I would get along, and I was wrong.

Let’s go back to the Myers Briggs website and read a little more about the way Thinkers and Feelers make decisions:

Everyone uses Thinking for some decisions and Feeling for others. In fact, a person can make a decision using his or her preference, then test the decision by using the other preference to see what might not have been taken into account.

Well, if you’re like me, you probably rarely ever test a decision based on another way of thinking about things. If you’re like me, then you’re not the first person to miss seeing something in someone. The amazing story we’re going to look at this morning is a story about a national leader and a father missing seeing something in the father’s son. The national leader is named Samuel and he is looking for a new king to anoint after the first king, Saul, is a disaster. The father is named Jesse, and the son is named David, who eventually becomes king and becomes a “man after God’s own heart.” Let’s read the story that introduces us to David, the future king.

1 Samuel 16:6-13 NLT
When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t make decisions the way you do! People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.” Then Jesse told his son Abinadab to step forward and walk in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “This is not the one the LORD has chosen.” Next Jesse summoned Shammah, but Samuel said, “Neither is this the one the LORD has chosen.” In the same way all seven of Jesse’s sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any of these.” Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep.” “Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.” So Jesse sent for him. He was ruddy and handsome, with pleasant eyes. And the LORD said, “This is the one; anoint him.” So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the olive oil he had brought and poured it on David’s head. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah.

In this story, we see that both Samuel and Jesse blew it. Neither saw in David, what the LORD saw in David. Let’s unpack what happened. The key moment is verse seven:

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

What exactly does it mean that the LORD looks on the heart? Most say that this means that we look at outward appearances, but God looks inside someone’s heart: their intentions, their motives, their inner life. And this is a legitimate way to interpret what is going on here. But I’d like to introduce you to another way of seeing this verse.

Robert Alter, a Jewish Biblical scholar has translated the last half of this verse as:

They look with the eyes, but the Lord looks with the heart.

That changes things doesn’t it? It’s not so much what God looks at, but how God sees things. God looks not with the eyes, but with the heart. So what is the heart?

The Hebrew word that is here translated heart is lavav. When we think of the heart we tend to think of the emotions. We tend to think of feeling rather than thinking on the Myers Briggs. But for the Hebrews, the heart meant something much more than emotions. The organs of emotions for the ancient Hebrews were the kidneys, guts, and loins. The heart included emotions, but also was considered the seat of the intellect and will. The heart was the place where we touch God. The heart was considered the “heart” of the person and their personality. The heart included the whole person. My Old Testament professor at seminary liked to say that the best translation of lavav was not “heart” but “imagination.” The imagination takes the whole person to use, heart, head, spirit, body.

So what if we go back to that verse and insert the word “imagination”:

The Lord does not see as mortals see. They look with the eyes, but the Lord looks with the imagination.

What we have in this passage, then is a failure of the imagination. Samuel’s imagination fails because he looked with his eyes at the appearance of Jesse’s sons. Eliab, who was easily the most kingly looking, didn’t make the cut. Jesse, David’s father, had a failure of the imagination because he didn’t even consider his youngest son, David, worth looking at, so he left him in the field.

So here’s the main takeaway from today’s message: Look with the imagination! Look at people and situations with God’s imagination for what could be. Look at the heart (the whole person) with the heart (the whole person) so that we are ready to participate in God’s work in creative and unexpected ways.

A Faithful Imagination

If the lavav/heart/imagination is the seat of the emotions, intellect, and will, is the place where we touch God, and includes the whole person, then a faithful imagination will be the cultivation of all of these things in our lives. Nurturing a faithful imagination means nurturing appropriate emotions, knowing God and the scriptures with the intellect, rightly ordering our desires by putting God first and everything else second, being open to the movement of God’s Spirit in our lives, and giving everything we’ve got—body, mind, heart, spirit—to God. When we cultivate this kind of an imagination, we are open to the creative possibilities for God’s grace to work in unexpected ways in our own life and the lives of those around us.

A Father’s Imagination

Today is Father’s day, and I’d like to explore for a moment what it would mean for dads to make sure we don’t miss God’s work in our children’s lives. How can we not repeat the mistake that Jesse made? How can we nurture a faithful imagination for our children?

Fathers, how do you look at the future of your children? What dreams do you dream for them? How do those dreams change over time? Father, look at your children with God’s imagination, not your own expectations. Let me give you an example of how I saw my own dad doing that in my life.

I began playing baseball as soon as I could join a t-ball league. My dad even coached one of my teams. I was good enough to join an all-star team in our local league that actually made it out of our league playoffs and into the state tournament. When I got into Jr. High, my dad did something that still amazes me to this day. Up to that point, I had always used someone else’s bat or one of the team bats. My dad went out and bought me a brand new bat that cost him $100. Now you’ve got to realize that my family did not have a lot of money. My dad was a stay-at-home dad. My step-mom had a good job as a nurse and then as an HR employee, but we weren’t rich at all. Spending $100 on one kid was almost unheard of. Then my dad took it one step further. He paid for me to attend batting lessons with a Mets scout. Eventually I got good enough in the batting cage that I could put the ball wherever my coach wanted it hit. High pop fly to right field. Line drive up the third base line. Grounder to first base. No problem.

When I got to high school I found a level of competition I had never encountered before. My high school had 3000 students in three grades. I was competing for five or six spots with ninety other guys. I made it as a “practice player.” I wasn’t bad enough to cut, but I wasn’t good enough to play. So I practiced and during games sat on the bench and kept score (while also trying to break the other teams’ signs from the third-base coach). A year of practicing without playing took all the spirit out of it for me. I lost motivation. I began my Junior year on the team, but ended up in my coach’s room one day tearfully telling him I was quitting.

I did not consult my dad on this decision. I simply went home and told him. To this day, I have no idea how this decision I made to quit baseball affected him. I have no idea if he saw $100 bills flashing in front of him. I have no idea if he was personally happy or sad about it. I have no idea if in that moment he gave up a dream of his own. I have no idea because in that moment by dad supported my own decision. Perhaps he saw, as I did, that my future was not in baseball. It was elsewhere. Dads, what dreams do you dream for your kids? Are they your dreams, or do you look at your kids with God’s imagination?

Let me give you another example of a moment where my dad had God’s imagination. One Christmas my dad noticed that I was planning on spending a lot of money on Christmas gifts for all kinds of people, but not my family. He saw a teachable moment. He sat me down and asked me to make a list of who I was going to buy a gift for and what I was going to spend on that person. At the top of my spending list was my girlfriend, of two weeks, my best friend, and several other friends. At the bottom of my list was my family. My dad told me the list was unacceptable and sent me back to the drawing board to rework it. In that moment, he saw a teachable moment. He looked at my spending habits with God’s imagination.

A third story about my dad. I wonder if some of us don’t think we’re not very good fathers. We don’t give our kids everything we think they should have. We don’t make enough money to pay for the right toys, vacation, car, clothes, or school. Dads, this is a failure of the imagination. The most important thing you can give your kids is yourself. When I turned twenty-seven, the age that my dad was when I was born, my dad began giving me a series of tapes he had made the first two years of my life. On these tapes he had recorded his observations about what it was like to be a dad. He introduces the purpose of the tapes in the first one: he felt like he never really knew his dad, and he wanted to make sure that his son knew him. If the highest form of flattery is imitation, then these are the best gift that he has ever given to me, because I decided to do the same thing for my son, Micah. I have been recording videos for Micah to give to him at some later point in his life. Fathers, of all the failures of imagination you could have, don’t have this one. Don’t fail to imagine that the best gift you can give your children is yourself.

A Community of Imagination

I know I’ve been talking mostly to fathers, but let me talk for a moment to all of us. Do you have a failure of imagination by thinking that you’ve done too much or not enough so that God doesn’t love you? If so, let me assure you this morning, you can’t do anything to earn the love of our heavenly father. Maybe you never had the love of your own earthly father because you never lived up to his standards. Know this morning that none of us live up to God’s standards, we all have sinned, and God loves us anyway. God loves us so much that he sent his Son, Jesus, to show us that love by living a perfect life and dying a perfect death. The Son of God became human, so that all humans might become sons and daughters of God. In this salvation, God sees something in you that you don’t even see yourself. God sees who you are in total, and loves you anyway. And God sees who you might become.

Imagine with me a community where people experienced this kind of unconditional love and in the process learned something new about themselves or became a new creation that they didn’t see or know before.

It’s already happening. Who could imagine a school cafetorium becoming a sanctuary? Who could imagine a local diner or coffee house becoming a venue for worship? These have to do with space, but what about people? Dave and Sue Knechtges are both accountants. In what ministry would you expect they would serve? Finance. Right? Nope. Dave serves making the lights work on Sunday morning, and Sue helps lead hospitality. Then there’s John Miller, a book keeper at a bank. He really likes writing skits and coming up with creative ideas for worship. Or what about Jeremy, our worship leader. He studied journalism. Then there’s Thomas Oates and Kevin Biesbrock. Both are computer programmers, but they both love playing drums in the band. Deb Ray is a radiology tech, but she loves teaching kids in Kids Creek. Mark Aupperlee is a breast cancer researcher, but he really loves teaching God’s word in messages and small groups. Carol Hazel is a real estate agent, but what she really wants to do is reach people with music so she sings in our band. Brad Blackmer is a pharmaceutical rep and his brother Brian is a lawyer. Both are in the band. Mary Hunter is a special needs teacher, but loves singing in the band. Bill Hoerner is in charge of marketing at a fast growing local company, but he helps lead and teach StuREV on Sunday mornings. Alongside him is Brian Richards, a lawyer. Who could have ever imagined these people reaching out to others in this way?

The Lord does not see as mortals see. They look with the eyes, but the Lord looks with the imagination.

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Amazing Stories – Wrestle Mania

May 29, 2012 by 2 Comments

Amazing Stories - Wrestle Mania

Amazing Stories – Wrestle Mania
Sycamore Creek Church
May 27, 2012
Tom Arthur
Genesis 32

Peace Friends!

Today we begin a new series called Amazing Stories.  Whether you’ve read the Bible or not, you know the big stories of the Bible: Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark, Moses parting the Red Sea, David and Goliath, Jesus’ death and resurrection.  These are all amazing stories. But there are many more amazing stories in the Bible that aren’t as well known.  Over the next several weeks we’re going to explore those not-so-well-known-yet-still-amazing stories.  In the end, I think you’re going to find that all the amazing stories in the Bible will help you live into the amazing story of your own life.  Today we begin with a story about wrestling.

Who or what do you wrestle with?  And I suspect that the wrestling has played a large part in defining who you are today.  Probably one of the biggest wrestling matches I’ve had over my lifetime is with my dad.  Boys wrestle with their dads in a way that defines them.  My dad and I have a lot of things in common, but there are some significant ways in which we are different.  I’ve wrestled with him about decisions he’s made in the past, mistakes he’s made, and differences of opinion about what the right thing to do is.  Sometimes that wrestling has been obvious: we argue.  Most of the times it’s not obvious.  I wrestle with my dad in my thoughts.  Wrestling with my dad has been significant in defining who I am.

Then there’s the wrestling I did with friends growing up. I wanted to find acceptance and fit in.  I wrestled with being funny (or not).  The person who made everyone else laugh was always well liked.  And one of the key ways to make friends laugh was to be in the know about the funniest TV shows, movies, music, or jokes.  These made up the currency of our conversations.  So being in the know was important to being accepted and fitting in.  Sarcasm was also a key to fitting in.  You couldn’t take anything at face value.  Then there were girls. Who had the prettiest girlfriend?  Who had the most girlfriends?  Who had the coolest girlfriends?  On all of these fronts, I was no where near the top.  I wasn’t the funniest.  Most of the time I didn’t have a clue what was going on in culture.  I wasn’t naturally sarcastic.  And my friends tended to think my taste in girls was a little off.  Wrestling with my friends has been significant in defining who I am.

Then there’s the wrestling with myself.  If you’ve gotten to know me you know I’m a perfectionist.  I have very high standards for myself, and I rarely if ever live up to them.  I’ve got an internal dialogue always going on, and it’s not always pretty.  It sounds something like this:  You should try harder at that.  You should be better at that.  You need to make sure you don’t make that mistake again.  Don’t mess up.  If you do that, they won’t love you.  You’re not doing everything God wants you to do.  This wrestling with my own perfectionism has been significant in defining who I am.

I’m not alone in wrestling with others or myself.  I asked my friends on Facebook how they are defined by wrestling with people, things, or situations.  Here are some of the responses I got:

About my struggles that define me…probably my low self esteem and my depression, and people pleasing.

As a child I had a parent with a substance issue and she was able to mask it in public for a long time. She was a pretty mean drunk, I protected my sister, and she focused on me. I learned to stand up for what is right, that sometimes you are going to pay a price for doing that, but that it is always worth trying to do the right thing.

I grew up as the youngest child and a Christian in a non-Christian home.  I got made fun of for being a Christian and always had to hide my faith in my home.  It has led me to not being very willing to be open about my faith as an adult.

Hear any common themes?  People wrestle with themselves, with the ones they love, and with the broader culture.  This weekend is Memorial Day weekend.  Perhaps this weekend as we remember those who gave their lives fighting for our country, you wrestle with having lost a loved one.  Or maybe you wrestle with your own memories of war.  Or maybe you wrestle with the enemies you fought against.

We all wrestle with people, situations, and things, and this wrestling tends to be very significant in defining who we are.

One of my favorite movies Nacho Libre, a monk, played by Jack Black, wants to be a wrestler.  But first he needs a partner.  He finds an unlikely partner, but first has to wrestle him into submission and a new understanding of who he is and who he might become.

We’re not the first people to wrestle with those around us.  The Bible tells the story of a famous wrestler named Jacob.  Jacob was constantly wrestling with others preparing for his big showdown with God.  When Jacob was born he was a twin. He came out wrestling with his brother, Esau:

Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau’s heel. So they called him Jacob.* Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.
Genesis 25:26

Notice the * in the text.  It points you to a footnote in your Bible which tells us that Jacob means “he grasps the heel”; this can also figuratively mean “he deceives.”  The name “Jacob” is a play on the word “aqeb” which means “grasp.”  Jacob’s name is literally defined by his wrestling with his brother!  Their battle is epic and eventually leads to Jacob stealing Esau’s birthright from their father and then hightailing it out of Dodge.

Jacob runs to his uncle Laban’s house where he meets his daughter, Rachel, and falls in love with her.  He has to work seven years for Laban to pay to marry her.  On their wedding night, Laban tricks Jacob by marrying off his eldest daughter, Leah, first. We read:

So Laban invited everyone in the neighborhood to celebrate with Jacob at a wedding feast. That night, when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob, and he slept with her…But when Jacob woke up in the morning — it was Leah! “What sort of trick is this?” Jacob raged at Laban. “I worked seven years for Rachel. What do you mean by this trickery?”
Genesis 29:22-25 NLT

Jacob ends up wrestling with his father-in-law over his two daughters.  The deceiver is now deceived, in the bedroom!

Laban does give Rachel to Jacob as well, but he has to work seven more years.  Eventually Jacob wrestles further with Laban and sneaks out of town to go back to his homeland.  On the way there it becomes apparent that Jacob is going to have a reunion with his brother, whom he hasn’t seen since he stole his birthright.  The night before Jacob meets Esau again, he wrestles with a mysterious man which most people have interpreted as God.  Here’s the story:

Genesis 32 (selected verses)
Jacob now sent messengers to his brother, Esau, in Edom, the land of Seir.  He told them, “Give this message to my master Esau: ‘Humble greetings from your servant Jacob! I have been living with Uncle Laban until recently, and now I own oxen, donkeys, sheep, goats, and many servants, both men and women. I have sent these messengers to inform you of my coming, hoping that you will be friendly to us.'”  The messengers returned with the news that Esau was on his way to meet Jacob– with an army of four hundred men!  Jacob was terrified at the news. He divided his household, along with the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps.  He thought, “If Esau attacks one group, perhaps the other can escape.”  Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my grandfather Abraham and my father, Isaac– O LORD, you told me to return to my land and to my relatives, and you promised to treat me kindly.  I am not worthy of all the faithfulness and unfailing love you have shown to me, your servant. When I left home, I owned nothing except a walking stick, and now my household fills two camps!  O LORD, please rescue me from my brother, Esau. I am afraid that he is coming to kill me, along with my wives and children.  But you promised to treat me kindly and to multiply my descendants until they become as numerous as the sands along the seashore– too many to count.”  Jacob stayed where he was for the night and prepared a present for Esau…So the presents were sent on ahead, and Jacob spent that night in the camp. 

But during the night Jacob got up and sent his two wives, two concubines, and eleven sons across the Jabbok River.  After they were on the other side, he sent over all his possessions.  This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until dawn.  When the man saw that he couldn’t win the match, he struck Jacob’s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is dawn.” But Jacob panted, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”  “What is your name?” the man asked. He replied, “Jacob.”  “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “It is now Israel, because you have struggled with both God and men and have won.”  “What is your name?” Jacob asked him. “Why do you ask?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.  Jacob named the place Peniel– “face of God”– for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.”  The sun rose as he left Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.  That is why even today the people of Israel don’t eat meat from near the hip, in memory of what happened that night.

Let’s take a moment and look at a couple of key moments in this amazing wrestling match between Jacob and God.

Genesis 32:25-26
When the man saw that he couldn’t win the match, he struck Jacob’s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket.

You cannot wrestle with God and walk away the same.  You will be “hurt.”  Something has to go.  God loves you just as you are and loves you too much to leave you there.  One of the key character traits you will walk away with from a wrestling match God is humility.  Humility hurts.  It hurts the ego and the pride.

One time early in my relationship with Sarah, I took her back home to my family’s house.  My “little” brother, Rick, was there, and he and I got into a little wrestling match.  What was I thinking?  My “little” brother is no longer smaller than me.  He’s probably easily got 50 pounds or more on me.  Maybe even a little taller too.  The short of that wrestling match was that it was very short.  He picked me up, manhandled me, and tossed me on the couch.  All this right in front of the one I was trying to impress with my physical prowess!  I learned humility that day, and it hurt.  And I never wrestled with my brother again!

Wrestle with God and you will be humbled.

Let’s look at another moment in this amazing wrestling match.

Genesis 32:29
“What is your name?” Jacob asked him. “Why do you ask?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

What we wrestle with defines us, and when we wrestle with God, we don’t get to define God.  So often we tend to put God in the “dock” and cross examine him.  We tell God what he can and cannot do.  We tell him what is right and just and good.  Forget that he’s God.  We act like God and try to tell God how to be God.  But when Jacob tries to define God by knowing his name, he won’t give it to him.  God’s identity isn’t what’s at stake when we wrestle with God.  It’s our identity that’s at stake.

Let’s look at a third moment in this amazing wrestling match.

Genesis 32:28
“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “It is now Israel, because you have struggled with both God and men and have won [prevail/endure].”

While Jacob wants to identify and define his wrestling partner, the opposite happens.  God defines Jacob.  Actually, he redefines him.  He gives him a new name, “Israel.”  And so Jacob becomes the patriarch of the nation ofIsrael. Israelliterally means “he who wrestles with God.”  It’s in that wrestling that Jacob finds his truest and deepest identity.  His identity is no longer the one who grasps the heel of others, who wrestles with others, but is the one who wrestles with God!  And the cool thing about this is that this identity found in wrestling with God is already present in us in some way or another.  “Jacob” can also be a play on the word “yakbal”, and in this case “Jacob” means “May God protect.”

Wrestling with God becomes the center of our life, the reference point by which all our other wrestling is defined.  Jacob’s identity changes when he wrestles with God, and so does all his other wrestling.  So here’s the main point I want you to get.  If you don’t get anything else in this message, get this: When your identity is based on wrestling with God, your wrestling with others is redirected toward reconciliation rather than rivalry, revenge, or anything else.

There’s a move in wrestling called a snapdown reroute.  It’s where you push into your wrestling partner, and when they push back you use their own energy and momentum to redirect them where you want them to go.  Here’s an example.

When we wrestle with God, we push against God, and God uses that energy and redirects it away from things like rivalry, revenge, bitterness, anger, malice, and the like and toward reconciliation.

Reconciliation

Keep reading the story and you’ll see this redirection toward reconciliation played out in Jacob’s life.  He changes.  He isn’t a rival with his brother anymore.  He seeks reconciliation.  And reconciliation means learning some new behaviors.

Genesis 33:2-3 NLT
Jacob now arranged his family into a column, with his two concubines and their children at the front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. Then Jacob went on ahead. As he approached his brother, he bowed low seven times before him.

Notice the humility here.  Before he was stealing from his brother.  Now he’s giving gifts.  Humility and reconciliation go hand in hand.

When you’re a student in a classroom are the other students rivals or friends?  Are you focused only on your own performance and your own grades, or are you helping others learn too?  Or what about when you’re in a band together competing for first chair, is the competition all there is in the relationship or are you also practicing with each other teaching your “rival” tricks you’ve learned about how to be a better musician?

How about when you find yourself liking the same girl or guy that your friend likes.  Is your rivalry for the romantic interests of this person what defines you, or does your life in God help you realize that there are many men and women that God has created that would be excellent life-long partners?

Let’s look at the workplace.  Some of us earn our living off beating the competition to the sale.  That’s the kind of economy we live in.  But is your life built around competition of this sort so exclusively that you ignore building a community where everyone can prosper?  Do you sometimes let that sale go because someone else needed it more?  Do you horde what you make or do you give generously to those around you who are in need?

Genesis 33:4 NLT
Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him affectionately and kissed him. Both of them were in tears.

One key new behavior of reconciliation is forgiveness.  Jacob isn’t the one in the position to forgive.  Esau is.  And he does.  But Jacob helps by coming to the reunion with humility.

Do you nurse old wounds from family members who have hurt you?  Do you repeat those stories in your head and to those around you over and over, letting the bitterness come out every time?  Or do you risk the vulnerability of a meeting like the one between Jacob and Esau?

When we wrestle with God, our wrestling with others is redirected away from rivalry and revenge and toward reconciliation.  But when we approach those with whom we need to be reconciled, that reconciliation is not a forgone conclusion.  Did you notice that Esau brought 400 men with him (33:1)?   That terrified Jacob.  Reconciliation was not obvious or certain.

As well, while some level of reconciliation does happen between Jacob and Esau it is not complete.  We read that “Esau started back to Seir that same day. Meanwhile, Jacob and his household traveled on to Succoth” (Genesis 33:16-17).  In other words, while they are living closer than they have for a long time, they put some distance between one another.

We live in a world where we catch glimpses of heaven’s ultimate reconciliation with us and our reconciliation with one another, but those glimpses are not always complete.  And yet, sometimes they can be incredibly powerful.  We see reconciliation played out in Louis Zamperini’s forgiveness of Mushuhro Wantanabe, the WWII Japanese POW camp guard who tortured him (Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand).  We see it in Corrie ten Boom’s forgiveness of the German guard at the concentration camp where she and her sister were kept and her sister died (The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom).  We see it in Lloyd LeBlanc’s forgiveness of Patrick Sonnier, who killed his son (Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean).  We see it in the Amish who forgave the man who killed a school room full of Amish children.  We see it in the response of an elderly South African woman who sought reconciliation following the dissolution of apartheid in the Truth and Reconciliation hearings rather than revenge:

At one hearing, a policeman named van de Broek recounted an incident when he and other officers shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body to destroy the evidence. Eight years later van de Broek returned to the same house and seized the boy’s father. The wife was forced to watch as policemen bound her husband on a woodpile, poured gasoline over his body, and ignited it.

The courtroom grew hushed as the elderly woman who had lost first her son and then her husband was given a chance to respond. “What do you want from Mr. van de Broek?” the judge asked. She said, “Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him. And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.
(What Good Is God by Phillip Yancey)

This woman understood that when you wrestle with God, your wrestling with others is turned away from rivalry, revenge, and you-fill-in-the-blank and toward reconciliation.

Here’s a prayer I found for praying for your forgiveness in your family, but I think it could be prayed for any situation in need of reconciliation:

Sometimes, Father, we are cruelest to those we love the most.  Let my family members bear with each other and forgive one another just as you forgave us.  Help us get rid of all bitterness, and turn our offenses into testimonies of your love.  (Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:31-32)

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Mothers Give More than Money

May 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Not So Random Acts of Giving
Not So Random Acts of Giving – Mothers Give More than Money
Sycamore Creek Church
May 13, 2012 (Mother’s Day)
Tom Arthur

Peace Friends!

I’m a new parent.  I have a seventeen month old.  Like every good parent, we occasionally dress him up in our alma mater, Wheaton, which has me thinking.  How am I going to pay for college?  How am I going to prepare for his future financially?  Micah’s godparents gave us a jumpstart on this by contributing to a college savings account.  So on his first birthday and first Christmas, we asked family to give to this college savings account rather than give him lots of gifts. 

But along the way, I’ve also been thinking a lot about how to intentionally teach Micah about God’s plan for money.  He’s got a lot to learn to not end up in the same boat as a lot of college students.  According to creditcards.com, the average household carries almost $16,000 in credit card debt.  In 2008 half of undergraduates had at least four credit cards, up from 43 percent in 2004 and 32 percent in 2000.  (Source: Sallie Mae, “How Undergraduate Students Use Credit Cards,” April 2009).  The average college student graduates with almost $20,000 in debt, and average credit card debt has increased 47 percent between 1989 and 2004 for 25- to 34-year-olds and 11 percent for 18- to 24-year-olds. Nearly one in five 18- to 24-year-olds is in “debt hardship,” up from 12 percent in 1989. (Source: Demos.org, “The Economic State of Young America,” May 2008).  According to USA Today, the average undergraduate carried $3,173 in credit card debt.  Yikes!  How can we all help teach our children to live differently?  We talk a lot about how to live differently when it comes to money, but rarely do we talk about how to intentionally teach our children how to live differently.  Thankfully the Bible has some principles that can guide us.

An old Methodist way of summarizing what the Bible teaches about money is to say make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.  What I’d like to do today is walk through each of these and ask how we can intentionally teach our children how to live the way the Bible teaches.

Make All You Can

Lazy people are soon poor; hard workers get rich. 

A wise youth harvests in the summer, but one who sleeps during harvest is a disgrace.
Proverbs 10:4-5 NLT

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil
1 Timothy 6:10 NLT

The Bible is clear that providing a living for yourself, your family, and your community is an important part of being human.  We aren’t made to lounge around in leisure all day long.  The question is, how do you teach your children to “make all they can” while at the same time not to fall into the love of money?

Over the past week I interviewed several different moms to see how they intentionally taught their children how to live into God’s plan for their money. Here are some of the ideas I heard along with a couple from Larry Burkett’s book, Financial Parenting.

Kris Richards’ family gives their children—Noah, Elise, and Lindsay—a commission on doing housework.  While there are some things everyone is required to do and not get paid for (like clearing the dishes from the table), they have a list of things that need to be done (trash, kitty litter, etc.) and they are required to do it to get paid.  If they don’t do it, they don’t get paid, but they are still required to do it!  Kris also provides several other opportunities around the house to do various projects to get paid. 

Marilyn Mannino got her daughter, Miranda, involved in 4H at a very young age.  Miranda was seeing other friends raise animals, take them to auction, and get paid at the end of it.  Miranda began with chickens and then progressed on to hogs.  She was required to pay all the expenses to feed and house the hogs. 

Sarah Arthur, my wife, grew up with parents who were in no hurry to have her find a job.  They encouraged her to be creative and enjoy time with family and friends, especially spending time outside.  They grew up without a TV so they weren’t wasting their time inside, but they also weren’t driven to get a job just so they could buy more stuff.  Eventually Sarah did get a job, but it wasn’t until her later teens. 

Larry Burkett recommends thinking of the family as a community.  There are certain benefits that one receives by being a part of a community, and there are certain responsibilities.  He suggests not tying too closely together those benefits (allowance) and responsibilities (chores).  Both are expected.  At the same time, he suggests hanging up a list of extra projects that can be done to earn money (e.g., mow the yard – $20).  These extra projects allow kids a chance to be assertive in making some extra money on top of their allowance. 

Save All You Can 

Know the state of your flocks, and put your heart into caring for your herds, for riches don’t last forever, and the crown might not be secure for the next generation.
Proverbs 27:23-24 NLT

Unless you’re part of 4H or live on the farm, you probably don’t have to teach your kids about flocks and herds, but you do have to teach them about how income and expenses come and go.   Here we’re talking about teaching your children how to live simply, save, and budget. 

Kris Richards has a three-envelope budgeting system with her children: giving, savings, and spending.  When they are given their “commission” each week, they put part of it in each of these three envelopes.  The kids have over time saved up hundreds of dollars.  When I asked her what they were saving it for, she didn’t have a specific thing, but imagined that it would probably be used for a car some day in the not so distant future (Noah and Elise are both thirteen).  Kris also mentioned that her kids can sometimes get focused on stuff.  They notice fancy new cars in their neighbors’ driveways and in-ground pools in their backyards.  Kris and her husband, Brian, often remind them that these things are probably bought on a lease or debt.  

Marilyn Mannino has had a hard time with this over the years because her husband doesn’t like to budget.  While they live simply and have paid off all their debts, and save to buy for cars, they have always made a comfortable living and haven’t needed the discipline of a budget.  At the same time, she has found it important to try to teach her children about budgeting.  Her son, Joe, wanted to go to prom this year.  So they put an envelope in his drawer and began contributing to it weekly.  They had to plan ahead because the tickets were so much and only sold at certain dates. 

Sarah Arthur’s parents gave Sarah and her sister comparative huge allowances each month because they gave them money for all their monthly expenses: lunch money, clothing, school supplies, entertainment, etc.  They were required to budget this money and make it last.  If they ran out, that was too bad.  They’d have to find a way to make it to next month’s allowance and plan better.  Also, when Sarah did begin working, her parents required her to pay a certain percentage (about 15%) for “room and board.”  She was expected to contribute to the household.  What she didn’t know was that her parents were setting that aside and when she got married, they gave it to her as a gift. 

Larry Burkett suggests beginning with a basic budget like Kris Richards’ family: give, save, spend.  As the children grow older, this budget should get more complex and become more and more like real life.  Burkett even suggests as they become teenagers to institute a household “tax” of 5%.  This money then goes in a community fund that the family decides together how to spend.  This helps them realize and learn about taxes and making financial decisions with a community of people.  Perhaps, one of Burkett’s more startling ideas is that as teenagers get older, they should be given a supervised opportunity to run the family finances for six months.  He likens it to teaching kids how to drive. 

Give All You Can

 Remember this — a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. You must each make up your own mind as to how much you should give. Don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves the person who gives cheerfully. And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.
2 Corinthians 9:6-8 NLT 

If you sow generously by giving generously, then you’ll reap generously.  But if you’re a scrooge with your money, then you won’t receive many blessing back either.  I don’t think the Bible is always talking about financial blessings here.  Giving generously and cheerfully nurtures a kind of joy and freedom that is priceless.  So how do families intentionally teach their children how to be generous?  Back to our moms. 

Marilyn shared about how she tries to model it.  This is a little tricky at times because she and her husband aren’t always in agreement on this, so she tithes from her own income.  In this way she models it for her kids. 

Kris makes this part of each child’s budget.  She says it’s not hard for them to give joyfully because they began young.  It was all given to them freely in the first place, so why get upset when they’ve always been required to put aside 10%?  Because an offering isn’t taken in the youth gathering (something we’ll explore changing!), Noah and Elise both give their portion to their younger sister, Lindsay, to give in Kids Creek.  

Sarah described how her parents never complained about what they weren’t being able to buy because of their tithing.  She remembers driving with someone one time and hearing this person wistfully comment about a big house they were driving by, “If I hadn’t tithed my whole life, maybe I could have afforded a house like that.”  This way of thinking was foreign to her.  Sarah has also watched her parents be generous with us.  Two times they have given us interest free loans: when we bought a house to make some upgrades, and when we had our son to buy a new car.  In both ways they were able to give generously not just to church but to their family because they were living simply.  I recently wrote them a note thanking them for their generosity and telling them that when I grow up I want to be generous just like them. 

Larry Burkett points out that sometimes children who are natural savers need to be encouraged to spend their money.  Hoarding isn’t a biblical idea.  The Bible teaches that money is for living and giving.  One wonderful reminder that Burkett gives parents is that savings can also be used by children to give generously to the needs of others.  Giving is one way of “spending” savings. 

Changed Lives

What would our church look like if all our parents were teaching their kids about God’s plan for money?  If parents intentionally taught their children God’s plan for money, I think that we would be a seriously counter cultural community that would have several distinctive features: 

First, we’d be a community full of families living in peace.  Imagine not having arguments about money.  Imagine not being torn about whether to pay this bill or that bill.  Marilyn described the conflict in her family growing up because of money issues.  It was what motivated her to live differently so that her children didn’t have to live with the same kind of stress. 

Second, we’d be an attractive community.  If all our families were living full of peace about finances, how long would it take before our friends, extended families, and neighbors began to notice and be curious about what was making this peace possible?  Not long.  Sharing our faith is most effective when it comes from a place of transformation. 

Third, we’d have more integrity in our own financial dealings.  It’s said that teaching is learning twice.  If all our families began intentionally teaching children how to handle money, they just might begin living into those principles more fully themselves.  Kris said that this already happens for her.  Her children are reminders of what they have taught them about living differently. 

Fourth, we as a community could be more generous with our church, community, and world.  We could reach out and touch more lives.  We could meet more needs.  A generous church is generous because it is made up of generous families. 

So what’s your plan?  How will you intentionally teach your children about God’s plan for money?  Don’t have a plan? Then set aside some time this week to make a plan.  Or check out the resources listed below.  Let me pray for you in that effort. 

Creator God, all that we have is yours to begin with.  Help us to be good stewards of those gifts, and help us to be good stewards of the children that you have given us.  Help us to intentionally teach them your plan for money.  May it be so in our lives in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Further Resources

www.daveramsey.com (Brian and Kris Richards – 393-6107)
Financial Parenting by Larry Burkett and Rick Osborn
Share, Save, Spend Money Discussion Cards by Vibrant Faith Ministries

Small Group Discussion Questions

Each week we provide discussion questions for small groups that meet regularly to discuss the message for the week.  Want to find a small group to join?  Email Mark Aupperlee – m_aupperlee@hotmail.com

 How are you intentionally teaching your children or how did your parents intentionally teach you to…

1. Make money in honest ways?
2. Budget, save, and live simply?
3. Give generously and cheerfully?
4. What helpful resources are you familiar with for family finances?

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Big Bang Faith – The Faith and Medicine Algorithm

May 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Big Bang Faith

Big Bang Faith – The Faith and Medicine Algorithm
Sycamore Creek Church
May 6, 2012
Tom Arthur
Luke 4:14-20

Bazinga, Friends!

I am naturally a skeptic. When it comes to the supernatural and miraculous, I tend to have a lot of questions. I’ve never seen a miraculous healing, even though I hear claims about them all the time. When I was in elementary school, I had a bad skateboarding accident and seriously cut up my knee. When I walked the mile to get home with blood streaming down my leg, I found an empty house. My mom was gone. I got into bed and prayed that if God stopped the bleeding, I’d read the Bible from front to back. I picked up the Bible and began reading Genesis. Well, the bleeding did eventually stop, but it didn’t appear to be anything more than natural processes at work. I did eventually read my entire Bible, but not for several years.

While reading for this sermon, I was at a café and put my book on the counter to pay. One of the employees picked it up and asked what I was reading. It was a book titled Miracles. I told her it was a book about miracles and then asked her if she had ever experienced any miracles. She thought for a moment and then went on to tell me how every day life is a miracle. She is a gardener and finds the beauty of flowers to be a miracle. I agree, but that’s not really what I mean when I talk about a miracle. I’m talking about something that doesn’t happen every day. Something unexpected.

While researching for this message, I came across a show called Miracles for Sale by a famous British illusionist named Darren Brown. The U.K.’s version of David Copperfield. Brown studied the “tricks” that faith healers use, a mixture of illusion and psychological suggestion, then secretly auditioned actors to play the part of a faith healer and taught that person how to use illusions and psychological suggestion to “heal” people. They traveled to Texas and put on a faith healing service, and “healed” people. Their attack was not against faith or the church, but against manipulative, fraudulent faith healers who sell miracles. I found the whole show very compelling, but while certain faith healers who closely tie together money and healing may be charlatans, I’m not sure that healings are always just illusions.

The closest I’ve come to something miraculous are two stories my mom tells about encountering angels. One happened while I was in elementary school and riding in the car with her. She had left her wallet on the top of the car when she filled the gas tank up. She was a single mom at the time, and when she realized what she had done, she became very anxious. She had a car full of kids and was on a busy road, so she prayed for God to send her someone to help her find her wallet. She locked the doors, told us to stay put, and went looking for her wallet. At some point she looked up and a man was walking toward her. He had her wallet. She was extremely grateful and thanked him profusely. When she turned around to walk back to the car, she decided she ought to give him some cash from her wallet as a gift for helping her. She turned back around to give him some money, and he was gone! Vanished! Nowhere to be seen. She believes God sent her an angel.

I think that many of us have this one basic question when it comes to faith and healing: do miraculous healings happen?

Miracles?

David Hume, one key Enlightenment era philosopher, had this to say about miracles:

There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves.

I think that a lot of us have that same sentiment. Hume’s statement also has a subtle prejudice in it that comes out more strongly elsewhere when he says:

It forms a strong presumption against all spiritual and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous people.

Basically, Hume is saying that if you’re not a white educated western man, your thoughts on this topic aren’t very reliable. And if we’re honest, I think most of us hold at least some version of this same prejudice. Those cultures in “third world” countries are naturally more superstitious and too easily believe in the supernatural.

In his book The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis tells the story of an elder demon mentoring a younger demon. In the preface to this book, Lewis says,

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

Perhaps those of us in the west are too prone to disbelieve in the supernatural and those in the majority of the world are too prone to believe in the supernatural. While it may be inappropriate to fall in the extremes when it comes to faith and healing, there is no doubt that healing is part of the story of Jesus as told by the Bible.

Jesus Heals

At the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and teaching, he stands up in a synagogue and reads from the book of Isaiah. Here is what he reads and says:

Luke 4:14-21 NLT

Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power. Soon he became well known throughout the surrounding country. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll containing the messages of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll to the place where it says:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim
that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. Everyone in the synagogue stared at him intently. Then he said, “This Scripture has come true today before your very eyes!”

Jesus claims that in him the prophesy of Isaiah that justice will come and people will be healed has come true. And then as you read the first four books of the New Testament, you see this coming true. Jesus heals the blind, lame, deaf, paraplegic, demon possessed, epileptic, and more. Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, Bible scholars at the University of Heidelberg, say that “nowhere else are so many miracles reported of a single person as they are in the Gospels of Jesus.” Another scholar points out that “31 percent of the verses in Mark’s Gospel involve miracles in some way, or some 40 percent of his narrative!” (Keener, pg 66).

But aren’t these healing stories just an example of the big fish story? It was so big that by the time it got away and the story has been told over and over, it was the size of a whale! Aren’t these miracle stories just legendary mythical additions to the text over time? Craig Keener points out that “contrary to assumptions that miracle stories would always grow in time, other Gospels’ use of Mark shows that abbreviation was as common as development” (Keener, pg 31). John Meier, a New Testament scholar at Notre Dame adds that “the early dating of the literary testimony to Jesus’ miracles, the closeness of the dates of the written ‘docs’ to the alleged miracles of Jesus’ life, is almost unparalleled for the period” (Keener, pg 71).

It turns out that these miracle stories, while they can’t be proved, are not so spurious as some have thought. But assuming that Jesus did really heal people back in the day, will Jesus heal me?

Pray for Healing and Make Healthy Choices

Sometimes I think that we treat God like a genie in a bottle. Got a problem? Rub the bottle and out pops God to give us three wishes. But God is even more generous than the genie, because every time we have a problem and rub the bottle, we get three more wishes!

My own observation, which I think is pretty obvious, is that while God can and does heal, God does not always heal when and how you want. God’s usual way of working in the world is to allow actions to have natural consequences. Do you expect God to overturn the natural consequences of poor choices? Do you not study for a test and then pray to pass? Do you sit on your duff all day long without ever exercising and pray for your heart blockage to be healed? Do you smoke a pack a day and then pray for God to heal your lung cancer? God’s usual way of working in the world is to work through natural means. So seek out doctors, physical therapists, trainers, coaches, dieticians, and the like. God is less like a genie and more like a surgeon. He is less likely to give you your three wishes and more likely to cut the cancer out of your bad habits.

Now there is a perception out there that being a Christian is somehow a kind of an unhealthy mental illness. If you’re a believer, you must be unhealthy. You can see this in one of the new atheists, Richard Dawkins’ book titled: The God Delusion. The implication is clear: Faith = mental illness.

Research actually shows the opposite. The Duke University Center for the Study of Religion and Spirituality has been studying the effects of faith and faith practices on health for many years now. The truth is that if you participate in faith practices, you are likely to be more healthy. Here is a list of some of their findings:

  • People who regularly attend church, pray individually, and read the Bible have significantly lower diastolic blood pressure than the less religious. Those with the lowest blood pressure both attend church and pray or study the Bible often.
  • People who attend church regularly are hospitalized much less often than people who never or rarely participate in religious services.
  • People with strong religious faith are less likely to suffer depression from stressful life events, and if they do, they are more likely to recover from depression than those who are less religious.
  • People with strong faith who suffer from physical illness have significantly better health outcomes than less religious people.
  • People who attend religious services regularly have stronger immune systems than their less religious counterparts.
  • Religious people live longer.

(Taken from The Healing Power of Faith by Harold Koenig, M.D.)

So pray for healing and expect to be healed, but don’t forget to make healthy choices too. And one of those healthy choices is choosing to pray!

The Purpose of Healing

So is disease always about the poor choices you made? Are you sick because you sinned? Jesus is asked a question like this:

“Teacher,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?” “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “He was born blind so the power of God could be seen in him.”
John 9:2-4 NLT

Jesus points out that this blindness has nothing to do with personal sin. No one sinned in such a way that the man was born blind. Since the man was born blind, I guess the people asking Jesus this question thought that someone could sin before birth! Jesus points out that they’re asking the wrong question. The ultimate purpose of healing is to bring God glory.

Imagine with me for a moment what kind of glory we would bring God if SCC became known as oasis of health and healing amidst a broken and diseased culture. What if we became known as a hospital for the sick? We should attract the sick, but if we are faithfully teaching how to practice the faith, they should experience healing here too.

Actually, I already see it happening. There’s a small group of women who, concerned about their health, are meeting to run and/or walk in preparation for an upcoming 5K. They call it a Run for God small group. Exercising in a group is always easier than exercising alone. There’s an accountability in the process of being active with friends.

I see people in our church losing weight. I myself have lost some weight lately. All the men in my family are overweight and suffering from some kind of diabetes. I have a covenant with my pants that I will never leave them nor forsake them. Back in November my pants were getting a little tight as I was hitting the upper end of my healthy weight limit. Instead of waiting until I was overweight, I decided to lose some weight. I bought into Weight Watchers online and have lost fifteen pounds since November, and now I’m in the middle of my healthy weight range. But I also know some among us who have lost thirty or forty pounds and have regained significant health in the process.

I have seen people in our church quit smoking or give up drugs or alcohol. They’ve done so after being convicted by God’s Spirit at work in their heart or mind. Some who are struggling with emotional or relational issues have found support and help for coping in our support group that meets twice a month. I see people rebuilding broken relationships, forgiving past harm, and renewing their marriages. God is at work healing in our church. So does God heal, and can God heal you? Yes, but not always how or when we want. God is God, not your personal genie.

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