Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving Eve eve!! Today was thank you note writing day and a shortened theology class time. I did not complete all of the thank you notes, but I did get a good start and hope to complete them before school begins on Monday. Advent hosted its annual soup and sandwich supper and worship tonight. It was delicious and the worship and fellowship were wonderful.

A brief update on our friend, Deb Koplen. Late this afternoon they took her to surgery for the biopsy and bone work. There are no results as yet, but I am going to the hospital in the morning and I will post the results tomorrow evening and if they have a treatment plan yet. Please continue to pray for her. She is still in a great deal of pain and cannot sit up comfortably. You might also pray for the nurses! Deb is not used to being unable to do things for herself. Having to rely on others to do things for her is taxing her patience to the max.

I Peter 1:8 says, “You have not seen Christ, but you still love Him. You cannot see Him now, but you believe in Him.” Gone with the Wind is one of my favorite movies. Gotta love Scarlet and who does not have that vision of Rhett Butler at the bottom of the stairs in that suit. But there is a theme that recurs with Scarlet throughout the movie. Scarlet looks for home. She has dreams that always have her trying to look through the mist. Even in her dreams she seeks something, but does not know what she is seeking because the mist is between Scarlet and what she is seeking. She believes there is something on the other side of the mist, but it is not until the end of the movie that the mist clears and she finally figures out what she has been seeking all along. She has been looking for Tara. She has been looking for home. Scarlet loves Tara even though she cannot see Tara and she believes that Tara is there even though she cannot see it.

In the opening of this letter Peter writes that God’s chosen people are scattered and far from home. Peter also tells the people that they were chosen to be God’s holy people and they were chosen by the Holy Spirit. God called them to do His work and made them clean by the blood of the death of Jesus Christ. When they were born again they were born into hope. I think that hope is the mainstay of anyone who seeks. You keep looking or researching or asking in the hope of finding what you are looking for whether it is an answer, a solution or a place.

God seeks us out. When we accept His love and grace He forgives us for our offenses against Him and removes the mist and all that keeps us from seeing Him and believing. We continue to see evidence of Christ each day because we keep looking, we keep seeking and we live in the hope that Christ will be with us no matter what every day until He calls us home to be with Him forever. Seeking is the journey God gives to us from the moment we enter into relationship with Him. And our journey ends when we see Him face and we finally reach our destination, that is, when we go home.

What do we seek? Do we seek the “whats of life or do we seek Who? Do we seek out God’s plan for our lives follow our own? Do we believe only what we can see and touch or do we act on faith and believe in a God of love and grace who cannot be seen with the human eye, but chooses to make His presence known in the Word, sacraments, His people and through His Holy Spirit? What a journey we have to travel and an adventure to experience!

Take joy in the journey my friends. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.

1 comment:

Al Rearick said...

I've never seen "Gone With the Wind." Not that I've ever wanted to, but you've certainly saved me three hours that I could be doing other things like, oh, watching Looney Tunes or Mythbusters or something! ;-)

I loved the connection you drew between the movie and Peter's message. Thanks for the reminder that what I'm looking for I can't see yet. That's actually been a source of no small amount of frustration lately.

I'm gonna visit your friend in the hospital today, so I hope to see you there. She cracked me up at Casey's memorial service, and so it makes me sad to hear that she's going through this ordeal now.

Love,
Al