Thought For the Week

Dear Friends, Today’s “thought” is actually a list of nineteen individual 'thoughts' having to do with anger - an emotion we all wrestle with. In fact, my adult class in Honduras (filled with mostly 20-30 year olds) listed anger as their biggest struggle next to lust. So, I did a 4 month class on each! At one point I was even asked by the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa to share some of that material there (the material on anger and not lust)! Therefore, I simply offer you some thoughts on anger that I use, since the topic came up again this week in my adult class on Spiritual Warfare, where we considered how harboring anger “gives a foothold to the devil.” (Eph. 4:26). Enjoy. “Anger is never without reason, but seldom with a good one.” Benjamin Franklin “God is not sinful. God is sometimes angry. Therefore, anger cannot always be sinful.” Garret Keizer “We must always be careful when as sinners we just...

Dear Friends, If there is anything I have discovered in my years as a pastor, it is that as sinners we love to receive grace from God, but we struggle big-time to extend that same type of grace to others. We want it, but we don’t want to give it. In this regard, today’s entry challenges us. Books have been written about it. Movies were made about it – because true acts of grace (that reflect God’s grace to us) really are that rare (Romans 5:1-11). This story comes from the book, “Fifty Miracles of Grace” and is actually taken from the foreword written by Donald B. Kraybill. I can’t wait to read the 50 stories in the book, “many stemming from the same Anabaptist stream of faith birthed in the 1500s in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation.” The anabaptist tradition is known for taking the sayings of Jesus literally (some have said too literally). Anabaptists are prone to believe Jesus really meant is when He said, "Love your enemies,” and “turn the other cheek,” and ...

Dear Friends, At a breakfast gathering this morning one of those present spoke of how he sought to live out his faith before others rather than be really vocal about it. His comment made me think of a poem I have taped on the inside cover of my Bible by Edgar Guest entitled, “Sermons We See.” So, using Google on my phone I pulled up a copy and showed it to him. He smiled and nodded in agreement! Guest, its author, was born in England in 1881 and died in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959. In his lifetime he wrote over 11,000 poems! He was very popular among the ‘common people’ who loved the simple manner of his poetry, and dubbed him, ‘The People’s Poet.” Yet, others found his work a bit sentimental, and his style too simplistic, including a contemporary poet, screenwriter, and literary critic, Dorothy (Rothschild) Parker who said tongue-in-cheek of his work, “I’d rather flunk my Wassermann test (ie: a test for sexually transmitted diseases) than read a poem by Edgar Guest.” I leav...