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My Two Cents
by Rev Chuck Behrens
October, 2016
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Past Articles |
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Psssssssst. . .Seasons are
changing but it doesn't remind me of but of one Movie. Now I don't do
movie reviews, and I sure don't recommend many movies. But there is one
they keep showing on TV over and over again, because it's got a lot of
laughs in it. It's called "Ground Hog Day" with Bill Murray. If you saw
it, you know the plot. He's this not very nice TV weath-erman who goes to
Punxsutawney, PA to broadcast that American tradition that comes from
there. We're supposed to be able to predict whether or not there will be
six more weeks of winter weather based on whether or not the ground hog
sees his shadow on February 2nd.
Anyway, the weatherman, who has a serious attitude problem, wakes up at
6:00 a.m. the next day, only to experience ex-actly the same events he did
the day before. And every new morning, the clock radio goes off at 6:00
a.m. and awakens him to the same old song, "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and
Cher. And day after day, he sees the same people; he experi-ences the same
relationships, the same places, the same rhythm - even down to the guy in
the diner dropping a plate the same time each day. It becomes very
frustrating - experiencing the same day over and over again.
The plot of the movie obviously is fantasy. The plight of having the same
day over and over again is reality for a lot of peo-ple. In some ways, it
might describe how your life feels right now, even though we've just
jumped into Fall. Life has taken on this monotonous sameness ---a
predictability. It seems like no matter what happens, or who happens, you
have the feel-ing of "been there, done that." Maybe your life seems to be
suffering from a meaning deficit.
Actually, life was never meant to be monotonous. After all, your life was
given to you by a God who creates blazing sunsets and fall colors, people
with fingerprints that are like no one else who has ever been born,
galaxies, comets and supernovas. Now would a Creator with that kind of
creativity create us to have days that all seem the same? The only reason
life would be like that is if we are, in reality, trying to live without
our Creator...or trying to be Him.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, steps into our hunger for something more
meaningful and more colorful when He gives us our word for today from the
Word of God in John 10:10. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have
life, and have it to the full." Now obviously, Jesus isn't talking about
life in the sense of eating, breathing, and existing. We already have that
kind of life. He's talking about life that's fulfilling, challenging, and
satisfying--life to the fullest.
We don't have life like that because we don't have the Life-Giver.
According to God's Book, the Bible, you and I have, in fact, taken our
life out of our Creator's hands and put it in our own. In the Bible that's
called sin. In God's words we are, "without hope and without God"
(Ephesians 2:12).
It all seems so empty. Everyone seems as trapped in meaninglessness as you
do. There seems to be no hope. Until you let Jesus Christ reconnect you to
the God you have sinned against. Jesus died on that cross to pay for the
sin that separates us from God. And when we put our trust in Him to take
down the wall between us and God, He starts to infuse our days with a
sense of meaning and destiny which you were created for. Each day you're
discovering a little more of who we were born to be...Kind of like the
freshness of the changing of the Seasons or just the newness of a new day.
While our environment may be pretty much the same every day, our
INVIRONMENT-- what's in us---is experiencing ever new experiences of God's
love, God's joy, God making a difference in our lives, God making a
difference through our lives.
Maybe we've never begun this relationship that is what we were made for.
In the Bible's words, we were "created by Him and for Him" but we've not
really had Him in the leadership of our lives. Can we trust Him? He loved
us enough to die for us. He'll change things we can't change because He
was powerful enough to walk out of His grave and He's ready to walk into
our lives yet once again, even though we've either shown him the door
countless times, or worse, not even opened it up at all.
Our lives were never meant to be small. There is something so much
bigger--days where we are finally experiencing the One we were created by,
and the One we were created for. Talk about a new day. . .Talk about the
real changing of SEASONS.
See you in Church,
Rev. Chuck
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