Aspen Hill Christian Church

All You Need To Know For The New Year

Bob Chance — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:00:57 +0000

I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the gentiles,
To open eyes that are blind to free captives from prison and to
release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord; that is my name.
Isaiah 42:6

Introduction …

There was a bad snowstorm in the Midwest. Chicago’s O’Hare airport had been closed for hours. The passenger agent was desperately trying to reschedule a long line of weary travelers. Finally a priest found his way to the head of the line. “What is your final destination,” asked the agent. “Heaven, I hope,” said the priest. “But today I’ll settle for Cleveland.”

It’s a brand new year. Where are you going this year?
What’s going to happen to you this year?
What’s going to happen with your dreams, your hopes?
What are your goals and will they come to be or not?

You probably don’t know the answers to these questions and I sure as heck don’t know.

I don’t know the answers to those questions for myself, and I certainly don’t know them for you. But I do know that wherever you are going, and whatever happens to you God will be with you and with his strength, his guidance, his healing you will be alright.

I. The year will bring its share and maybe more than its share of unanticipated snowstorms, flight delays and misdirected itineraries for us all. And, as you would well guess I’m not talking about our flight plans but our life events.

Like the good priest, I don’t know if you are bound for Cleveland or heaven – but I do know you will encounter a few “snow storms” along the way.

I do know God won’t bring your dreams to pass by taking care of everything for you.
I do know God won’t lift you up by stomping on the bad guys.
I do know God won’t insulate you from problems, hurts, sorrows and pains and that we all have to go through them, irrespective of our faith or lack thereof.

I do know that as much as we wish we could we can’t save our children from the snow storms in their lives either. The hurts, pains, and losses of our children and grandchildren’s and our friends lives become ours too so we’ll all have plenty to face over the coming year.

I do know it’s going to be a long year in some ways.
We will all have challenges.
We will all have problems.
We will all have “issues”.
We will all have failures…
failures of the spirit.
failures of the body.
failures of the soul.
failures that are minor – don’t really amount to a hill of beans.

Some of these failures you will bring upon yourself. I’m my own worst enemy as many times as not.
Some of these failures others will bring upon you.
Some of these failures fate will bring upon you.
It doesn’t matter who or what brings them upon you they’re simply a
part of life for all of us.

Some of the failures we will see this year will be major – slightly less than earth shattering but bone shattering to say the least…

Someone among us is probably going to hear “you have cancer”.
Someone among us is probably going to hear “I’m leaving you”.
Someone among us is probably going to sit on the side of the bed and
cry their heart out for one thing or another.

That someone may be “me”.
It may be ‘you”.
It may be both of us or may even be a number of us.

Some of the failures we see this coming year will be relatively minor.
A bruise here and there.
A wounded feeling or two or maybe even three but we’ll get over them.
A minor scrap with someone we love.
A scrap here and there.
All minor but all still present.

Life will have it’s share of hurts and mis-directed itinaries in the coming year. That’s the way it is.

II. But, just as sure as I now we’ll all have problems even more importantly I know we won’t be alone – God will be with us through whatever comes our way.

I know we won’t be alone.
We won’t be alone with our problems
We won’t be alone with our failures.
We won’t be alone with snow storms.
We won’t be alone with the crashes of life that inevitable come our way.

Last Monday was a beautiful day, a lovely day.
I went out for a short motorcycle ride on the way home from work.
One minute I was waving at some neighbors as I approached the last 100 yards on the way home and the next minute I was running off the road, getting thrown from the motorcycle, I felt my head bouncing off the payment with a quick thud and my leg was burning from pavement burn. Fortunately, I was going slow, fortunately I had on a leather jacket, even more fortunately I had on a helmet. The helmet will have to be replaced. Without it I would have been in the hospital with serious head injury. As it was it was all minor.

My neighbors, the very one who I had just waved it came running down and helped me. Grace called her husband and Martin came down immediately to help me. He did a marvelous job of repairing the bike.

Everything will be OK, no big deal.

We have help with our crashes don’t we?
If we’re blessed we’ll have friends and family to help us along the way.
I don’t know about you but I can’t imagine going through life without my friends and my family.

The phone rang on Thursday afternoon. “Dad”, Amy began speaking as soon as I said “Hello”, I hope you are alright – you seemed pretty
aggravated at Board last night. She was right. I was agitated – not at any one in particular or even any one thing in particular but just out of sorts. Some times that happens. It wasn’t a big deal and in this case I was pretty much over it by the next day but it meant the world to me that Amy called and sort of stood with me in the moment.

That’s what friends do. That’s what family does.
We stand with each other in times of stress or trial or trouble.
We lend whatever hand we can.

But, let me tell you something even more important. Whether you have friends and family to stand with you in your tough moments you will always have a God who loves you and cares for you beyond words.

But, even more significantly we have God’s help.
How do I know this? I know it because the Bible tells me so.
How do I know this? I know it because I have experienced it myself,
over and over. Whatever comes my way, God has been there to help me.
I can remember the hardest, darkest, lonliest, darndest days of my
life and although I didn’t always know it at the time in looking back
God was always there to help through.

Whatever comes your way God will be there to help you.
God will be there with us through our friends and family.
God will be there through the church.
God will be there through strangers whose random or gracious acts of kindness will lift us up.
God will be there through our own inner faith and strength.
God will be there through infinite and complex ways – never ending ways, often unknown and little understood - but he will always be there.

We’re talking about the God of the cosmos who created a universe far more vast and complex and wonderful than we can even imagine.
We’re talking about the God of infinite time and space who still manages to know us and care for us for one by one.
We’re talking about the God of the scriptures, the God of history and the God of everyday life.

God always takes us by the hand and walks with us through anything that life throws at us.
Isaiah learned this and did his best to convey it to the people of his times.
Jesus knew this – one of the most beautiful moments in the whole story of Jesus and the Passion is when Jesus turns to His father in heaven in the Garden of Gethsemane at the moment of greatest trial in his life and is assured that His father is with Him.

Yes, I know you will have challenges, failures, hurts, losses and pains this year but much more importantly I know that no matter what comes your way this year,
God will be with you,
you will not be alone and
that with God there isn’t anything you can’t handle.

You’ve Never Been Alone

Have you ever wondered why you have faced a heavy trial
Has it ever crossed your mind why the mountains were so high
You really need to know God sent those struggles so you’d grow
He’s won the victories you have know He takes care of His own
You’ve never been alone

You’ve never been alone God is faithful He is true
When all other friends have gone He’ll still be there for you
He’s the one who gave the grace for each problem that you’ve faced
Whatever comes along you’ve never been alone

Every moment I know He’s been there just taking time to hear your prayer
He’s the one who held you close when the sorrows hurt the most
Jesus dried your falling tear He removed the doubt and calmed your fear
On the long, long journey home He’s been every place you’ve known
You’ve never been alone

You’ve never been alone God is faithful He is true
When all other friends have gone He’ll still be there for you
He’s the one who gave the grace for each problem that you’ve faced
Whatever comes along you’ve never been alone

He’s the one who gave the grace for each problem that you’ve faced
Whatever comes along you’ve never been alone

See what I mean when I say ‘That’s all you need to know”!

The Christmas Tree

Bob Chance — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:00:21 +0000

I. An old but true story …

The old sign on the side of county road “606” said “Twin Maples”. As the old preacher passed it by he remembered one Christmas years before that took place on a cold winter’s day. Twin Maples was the family homestead of the Dickens family. Mr. Albert and Miss Bertie June Dicken were the patriarch and matriarch of the appropriately named Twin Maples farm.

Mr. Albert (in the country in those days you called anyone your senior “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Uncle” or “Aunt”) was a fine old white haired gentleman from an era quickly vanishing. Miss Bertie June was a mother and a lady from the old school of country life, why her biscuits were a good any man had ever sunk his teeth into. Their old white farmhouse was a picture right out of Americana. It was originally built in the 1800’s and had seen a lot winters come and go and had seen a lot of life unfold.

About fifty yards to the north side of the grand old white framed farmhouse was a much smaller and “newer” house in which Mr. Albert’s grown son and wife lived. John and Lorraine were in their forties at the time and John was a successful banker in his own right in nearby Owingsville, a small county seat town about twelve miles up the rutty two lane country road that wound its way up, around, over, and through one holler after another. John and Lorraine’s house was a small, two bedroom little rambler built in the early fifties, probably as a new residence when John and Lorraine first got married. John and Lorraine had one son, “Bob” who about fifteen at the time, 1968.

Once you made the turn up the ridge to enter the long and rut filled gravel driveway to get to the top of the hill you were in another world, a world ruled by the well seasoned old farmer who had white hair and looked like and lived like a real country gentleman. Other than the good Lord there was no higher power on the Twin Maples farm than Mr. Albert. Of course, as the young, novice preacher in the Bethel Christian Church quickly learned the real powers weren’t the old farmers, though they strutted and walked like the old roosters they were – the real powers were the women behind the iron fisted but gracious gentleman – their wives. The memory of those great old men and women and the land they loved and cherished will be with the preacher forever.

The preacher was the brand new, poor as a church mouse young preacher from the city who came to Bethel to be the minister of the Bethel Christian Church. Though he knew nothing about country life, or things of the farm the people of Bethel embraced him and loved him just like he was one of their own. Maybe, he was one of their own. He was young and impressionable. He knew next to nothing, either theologically or about farm life so it was new and exciting for him to experience life on a whole new level. Though he had been raised in the outskirts of Washington, D.C. he took to the country like a chickadee takes to sunflower seed. He was a natural. His dads and mom’s country genes, one from the rural farmland of southern Illinois and the other from the then remote farmlands of the Eastern Shore of Maryland were an integral part of his DNA, even though he never knew it consciously.

It was Christmas, 1969 and the young preacher got it into his head that he wanted to ride on a horse and cut his own Christmas tree from one of the back hollers of the Kentucky hills of Bath County. Now, the young preacher didn’t own a horse at that time, though he did get one later. He wasn’t much of a rider but he never let logic or intelligence interfere with his thinking. In the fertile imagination of the young preacher it would be a wonderful moment captured from the past if he could go riding on a horse, find a beautiful Christmas tree back on the farm, cut it down and bring it home – where he would show the real skills it took to be man.

He found an able partner in young Bob Dicken. The preacher was only twenty two or three at the time and Bob was only seven or eight years younger. Of course, seven or eight years at that stage of life was pretty significant. Bob and the preacher decided they could take two of the horses from Bob’s grandfather’s farm and go out, cut down and bring back a beautiful wild Christmas tree. Bob broached the idea with his grandfather, the white haired Mr. Albert. Although Mr. Albert must have had some serious reservations he granted permission for the pair to go out on the back of twin maples and cut themselves a Christmas tree. Discretion being the better part of good judgment it was decided that the preacher would ride Bob’s smaller horse and Bob would mount up on his grandfather’s big old mare. The young preacher didn’t see the logic at first but when he got up close to the huge old mare he gladly yielded the desire to ride her – good Lord, she stood a good 3 hands above Bob’s horse. The preacher knew there was no way he could have handled the giant old blue. It was a cold winter day when Bob and the preacher went out on the horses to find themselves a real Christmas tree. Now, they hadn’t exactly worked out the details, like how they were going to get the trees back to the farm house once they cut them but we took along some rope and a small saw and figured they had all we needed.

Things went beautifully, at first. The preacher and the boy rode down through the gates, across the fields, and down through the hollers. The air was cold and crisp and everytime the horses drew a deep breath you could see their breath billow up into the air. Soon the farm house was a distant speck in the far away horizon and they were crossing creeks, and going up and down, in and out of hollers like two cowboys out on the range. Now, in those days about all of a Christmas tree that grew out on the farms of Bath County were red cedar trees. Cedars trees grew wild and while they were exactly the kind of tree the preacher expected to find he figured a cedar would do just fine.

Bob and the preacher found two beautiful trees growing on a hillside and they cut them and tied them up with the rope they had brought along. They were full and splattered with red berries and about as pretty as you could imagine. They thought they were pretty small but of course “small” out on the farm equaled “huge” back at the house. The pair of cowboys hadn’t planned all that smartly and the task of dragging a red cedar tree back through the brush, and the crop remnants of growing seasons long gone was a bit more problematic than they had planned. The task was further complicated by the fact that the two horses, who were happy to have the young light riders riding on the backs up and over the ridges on the way “out” weren’t all that willing to put up with the additional weight and toll of dragging a ten foot red cedar along the ground on the back. The horses neighed and bucked all the way. Being a novice rider the preacher had all he could do to coax the little horse along the path of his romantic but increasingly frustrating vision.

They finally got closer and closer to being back with their trees but by then the two trees were battered and beaten remnants of the once fine specimens cut in their prime. The two young men, a novice preacher and a young farm boy hadn’t exactly calculated the toll of their beautiful trees being dragged up and down ridges of rocky hillsides. They finally decided to untie the well sheared trees and ride on back empty handed.

“Couldn’t find a good tree”, the kindly old grandfather asked as they rode their tired and worn steeds into the corral. “Well, not really” was about all the young riders said. I suspect Mr. Albert knew along the difficulty of their task but he had long since learned letting people make their decisions and live with the consequences was the best path of learning. Bob’s father, John bought his tree from the same tree lot that the preacher bought his that year, but going out and cutting their own beautiful trees was an experience and a memory the preacher and the boy would never forget. The young farm boy and the young preacher might not have gotten their flogged cedars back to the house that year but the experience was a day never forgotten.

Mr. Albert’s gone now, so is his beloved love, Miss Bertie June. John and Lorraine are gone now too, all called to cross that big creek called the Jordan and abide in the land of angels and all those they loved from generations before them. Bob has had his share of problems but somehow still manages to live on the old farm that had once been the pride and joy of the Dicken family. The old farm is a shabby remnant of what it once was.

The young preacher went on to enjoy three wonderful years in Bethel, even buying his own horse, but wisely never went out to cut his own tree on the back of a horse again. The old sign that pointed the way to Twin Maples is all but gone, beaten by storms and wind and rain over the years. The years have come and gone but somehow the memory of going out to cut their first Christmas tree from the farm stays with the two men. Things are always coming and going and lot of life has come and gone for both the preacher and the boy but some things never change.

II. The meaning of it all…

You know we live a lot farther apart and disconnected from our neighbors than those old farmers of long ago did. They were far apart geographically but close spiritually whereas we are close geographically but far apart spiritually. Many of us don’t even know the names of our neighbors, let alone have significant experiences with them. We are living a new frontier age in which we feel isolated and alone from each other and maybe even from God.

We all long for shared experiences. We all long to connect with each other and with God in deeply personal ways. We all hunger for a deeper and more abiding sense of connecting with our heart and soul to the source of all that was, all that is and all that will ever be.

That’s what Christmas is all about. God looked down and saw that the best and truest way to connect with man was to come down and dwell among us. God saw that people needed to be able to mount up and ride along with him in order to have a shared and abiding sense of knowing and relating to him. It isn’t the task of cutting the tree that ultimately counts; it’s the relationship between the riders that will guide and shape and help them learn what it means to share intimate times together.

I’m not sure I know why but God apparently needs to “connect” with us every bit as much as we need to connect with him. He wants us to know him and to share the deep and intimate moments of our daily lives with him.

God sent his prophets to connect with us.

God gave his “word” to connect with us.

God sent his angels and messengers to connect with us and to show us the way he would have men live.

Yet, in the end, and this is what Christmas is ultimately about, God knew we needed something more. We needed him. We needed a personal and real savior to be one of us, to love us and to be loved by us, to come and go with us, in the far fields and back hollers of our heart and soul and show us not only who He is but who we can be as well. Christmas is just that, God sending his beloved son, the essence of his being to come and ride along with us, showing us the way, the truth and the life.

Open up your heart, undo your imagination and mount up. Jesus, our Lord and Savior was born this (or one just like it, what difference does it make?). He came to ride with us, through the valleys and ridges, hollers and hillsides our lives in order that we could know him, and love him and now he loves us. The young boy and the young preacher went separate ways in the years to follow and they long ago lost touch with one another. Human riders will come and go but when you ride with the Lord you will never be alone. Seasons will come and go but alleluia, alleluia, God is with us forever.

Jesus, Lord and Savior as born this night, long, long ago in a land far away. But more importantly he is born again this night, in your heart, if you will choose to let him ride with you.

Merry Christmas.

The Cow and the Horse

Bob Chance — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:00:42 +0000

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
Isa 11:10

Some of the stories of children and Christmas pageants are legendary. Most of us have heard the one about the little boy that plays the role of the inn keeper in Bethlehem the night of Jesus’ birth. His line was, of course, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to go elsewhere, we are all full up, there is no room in the inn”. The problem was the little boy just couldn’t bring himself to say those lines. He would practice and practice and practice and then “knock, knock, knock” and there were “Mary” and “Joseph” at “his” door and so he would say “Well, alright, we’ll find a place, come on in.” Of course, it always short-circuited the pageant and the other kids didn’t know quite what to do next. But, it’s an often told story that is still cute. I can just see the big lumbering kid, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, inviting Mary and Joseph in – there was room in HIS inn.

We had our own classic children’s pageant story “live”, several years ago. The kids had practiced and practiced for their Christmas pageant and everything was ready to go. Christmas pageants have their own energy and their own drama and excitement was in the air.

I had just had surgery and so was sitting out in the congregation, eager to enjoy the beautiful story of Christ’s birth as told by our children. I wasn’t to do any lifting, straining or moving quickly so I was settled down and happy as a turtle snuggled up under a big pile of leaves. I was proud of all the kids but especially my own three grandchildren who were in the play. Carter was playing the part of a horse and his role was to simply stand by the cradle and quietly observe the birth of the blessed savior. Marybeth had a part as a cow and her role was to be on the other side of the chancel and enjoy the beauty of the savior’s birth from afar.

Before the service had begun, while no one else was in the sanctuary I had noticed that Marybeth was totally and absolutely “glued” into the cradle where a small plastic baby had been placed. Marybeth has always had a deep affection for baby dolls and during the practice when no one else was looking she would go and pick up the baby and hold it and look down into its little face, just as if it were alive. I should have seen trouble coming but I thought it was cute the way little Marybeth was totally absorbed and totally committed to “her baby” being wrapped up in the swaddling blanket. She was the persona of the first Mary, looking longingly into the face of her infant; the only trouble was Marybeth was a cow, not Mary. Oh well, it didn’t matter, everything would be fine when the play started and Marybeth was in the cow costume.

The play started on cue and everything was going great. Somewhere during the unfolding script the baby Jesus was brought in and paced into the little cradle. Marybeth, unscripted and not according to plan, went over and wanted to stand a little closer to the baby. Carter, seeing her make her move to get closer, edged in a little more himself and looked at her warily. Marybeth edged closer and closer, wanting to claim the prime spot, closet to the baby Jesus. With each six inches closer Carter moved closer and closer from his side. Eventually, the two met and in a classic kind of move we only dream of teaching basketball players, placed his body and his legs in such a position that Marybeth could come no closer. Michael Jordan never made a better screen in his entire life. There was a smug look of satisfaction on Carter’s face. He had beaten Marybeth to the spot closest to Jesus and he knew it and she knew it too. If the look of smug satisfaction was etched on Carter’s face, the look of utter disgust was on Marybeth’s face. She had been edged out from the prime spot next to the baby by her cousin and she didn’t like it one bit.

Everyone was watching with intent interest as the little side drama played out. Little by little the lines the other kids had rehearsed so hard were falling on deaf ears. It was cute. But, suddenly cute began to take a bad turn for the worse. The horse kicked the cow or vice versa. No one exactly remembers who kicked who first. But the kick that followed came back with swift and certain retribution – only a little harder. The kick that followed was even harder yet. Mothers were half off their seats, attempting to stop the quickly deteriorating scene when all of a sudden the kicking erupted into hitting and slapping, crying and screaming. “He kicked me”, screamed the cow, “she hit me” bellowed the horse. One of the moms jumped up and grabbed the cow, carrying her off into the back of the church, wailing erupting from the cow all the way. Knowing the mother of the horse was busy with the play (yes, the kids, professionals all went right on with their lines and with the play as if nothing was happening) so I jumped up and carefully grabbed the horse and took him to the other side of the church. He was screaming and hollering as loud as his cousin the cow was doing so on the other side of the church. After a few minutes of sobbing and weeping the cow and the horse made sobbing pledges of good behavior and were placed back in the play. The fight was over but the peace was tentative and everyone watched with amusement as the horse kept a wary eye on the cow, lest she once again tried to move in on the baby Jesus.

I should have seen it coming all along. The way Marybeth gazed at the baby, and held it in such high esteem and motherly care I should have known no one or nothing had better come between her and the baby.
It was our own little Christmas pageant story and like all Christmas pageant stories has taken on a life of its own.

It has taken me a few years but it suddenly came to me this year. People all over the world, down through the ages have been posturing, and fighting and bellowing and edging and wailing just to be closer to the Christ and our claims not withstanding everyone of us needs to be taken to the back of the room and gently but firmly reminded – Jesus belongs to us all and there is no one of us, individually or as a church who has a right to claim we are closer to Jesus and to block out others from being close to the Lord.

It seems like so many churches want to claim that they and only they possess the truth or the clearest expression of the teaching of Jesus. It seems like so many people want to edge everyone else and place themselves next to the Lord, as if there isn’t room for all.

No one has the right to feel, let alone claim, that they and only they know the Lord.
No one has the right to selfishly claim the spot closest to the baby in the manger or the man he grew up to be.
No one has the right to put others down because their beliefs are inferior to ours.
No one has the right to edge others out from the manger, or the spot on hillside where the Lord would welcome all.

There is room for all, the cow and the horse alike.
There is room for everyone who loves Jesus to claim they are special to Him, yet there is no room for anyone to claim that they and only they are special to him.

God loves us all.
There is room for all of us around the manger.
The “truth” of God takes shape and root in countless ways and one version doesn’t necessarily exclude any or all other versions.

This Christmas come close to the manger, but leave room for others to come close as well.
This Christmas sit next to the Christ child, but leave room for others to come and sit beside Him as well.
This Christmas come to love the Lord and know that his Love is big enough and broad enough for all.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together,
Isa 11:6-7 / NIV
Blessings, and Merry Christmas.

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Bob Chance — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:00:17 +0000

And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty one has done great things for me- holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.”
Luke 1:46-55 / NIV

Introduction …
Late Wednesday afternoon, I was driving north on Georgia Avenue. We had Board meeting that night and I didn’t have time to go home for dinner and come back so I was going to get a quick bite to eat at the Leisure World Plaza and simply stay for the meeting.

The radio station in my car was playing Christmas music and the air was clear and crisp. The traffic wasn’t all that bad and the combination of the Christmas lights in people’s yards and on the balconies of their apartments led me to begin to feel the Christmas spirit. I began remembering some of the people who have been part of my life, with whom I shared Christmas’s past and the sheer memory of the people who had been such a deep and intimate part of my being brought joy and life to my tired and weary spirit. One by one I began remembering some of the most special in the world to me.

I. Special memories of old …
As I passed the apartment Mrs. Whipple lived in long ago I remembered one of the nicest and strongest women I ever knew. She was such a delight and such a positive person. Her husband had been career military and they had traveled all over the world. She had a wonderful little cuckoo clock on the wall that had come from the Black Forest. I was with her the day the doctor at Walter Reed told her that her cancer was inoperable and she had probably six months later. I can still remember the tears coming down her cheeks. I didn’t know what to say. I was a young twenty-six- or twenty-seven-year-old minister and I had no idea of what I could say to bring peace and sense to a devastating and senseless moment in time. We laughed 20 years later when she was still with us and had proven the doctors wrong. We never know how long we have, one way or the other, it’s all in God’s hands and whether we’re here or in the next life, God is with us – this I believe.

I passed Howard Orebaugh’s home and couldn’t help but think of all the special times we shared, as friends, with our families, as church members and I especially remembered our Christmas Eve gatherings at his home following the Christmas Eve Service. One year, I might have had an extra glass of two of the eggnog and when Mary finally got me to go home and we put our two little girls to bed, anxiously waiting for Santa to arrive. We had forgotten to do our part to help Santa and I’m telling you it was nothing short of a miracle that the little doll house that Santa bought for the girls ever got assembled.

Mrs. Rahn’s daughter had stopped by earlier in the day and after a nice talk with her about her beautiful mother I suddenly was flooded with wonderful Christmas memories about Mrs. Rahn and her house down in Takoma Park. In the “old days” Mary and I took the youth group caroling to the homes of the elderly and the shut-ins and Mrs. Rahn’s tree was always decorated in all blue lights – the old big style of lights and all blue and as we arrived with six or seven teenagers singing our glorious songs of old Mrs. Rahn’s face would light up, brighter than the tree itself and she would always be dressed so beautifully and so impeccably. We had taught the kids that as we went to each house the hostess or host of the house would have a plate of cookies and it was important to take a cookie or two at each house – lest someone’s feelings be hurt.

I was suddenly flooded with memories of all the wonderful people who have so enriched my life and the life of our church that I just knew I was the richest man on the face of the earth. Mrs. Rahn, Mrs. Whipple, the Orebaugh family, Virginia Hammes, Jean Hockman and more others than I can name all played special and beautiful roles in the world in which I have lived and they will always be with me, especially at this time of the year.

I remembered Bethel and the Bethel Christian Church 40 years ago and all the beautiful people there we had shared Christmas’s past with as well. Ewell & Evelyn Arrasmith, the Robertsons, the Dickens, the Crouches, the Thornburgs, the list went on and on. And, of course, Irene. Irene was/is one of the kindest, gentlest, most loving, gracious women I have ever known.

I remembered Oxon Hill, Mt. Rainer and all the special memories of growing up with my family. “Winter Wonderland”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, and “Jingle Bells”, suddenly I was alive with the most beautiful and wonderful memories of my life that I could imagine. My dad could never wait until Christmas morning. Invariably, he would get my brother and me out of bed and tell us that Santa had arrived and we should celebrate right now – never mind that it was midnight or two a.m. in the morning. I’ll never forget the year I rushed down to the basement and saw under the tree that Santa had brought me a set of weights. I was around 13 or 14, I don’t know. I rushed over, grabbed the weights and lifted them up over my head. I suddenly realized there was too much weight on the barbell for me to hold up and as I lost my balance I started falling backwards – into the tree. Me, the tree, and the weights all came crashing down into one terrible pile of destruction. When it was all cleaned up there were two shattered tiles and two holes in the concrete floor – right where each weighted end of the bar bell came to rest.

II. Christmas is about remembering.
Yes, we all have our special memories of Christmas don’t we? Christmas is a time when we open the door to the deepest and most special parts of our heart where the ghosts of Christmas past – some good and some bad – come and are remembered.

Christmas is about remembering.
It’s about remembering the people with whom we have been honored to walk the planet.
It’s about remembering the special times that have made us who we are.
Christmas is about recalling the days when life was simpler, somehow easier and less polluted with stuff we’d all be better without.
Christmas is about remembering all the people, all the times, all the circumstances that are so special to us.

Christmas is also about remembering the very first Christmas, the story told in the scriptures.
A poor carpenter from Galilee, Joseph and his young wife, a virgin, had made the long journey to Bethlehem to be registered for a census, as ordered by the governor and while there Mary gave birth to the Christ child, the savior, the babe in the manger who would deliver the world from poverty of the soul and who would become the center of a new faith of people who would tell his story, share his teachings and do their best to live by his teachings.

Christmas is about remembering the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and Mary and Joseph fleeing for their lives to avoid the wrath of the wicked King Herod.

III. But, Christmas is about so much more than just remembering. It’s about living, today, here, now with the people God has blessed with today. Christmas is about today – even more than it is about yesterday or long ago.

As special as our memories are, as sacred as they are, they are only prelude to realizing the gift of life we have today – here, now, in the flesh, right here, right now.

Christmas at its best is about cherishing the people sharing life with us this year, this time and this place.

We can’t go back and relive yesterday. We can’t change anything from the past.

But today is here. The people I share my life with today are the ones with whom I share the privilege of being.

Christmas is about now:
Christmas is about this place, this year, and these people
That we are honored to share our lives with.

Christmas is about finding meaning in more than recalling the beautiful story of the birth of Christ in a far away place long ago. It’s about finding meaning in the presence of Christ in our lives, in this time and in this place today.

Christmas is about coming back to the peace and the joy and love that Christ’s birth in our heart brings to our daily living.

Christmas is about taking the incarnation of Jesus and re-experiencing his birth, his place and his love in our soul for the living of the rest of our life.

Christmas is about remembering the poor, and the less fortunate that they too might enjoy a season of abundance.

Christmas is about working for peace in our world, peace between us as friends, peace between nations and peace throughout the world.

Christmas is about bringing the lion and the wolf and the lamb to lie down together in peace.

Christmas is about feeding the hungry, bringing justice to the poor and blessing one another with the love of the savior.

Christmas is about re-connecting with the humble story of the birth of mankind’s savior and knowing that our richness is not found in our things but in the blessings of God that abound in our lives.

Christmas is about so much more than just remembering. It’s about living, here and now and with a new and blessed sense of sharing life with the people we have with us today.

Closing …
This week, it came upon me with a new sense of clarity and purpose. More than “It came upon the Midnight Clear” it came upon the early evening clear, loud and clear, pure and clear, clean and clear, fresh and clear.

“Bob,” Debbie asked for the 14th time on Thursday. “I need the name of the sermon for the bulletin.” Debbie was off on Friday and she was anxious to get the bulletin done before she left Thursday. The usual Friday crunch was the Thursday crunch, at least for Debbie this past week.

“Umm, … call it “It came upon the way to Leisure World”. I could sense the total puzzlement coming from Debbie’s office. OK, OK, call it “It came upon the 6 p.m. clear”. No, that didn’t work either. Alright, just call it “So much more than remembering”. I’ll explain it later.

May this Christmas be a time when you remember all the special Christmas’s past in your life. May you conjure up the people, the places, the times, the experiences that have been indelibly etched on your memory. Memories are special and they play an important role in being recalled and cherished. The memory of the special aroma of the sugar cookies being baked in the basement of my grandparents’ Arbutus home and the brown bags and the wonderful taste of the cookies makes me gleam with joy.

At the same time, my prayer for you is that this year’s memories, this year’s experiences, the people you have with you this year, not only add to your special memories but give you new love, new joy, new peace. May you re-experience or experience for the first time the joy of coming to the manger and kneeling before the savior and may it be the most powerful call for the rest of your days.

It Came upon the Midnight Clear
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold;
‘Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From Heaven’s all gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

(A new verse to the old old song, with apologies to Edmund Sears) …

May it also come upon the daylight so clear
The glorious song that is new,
From the people walking in your midst,
To share their joy and peace and love with you.
To touch their harps of gold;
‘Peace on the earth, from long long ago,
May Joy and love abound in your heart,
As daily the sacred memories unfold.

And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.”

Our Newsletters will be posted shortly

Bob Chance — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 16:00:38 +0000

We are still putting the finishing touches on our new site. Our newsletters will be posted soon.

Guiding Our Children Through The Storms Of Life

Bob Chance — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 03:00:00 +0000

Dr. D. Robert Chance, Senior Minister

Dedicated to Christian Aguilar on the day of his dedication

In the storms of life for this child and for all children and our young people the Lord will be there to watch over them, to protect them and to take through the storms of life, we and others will be with them and we will give them the foundation to learn how to navigate life’s storms.

Mark 4:35-41

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?"

39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

40 He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

41 They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" NIV

It was a terrible storm. A hurricane moved in from the Bahamas. A cold front moved in from Canada. A warm front moved in from the Great Lakes to the west. All three weather movements converged on the coast of New England in the last few days of October 1991. Several years later Sebastian Junger called it “The Perfect Storm”. No storm is good, but measured by other storms the storm of October 1991 in New England stands as the ultimate symbol of the destruction of a storm. For more than 48 hours the storm battered the New England coast with winds of 200 miles an hour and waves that measured up to 90 feet. I can’t even imagine seeing a 90-foot wave.

Since then we have come to face many other hurricanes that have wreaked havoc on one part of the world or another. There was the Tsunami of several years ago and last years Hurricane Katrina. Both brought terrible devastation in their wake.

It was during a storm on the Sea of Galilee that Jesus gave his disciples the fortitude and faith to face later storms that would come into their lives. Mark relates the story in today’s text. The Sea of Galilee is a prime target for the most ferocious storms we can imagine. The story in today’s scripture certainly illustrates God’s power over nature but much more importantly it gives us insight into God’s presence with us in the midst of life’s storms – be they physical in nature or more importantly spiritual or emotional. The continuing lesson for us that God is always with us as we face storms in our own personal lives. In the context of today’s Blessing of a little baby I saw the story of Jesus with his disciples in a raging storm on the Sea of Galilee in a whole new light.

So here we stand with tiny Christian Aguilar today. What a special day, the day of his dedication. Loving parents, doting grandparents, dedicated family and a church full of great friends and Christian family surround him.

We all share one thing in common today. We all want the best for little Christian. We all want him to succeed in life. We all want him to be happy. We all want him to achieve the “Vulcan dream” – “Live Long and Prosper”. We all want him to live a long and blessed life. Of course without much thought we all want this young baby and all the little people in our midst today to have a long and good life without problems, without deviation from the right path and the good path. We all want him to have the best.

Could we but make it so, no doubt we would. But, we can’t make it so, and it probably isn’t even the best for him anyway. A life without wind and storm is a life without growth and depth. A life without problems isn’t the dream life we might think it is – it’s a life of boredom and superficiality. A life without stress is a life that will never achieve its maximum strength. The better prayer for us to share in common for all the children of our lives is that in the midst of their storms and struggles, hurts and losses they will know that Jesus is with them, that they have him to calm the waves and guide them through the storm.

No one can the storms of life. Our goodness or our faith or our desire cannot insulate either us or our children from the common storms of life. Tragic events come into our lives regardless of who we are. And they sometimes strike suddenly.

I. Into every life there will be storms, periods of loss, risk of life and wind and wave that will threaten to capsize our boats.

Here we sit this little baby today. I remember sitting with my own little children when they first came into my life. Little did I know how quickly they would grow up. I wanted the best for them. I wanted them to avoid the hurts and sorrows I had experienced in my life. I wanted them to feel loved and valued and appreciated more than I could possibly express in my words. I wanted them to know how much they meant to me. I wanted them to know how much I loved them. I wanted them to feel protected and safe and always in good hands. I wanted them to love me more than I could ever express in words.

Do you who are parents know the feeling? I’m sure you do. We all want the best for our children. We all want to shield them from hurts and bruises and falls and sorrows in life. We all want to protect them from harm’s way. We all want to shield them from the storms of life and the winds that otherwise blow them far from the shore. We all want to love our children and shield them life’s problems and sorrows and losses.

Yet, storms do come into our children’s lives. Storms in the form of falls and bruises, hurts and grief. Storms from the way others will treat them. Storms in the form of tears that will inevitable flow down their cheeks. Storms from when they have made us angry and we either punished them appropriately or struck out them in frustration and with our own human frailties and failures.

Life is full of storms for all of us. Little Christian will face his share of them, maybe even more than his share – that’s not for us to say or even know. But one way or the other this little guy will have times in life when the failures, the problems, the hurts, the losses, the pains of life come to his doorstep.

At first life’s storms are relatively small but the older we become and the more we live the stronger the storms become. That’s the way it is. Now that my own children are raised and happily raising their own families and I couldn’t be more proud of them I want to protect my grandchildren from life’s storms. As my first grandson prepares to go off and go to college I find myself wanting to go with him and help look after him. I’m sure that’s the last thing he wants. I told him, half jokingly, “Hey bud, tell your roommate ‘bad news - your grandpa is coming with you’, ‘good news – he’s a pretty cool guy’”. Drew is having none of it of course. But with all my heart and soul I wish I could help shield and protect him from some of what I know is coming in the way of cold fronts and storms.

But, I can’t do it. I couldn’t do it for his mom; I won’t be able to do it for him. With all my experience, and all my love and all my faith, I can’t stop anyone I love; no matter how much I love them from the storms of life. That’s the way it is. Storms are a part of life.

Right now, Mandy and Sergio know they won’t be able to shield little Christian from the storms of life – but they will hope and try. They will expend tremendous amounts of life’s precious blood trying. In the end, we can shield our children from some of life’s storms, some of life’s unnecessary pain but when is all and said and done they will have to face their own storms in life, all their lives, throughout their lives; no exceptions, no pardons, no passes. That’s the way it is.

II. Without such storms, without such wind life will be shallow, simplistic, and without room to grow beyond who we would be otherwise.

But we all know that life without storm is life not worth living. We all know that we can grow and prosper through our storms. We don’t want them, we don’t invite them, we try to avid every one of them we can but without storms, without problems, without wind and rain there isn’t a prayer our life will have any degree of depth or character.

Life’s storms build our character.
Life’s storms teach us essential lessons we probably can’t learn without.

From the moment we are born when the stress and “storm” of coming from the comfort and security of our mother’s womb we begin to experience the benefits of stress in life. Without the stress of birth we could never open our lungs to breathe. To breathe for the first time we have to cry out in the pain of coming into this old world. It is the first cry of what will be a lifetime of cries – and we will continue to learn and grow through our cries and pains of life.

The reality of life is that our children, this child, my children, my grandchildren, your children, your grandchildren, the children we love so dearly everywhere will have to face storms of wind and rain throughout their lives.

While we do not desire them let alone seek them the reality of life is that is through the storms of life that most of us have the invitation to grow stronger. The old adage of the wind high atop the mountaintop making for strong trees is not without truth.

Life’s storms teach us valuable lessons.
Life’s storms teach us how to survive.
Life’s storms teach us what truly matters in life.
Life’s storms teach us that we are not God, we are not in charge.
Life’s storms teach us that we are vulnerable and that it is being vulnerable that we often find life’s deepest meaning and truths.
Life’s storms teach us that we cannot make it on our own, only when we learn to look to God and seek his presence and his strength can we make it through the long dark night of the soul.
Life’s storms teach us to call upon each other and to be there for each other and in so doing we may just gain the strength to last each new storm that comes our way.

Life’s storms will be with us from the day we are born until the day we die. It is in learning how to survive them that we learn to live.

III. In the midst of all of life’s winds and storm the Lord is there to guide us, to protect, to watch over us and most of all to give us strength to sail through the long dark night of the soul.

There are three lessons I want to suggest for today. There are three lessons that I want these young parents to take home with them and for all of us to take home with us as we do our best to weather the storms of our own lives and the storms that will inevitably come into this little child’s life.

First, we cannot survive on our own. We need God.

The first lesson of Jesus with his disciples on the stormy Sea of Galilee that dark and brutal night of long ago is that He was with them. They were not alone. They were not left by themselves. God is always with us in the midst of life’s perfect storms – as well as life’s imperfect storms.
God will always be with this young child. He is always with my children. He is always with my grandchildren. I made a conscious effort to teach my children that God would always be there with them, for them, and beside them to help through life’s storms. I knew that as much as I would like I wouldn’t be able to protect from all of life’s storms. I knew that some day, as much as I didn’t like the thought of it I wouldn’t be around for them, either through incapacity or eventually my own death I couldn’t be there for them. So I wanted them to know that God would always be there with them. This is the first lesson we must remember for ourselves and we must teach our children.

“We are not alone in the storms of life – Jesus is with us – just as he was with his disciples on the Sea of Galilee”.

Second, we are there for each other. We need each other.

The second lesson is that just as the disciples were there for each other on that stormy night in the Sea of Galilee we are to be with each other in the storms of each other’s lives. No more, no less, we are to be with each other in life’s storms – anticipated and unanticipated. In the last few weeks I have stood in a funeral home with the family of young man killed in a tragic car accident. I have stood in the cemetery with a family that lost their beloved mother after a long and terrible bout of illness. I have been with a man who was despondent over the circumstances of life and feels lonely and at a loss without his life long friend and wife. The circumstances are endless. The point is the same. We can be with each other in the midst of life’s storms and although we can’t still the storm as Jesus did just being with each through the storm brings great comfort and hope.

The third lesson is that while we cannot prevent life’s storms from entering our own lives, let alone our children’s lives we can equip them to face the terrible storms of life.
Bring them to church.
Teach them about God.
Give them a personal relationship with Jesus.
Give them a spiritual base to build the rest of their lives.
Give them the church – the family of God where they will always have others to love them and to help them.
Teach them to be there for others, to reach out and to give to others the love and strength to get through their storms in life.

We can’t save Christian from the storms of life – but we can sure as heck teach him how to survive them!

Closing

The Buzzard, The Bat and the Bumble Bee

The Buzzard -
If you put a Buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner.

The reason is that a Buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

**********************************************************
The Bat -
The ordinary Bat that flies around at night, a remarkably nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

************************************************************
The Bumble Bee -
A Bumble Bee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it
is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

***************************************************************
People -
In many ways, we are like the Buzzard, the Bat, and the Bumble Bee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up.

***************************************************************

GOD IS ONLY A PRAYER AWAY

Storms will come into this little child’s life. No way around it. In the arena we call life the scriptures teach us three essential truths about living through the storms of life. They are:
1. Jesus is with us through all of life’s storms. Call on him.
2. We are to be with each other through all of life’s storms. We are here for each other.
3. Prepare ourselves, and teach our children how to live through life’s storms.

In the storms of life for this child and for all children and our young people the Lord will be there to watch over them, to protect them and to take through the storms of life, we and others will be with them and we will give them the foundation to learn how to navigate life’s storms.

Hungers of the Heart - A Closer Walk With God [4th in 7 part series]

Bob Chance — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 15:00:00 +0000

Dr. D. Robert Chance, Senior Minister

Hungers of the heart — growing closer in our daily walk with God. Today I speak of one of the most basic and fundamental hungers that we all feel — the need to connect — both to God and our fellow man.

When I was twenty and one I began my life-time in the ministry. One of the first of many cultural phenomena I observed in rural Bethel, Kentucky was the gathering of men down at Crouch’s General Store. Every day, throughout the day men would come and sit around the old pot bellied stove and talk about any number of things that were common to farmers and workers swap knives and tell tall tales. It went on throughout the day. During the summer when the stove was taken down and put away in the far back storage area of the store the men would sit and visit around an invisible stove — just as if the old stove was still there. Of course, I fit right and I loved to join and be a part (albeit a foreign alien from another world) of the gatherings as well.

Fast forward 40 years and I find it so funny that if I walk into McDonalds, first thing in the morning there will be a gathering of men, mostly older, retired men sitting at a table or two drinking coffee and swapping tales. It is absolutely hilarious to me, but not without significance. With all our cultural sophistication and 40 years removed the only thing missing is the pot-bellied stove.

During the seven Sundays of Lent and Easter I am turning our attention to what I am calling “Seven Hungers of the Heart”. They aren’t the only hungers of the heart but they are seven we all share in common.

On the first Sunday of Lent I spoke of the hunger of the heart to be closer to God. It’s important for us to get out of the daily traffic jams of life and spend some quiet time with our maker. We all hunger to renew and refresh our relationship with God.

On the second Sunday of Lent I spoke of the hunger of the heart to find a deeper purpose for our life than the just the daily struggle to survive.

On the third Sunday of Lent we turned our attention toward the hunger to have something to believe in beyond ourselves.

Indeed, we all hunger to be closer to God, to have purpose in life, and to believe in something beyond ourselves. Today, we turn toward the fourth hunger of the heart —

The hunger to connect in deeper ways with both God and with each other.

Hungers of the Heart — The hunger to connect!

I. Introduction :

Country singer, Vern Gosdin does a hauntingly beautiful song called “Chiseled in Stone”. The words go like this.

You ran cryin’ to the bedroom
I ran off to the bar,
Another piece of heaven gone to hell,
the words we spoke in anger
just tore my world apart,
And I sat there feeling sorry for myself.

Then that old man sat down beside me
and looked me in the eye,
and said “Son, I know what you’re going through,
You ought to get down on your knees
and thank your lucky stars that you got someone to go home to.”

(Chorus)
You don’t know about lonely,
Or how long nights can be,
Till you lived through the story
That’s still livin’ in me,
And you don’t know about sadness
’til you faced life alone,
You don’t know about lonely
’til it’s chiseled in stone.

So I brought these pretty flowers
hoping you would understand
sometimes a man is such a fool,
Those golden words of wisdom
from the heart of that old man,
showed me I ain’t nothing without you.

You don’t know about lonely,
Or how long nights can be,
Till you lived through the story
that old man just told me,
And you don’t know about sadness
’til you faced life alone,
You don’t know about lonely
’til it’s chiseled in stone.
You don’t know about lonely,
’til it’s chiseled in stone.
A great saint once said to God: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.”

We all hunger to connect.
We hunger to connect with God and we hunger to connect with other people.
We hunger not just to connect as in “connecting the dots” but as in connecting in deeper and more significant ways than just ships passing in the night.
Today, I will speak of our common hunger to connect in deep and significant ways, both with God and with each other through story. I hope you will recognize and respond to your own deep need to connect with others and with God and I hope you will think about what that says to us about what we should be doing in the church to help people find connections, both with God and with each other.

II. While we may experience it to different degrees and in different ways we all need to connect with others. It’s in our DNA!

We all share the hunger to connect.

On the one hand some people never like playing alone. They always need to be around other people.
Turned loose to play if there weren’t other people around them, they will go out and find them. They organize people, turn them into teams, gather them together, and always seem to enjoy being around other people.
They like being with people.

On the other hand some people seem to not need to be with other people in such a strong way. They like playing alone. Turned loose to play they will nearly always chose to play by themselves. My brother, Steve could play alone for hours on hours when we were growing up. He loved to play with bottle caps on the kitchen floor. He loved to play all by himself.

As different as we all still need to connect. Although some of us like to play alone and others of us like to play with others we all share the common hunger to connect. We all have the need to connect, though not all to the same degree or in the same way.

It’s in our DNA. Even those among who don’t know it, and don’t live it out hunger for connections. Ultimately, we all need to relate to others. Ultimately, we all need to relate to the one who is the creator and sustainer of life itself — our Father in heaven.

You can see in a hundred ways.
We join clubs.
We become part of teams.
We look for special friends to be with.
We form friendships, yearning to connect with someone beyond ourselves.
We learn first in family the art of connection preparing to later leave the family and strike out in life for ourselves ever expanding our connections with others.

There is a large and ancient member of the crocodile family that lives in northern Australia. The Aussies called them “Freshies”. They live in the Billabong sanctuary. I watched an absolutely marvelous show about them this week on the Science Channel.

They go back some four million years. They are essentially solitary creatures of the ever expanding and receding waters of the wetlands. They thrive on living solitary and lonely existence, never really needing community life among their own kind. Except when the mating season comes they are wily, solitary, creatures that will eat their own kind as well as anything else that moves in their territorial waters.

The Freshie is an ambush hunter, lying motionless in shallow water near the water’s edge for small creatures to venture close. It will then snap its head sideways with a lightening-fast motion, capturing fish or insect in its sharp teeth. During the dry season they venture into the grasslands in search of food. The female does not protect her nest during incubation and many eggs are taken. An early wet season can cause flooding of the nest site drowning of the embryos. One of a hundred young will survive. They are wild and dangerous creatures who have little, if any need to connect with one another, let alone any other species.

We are different from the freshwater crocodiles of the Billabong Sanctuary.
We are not like crocodiles.
We need to connect with others of our own kind.
We cannot live unto ourselves.
We cannot live apart from one another.

We feel the need to connect — both with God and with man.

After one of my sermons several weeks ago Galen Queen made the insightful comment to me that companionship is the purpose of our life. I don’t know about that but Galen was certainly correct in lifting up the importance of companionship as a hunger of the human heart. Companionship is another way of saying “connection”.

III. Living disconnected is sad and unnecessary.

Some people never understood the deep need to connect with others or with God.
They seem to like to live alone.
Rather than nurturing their hunger to connect they actually nurture being alone.

Some people withdrew unto themselves.
The more they disconnect from others and from God the more they fail to even recognize, let alone nurture being with others.

Inevitably their world becomes smaller and smaller.
It’s always sad. They don’t need to live unto themselves.
They don’t need to be alone all the time.

The price of disconnecting and living alone is high.
When we don’t recognize and respect and nurture the fundamental hunger of the human heart to connect with others, both man and God we pay a heavy price.

The results of not feeding the hunger to connect can be terrible.

Dropped calls, unable to complete the conversation with other human beings.

Loneliness to the point where we get so used to being alone we no longer even recognize our need for others.

Isolation, even from the ones we love and who love us.

Searching in all the wrong places for love that nurtures and sustains. Call it the “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” syndrome. “Looking For Mr. Goodbar” is one of the saddest and most depressing movies ever made. It is about a woman who looks for love in all the wrong places and in the end loses her life because of her inability to connect with good people, the right kind of people. It’s a sad metaphor about those who can’t connect with others or with God.

Fragmented communities where people become much more like the freshwater crocs — living alone and isolated unable to thrive where others of our own species exist.

Angry, lonely people living in isolation, no longer even aware of our need for others.

When we don’t recognize or feed the hunger to connect with others we shrivel and become something less than we were ever meant to be or could be.

IV. Living a connected life is just the opposite of a disconnected lonely life — it is a life full of friendship and companionship that brings us great joy.

I was with an elderly lady this past week who reflects such a wonderful beauty of spirit and depth of life that I found being around her sheer joy.
Her hair is thin and barely covers her head.
Once it may have been thick and covered her head but that day is long gone.
One strong she now depends on a cane to get around. She first noticed her flagging strength to stand and balance by holding on to tables and walls for longer and longer periods of time.
She is still strong of spirit and character.
She is articulate and quick to speak to issues with unusual insight and perception.

When asked from where your strength and spirit comes from she replies “I was and remain an activist. When you raise six children you had better speak with clarity and with strength, lest your children not hear and respect you.

She knows all about the hunger to connect.
She knows all about being around and relating, both to other people and to God.
Because she honors that hunger to connect she is comfortable around others and she is lively to be around.

This beautiful lady named Florence, old of body but young of heart is a joy to be around and to talk with, in no small part because she has recognized and responded to the hunger in her own heart to connect. When you are with Florence she connects with you and invites you to connect with her.

Recognizing the importance of both connecting and being connected guides and shapes of much of what we should be doing in the
church and within our individual lives.

Do you :
Do you think we in the Christian community have anything to say about connecting with each other and with God? I do!
Do you think we in the Christian community have anything to offer each other for recognizing, respecting and responding to this most fundamental of hungers of the human heart? I do?
Do you think we should designing our ministry around the hunger of the heart to connect–Both with God and with man? I do!

A very important part of the mission of the church is to help people connect — both with God and with each other.
A very important part of the mission of the church is to help people from withdrawing into themselves.
A very important part of the mission of the church is connecting us with God and with one another.

Most importantly, the church is called to teach and lead people to know that the most basic aspect to connect is our need to connect with the source of it all — God.
Our first task is to connect people with God.

Our most basic mission is help people recognize and feed the hunger in their own heart to connect with God.
* We do that by coming together in community.
* We do that by sharing in communion with one another.
* We do that by coming to worship together each week —

Singing and praying and listening and sharing together in the common quest to know and walk with God.

* We do that by working together to serve one another and to help one another through life together. The NATIONWIDE commercial is right — life comes at us fast — we need one another to face it.
* We do that by learning what true servant hood means and how we ultimately satisfy our own needs by responding to the needs of others — especially the dis-enfranchised, the unfortunate, the hurting and the lonely.
* We do that by learning to find our lives we have to lose them.

Florence reminded me the joy and the consequences of a life lived in connection with others and with God.

Closing

People however different share the fundamental hunger of the human heart to connect both with God and with other human beings. Even those among us who need to be around others less than others still need to connect.

People who don’t nourish the hunger of their heart to connect live with the sad and tragic consequences of living apart from others.
It can be done, but it isn’t necessary and it isn’t fulfilling.
When we recognize and respect our hunger to connect, both with God and with others we not only experience the joy of living a connected life but we help people feed the hunger to connect.

A woman comes to a well in Samaria to draw water. Without water she and her family cannot live. She knows that. While at the well she meets and connects with a carpenter from Galilee. Of course He is not JUST a carpenter. He is the son of God.

He is he son of man. While sitting by the well that day Jesus taught the woman at the well what she really thirsted for — connection with God. He gave her more just the water to quench her earthly thirst — he gave her the water of life to quench her soul.

What about you? Are you thirsty? Do you hunger to connect? We can help you with that thirst. We can help you with that hunger.

One of the wireless cell phone carries uses the image of more bars than any other carrier to enable its customers to be connected. “More bars mean more connections”.

What a great image for the church. Our mission is to help people connect, both to God and to one another. More bars for more connection.

May the hunger to connect with others and ultimately with God in your own heart be recognized and honored. Dropped calls are a shame. Being connected gives you life.

Amen.

Hungers of the Heart - Something To Believe In [3rd in 7 part series]

Bob Chance — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 15:00:00 +0000

Dr. D. Robert Chance, Senior Minister

Hungers of the heart — growing closer in our daily walk with God. Today I speak of one of the most basic and fundamental hungers that we all feel — the need to believe in something beyond ourselves.

We all hunger for a closer walk with God.
We all hunger for a greater purpose for our life than day to day existence.
We all hunger for something to believe in beyond ourselves or the superficial things in life.
We all hunger for deeper connections — both with man and with people.
We all hunger healing for the hurts and aches of the heart.
We all hunger for peace and security.
We all hunger for certainty.

During the rest of the Sundays of Lent I invite you to turn toward the hungers of the heart that we all share in common. I believe that the heart hungers for, yearns for these fundamental needs that we all
feel. I know I certainly have each of these fundamental hungers of the heart. I know that as I have spent a life time being close to people, both inside the church and beyond the walls of the church that everyone I have ever known feels these hungers — to one degree or another.

God knows the hungers of our heart. God became one of us that he might know first hand those very hungers that we feel. Jesus hungered as we hunger. He hurt as we hurt. He felt as we felt. But, because he was God’s son, because he was the incarnation of God he rose above those hungers and he gives to all who walk with him, to all who know him, to all who love him and follow him the healing touch to our heart’s hungers. The more we get to know him, the more we learn to love him, the closer we walk with him on the daily roads of our life, the more our heart’s hungers are answered. To walk with Jesus is to have our hungers fed.

On the first Sunday of Lent I spoke of the hunger of the heart to be closer to God. I spoke of the importance of getting out of the daily traffic jams of life and spending some quiet time with our maker and renewing and refreshing our relationship with him. Last Sunday I spoke of the hunger of the heart to have a deeper meaning and purpose in our life than the daily struggle to survive. The more we align our purpose in life with God’s purposes the more our heart feels satisfied.

Today, we turn toward a third of the seven hungers of the heart — the hunger to have something to believe in beyond ourselves and much deeper than the day to day “little” things that we believe in but are not enough to sustain us.

Hungers of the Heart — Something greater and deeper to believe in.

BON JOVI LYRICS

“Something To Believe In”

I lost all faith in my God, in his religion too
I told the angels they could sing their songs to someone new
I lost all trust in my friends
I watched my heart turn to stone
I thought that I was left to walk this wicked world alone

Tonight I’ll dust myself off
Tonight I’ll suck my gut in
I’ll face the night and I’ll pretend
I got something to believe in

And I had lost touch with reason
I watched life criticize the truth
Been waiting for a miracle
I know you have too

Though I know I won’t win
I’ll take this one on the chin
We’ll raise a toast and I’ll pretend
I got something to believe in

If I don’t believe in Jesus, how can I believe the Pope
If I don’t believe in heroin, how can I believe in dope
If there’s nothing but survival, how can I believe in sin
In a world that gives you nothing
We need something to believe in

If I don’t believe in Jesus, how can I believe the Pope
If I don’t believe in heroin, how can I believe in dope
If there’s nothing but survival, how can I believe in sin
In a world that gives you nothing
We need something to believe in
Charles Spurgeon, the great English evangelist once said “Never preach your doubts — men have enough of their own”. So it is.

We all hunger for something beyond doubts,
Beyond superficiality,
Beyond ourselves,

Beyond the lesser things that while we believe in them we somehow know deep down in our hearts are not enough to sustain over the long haul of living.

I. We all believe in something — it’s just that if the something is less than God it will be never be enough.

What can we believe in today?

Our government?
Yeah, right. Patriotic soul that I am I cannot believe in government or even nation as the the ultimate belief upon which I lay my very soul.

Creed?
No, we discovered a long time ago that no creed is worthy of my ultimate belief. Creeds are man’s poor attempt at reflecting the clarity of truth in the murkiness of man’s thoughts and even murkier words with which our thoughts are communicated. No, creed is a poor receipent of our ultimate belief.

Religion?
I don’t think so. It is religion that has ultimately brought more death, more pain, more savagery upon the face of the earth than even nation or survival. Crusades, counter crusades, slaughter of the innocents, blood letting without end have been carried in the name of religion. No, religion is necessary but it is not the final end of our belief.

People? Family? Friends?
When the day comes that your ultimate belief in life is family or friends or people you will inevitably discover at day’s end that you will come up short. I love my family, I love my friends, heck, for the most part I love people — but sooner or later, we move, or we die, or we part company. No, people can’t be the ultimate basis of our belief in life.

II. Yet, we all need something to believe in for our heart to feel satisfied.

We all need :

We all need need something to believe in beyond ourself.

We all need something to believe in more lasting than the bricks and mortar of institutions.

We all need something to believe truly worthy of heart and soul.

We all need something to believe in to sustain us through the hard and painful times of life.

We all need something to believe in to which we can commit our very self.

We all need something to believe in that will provide a beacon of light for us to follow when the long night of the darkness of the soul sets in upon us — as it surely will throughout our life.

There is a real and growing crisis of unbelief in our society today.

There has been too much betrayal for us not
to notice.

There is much unbelief.

There is much disbelief.

There is a widening stream of shallowness in and under and over and throughout society.

There is a lack of something and someone for people to believe in with all their heart and soul today that leaves many hungering for someone and something to truly place their faith in.

Without believing in something and someone beyond ourselves we :

Fail to live up to our calling in life.

Become shallow and silly people.

Become cynical and disbelieving people.

Bitter and saddened people.

III. As we come closer to God in our life we gain something and indeed someone in whom we can believe. Belief in a loving and forgiving and caring God is ultimately what defines and sustains us.

Jesus said, “you believe in God, believe also in me”.

It was their belief in Jesus that redirected Peter and James and John’s lives.
It was her belief in Jesus that reshaped the life of the Samaritan women at the well.
It was his belief on the cross that gave eternal life to the thief on the cross.
It was his belief in Jesus that gave new life to Paul and he ended up taking that belief to the very ends of the world — that others might believe in Him as well.

It is our belief in Jesus that shapes us, guides us, defines our very being. Jenny Lewis, the young songwriter whose album inspired this series of sermons sings that “we become what we love”. I would say that in a very real sense we also become “what we believe in”. Believe in nothing we become nothing. Believe in evil and become evil. Believe in God and in man’s goodness and become people of goodness.

It is our belief in Jesus that sets the thermostats for our life.

Believing in Jesus sets the tone for our life.
Believing in Jesus gives warmth to life on the bitter cold nights of life’s winters.
Believing in Jesus sets the temperature of our soul.

It is our belief in Jesus that sustains us through the hurts, the pains, the losses of life.

When we believe in God we ultimately gain the strength to live our life with a sense of faith and victory. It’s not that we don’t doubt. We do. But it’s that our belief in God gives us strength when we are weak and there is no strength in ourselves or in those we love.

It’s not that we don’t hurt like those who don’t believe — we do — but our belief in God helps to open us up to His healing touch.

When we believe in Jesus we believe in a God who :

Teaches us love, above hate.
Teaches us to give, rather than to just take.
Shows us how to be servants, rather than kings or queens.
Demands that we learn how to forgive others as we have been forgiven by him.

Somehow our very belief in God and Christ becomes the force that nurtures us, guides us, sustains us and gives meaning to life itself for us.

Our church has certain fundamental beliefs. Just as you hunger for something beyond yourself to believe in and what you believe in begins to shape and define you we are shaped and defined in by we believe in.

We believe in each person’s right to believe for themselves — and so we have no creed but Christ.
We believe in all churches valuing and respecting that there are many approaches to faith and so Christian unity as our polar star.
We believe in the priesthood of all believers and so each member is expected to care for, pray for and be a priest to other members.
We believe in the primacy of the Bible as our guide and so we do our very best to teach and follow biblical principles.
We believe in each congregation managing it’s own life and so we are congregational.

Just as your beliefs shape you our beliefs shape us.

The beliefs that have filled the hungers of my own heart have shaped and guided me throughout my life.

I believe in a God who loves and calls me to grow in my ability to love.
I believe in a God who forgives and calls me to forgive as I have been forgiven.
I believe in a God who leads me in my daily life.
I believe in a God who blesses me and wants me to be a blessing to others.
I believe in a God who is best understood in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and who wants me to do as he did and be as he called me to be.

I believe in the church.
I know the church to be flawed — as I am flawed but it is the best we can do and be.
I believe in the church being the hub of the wheel in my life.
I believe in being commmited to the church with my time, my gifts, my money and most of all my heart.
I believe in worship as the place to celebrate God’s presence in my life and be challenged to become a better person.
I believe in giving and serving through the church.
I believe in being a part of the church as community.

We all have a fundamental hunger in our heart to believe in something beyond ourselves.
What do you believe in?

Closing,

I did a “Google” on the words “something to believe in”. In 6.6 seconds I got back 278,000,000.00 hits. Do you think we might be on to something here? Duh?

So what do you believe in?

Yourself — your God is too small.
Other people — you will be ultimately disappointed — or one day left alone.
Systems — all systems ultimately are destined to fail.
Nation - we should all love our country and be grateful to be Americans but we cannot worship nation.

Anything you name or I name other than God will not and cannot

Sustain us when we are empty :
Guide us when we are lost :
Shape us beyond ourselves:
Love us into becoming more loving :
Save us from empty and hollow living.

We all share a fundamental hunger of the heart to believe in something beyond ourself, something greater than idea man ever conceived, someone to love us and care for us, and something and someone to define who we are — and the ultimate satisfaction to that hunger is found in God.

May you have a deep and abiding faith in God and in Jesus in order to sustain you through all the days of your life.

May you help others find a deep and abiding faith in God and Jesus to sustain them through all the days of their life.

And may God bless you as you find satisfaction for the great hungers of your heart.

Amen

Hungers of the Heart - Finding Purpose in Your Life [2nd in 7 part series]

Bob Chance — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 15:00:00 +0000

Dr. D. Robert Chance, Senior Minister

Hungers of the heart — growing closer in our daily walk with God. Today I speak of one of the most basic and fundamental hungers that we all feel — the need to have a deeper and more lasting sense of purpose in our lives.

Jenny Lewis sings songs from her heart. She is young, in her late 20’s or early 30’s and her music while beautiful betrays a person who recognizes the shallow, empty, materialistic nature of her life and she hungers for more. She isn’t quite sure what she believes or doesn’t believe about God but her music clearly reveals a deep hunger of the soul for a closer connection with God. In one of her songs she sings of being born secular and remaining disillusioned. There is sadness in her music as she delves into themes of loneliness, anger, disillusionment and frustration. Her music is all the more painful because she is deeply insightful and catches beautifully the soul search not only of her generation but of most of us in the modern world.

After listening to a few segments of the music last week at the St. Paul’s breakfast meeting I asked our elders and deacons to think of one thing they see in the hungers of the hearts of the people they know. After a moment of silence our elders and deacons produced an insightful list of the things we all see people hungering after — and to be quite honest about it we hunger for as well.

We all hunger for acceptance.
We all hunger for meaning.
We all hunger for love.
We all hunger for forgiveness.
We all hunger for something to believe in beyond ourselves or beyond the superficial things of our lives.
We all hunger for certainty.
We all hunger for peace and security.

Last week, on the first Sunday of Lent I spoke of these 40 days being a great time to come closer to God in our daily walk. I spoke of the importance of getting out of the daily traffic jams of life and spending some quiet time with our maker and renewing and refreshing our relationship with him. During the rest of the Sundays of Lent I am going to turn us toward one of the many hungers of the heart and in recognizing and responding to the fundamental hungers of our own hearts hope that we can grow closer to God.

Hungers of the heart — growing closer in our daily walk with God. Today I speak of one of the most basic and fundamental hungers that we all feel — the need to have a deeper and more lasting sense of purpose in our lives.

I. We need something more in life.

Purpose in life — we all want to feel some real purpose in life.

We all feel our lives mean something.

Victor Frankl was one of the great theologians and psychiatrist of the modern world. I had the great privilege of hearing him in person many years ago here in Washington. Frankl was a young Jewish man who was imprisoned in Auschwitz. He was a survivor of the Nazi death camps. He would later write what I consider to be one of the great books of life “Man’s Search for Meaning”. Frankl maintained that having survived the holocaust and studying man for years he reached the conclusion that Freud was wrong. Freud said that the most basic drive of all people is sex. Frankl said, “No, the most basic drive of all people is to find meaning in life.
He said that when men and women were in the Nazi concentration camps all life was eventually reduced to its most basic drive. As he watched men grapple and strive and climb over one another to catch a cock roach to have something to eat he began to realize that the one thing that enabled someone to survive was to feel some reason to live, some purpose in surviving, and some reason to live.

Frankl spent his whole life on discovering, exploring, and writing about how the search for meaning was the one common fundamental drive of life. After reading his work for the first time I became convinced. It is our search for meaning in life — purpose in life that we all share in common.

I want to feel as if my life has some purpose.
I want to think that I have lived for some reason.
I need to find a deeper and more lasting purpose in my life so that when I come to the end of my life someone will feel, someone will know “Bob Chance was here”.

In much the same way during World War II soldiers facing the brutal realities of war, of facing death in terrible and gruesome ways, of seeing their friends blown apart or gassed to death or writing in death upon the beaches of one place or another found common meaning, common hope, common humor in the famous saying scratched upon crude wooden signs, painted on rocks, and left throughout the world wherever American soldiers fought and died — “Kilroy was here”. I believe the signs reflect the deep and fundamental need to feel purpose in our lives. We are here. We were here. And we count for something!

II. We all hunger for purpose in life but much of what we confuse with purpose comes up hollow sooner or later.

We spend our whole lives in the daily minutia of life and deep down in our gut we know the daily minutia isn’t enough. We want more. We want to count for something.

Jenny Lewis talks of turning 30 and thinking that there has to be more in life. Thirty is a symbol of the passing of time. At thirty we realize we’re getting older. It’s a turning point. At thirty we’re much more than just one year older than twenty-nine. The more time passes the more we hunger for meaning.

When we’re young life’s purpose is focused on getting through the hoops of growing up. Let’s see, we need to learn the basic skills of being a man or being a woman. We go to grade one and we focus on getting to grade two. We go to grade two and we’re focused on getting to grade three and to having fun with our friends. Life is hopefully secure. We enjoy whatever the things of life are that we have or want and life just sort of unfolds for us. At some point we grow into Junior High School and then High School and life’s purpose begins to take on deeper meanings than the backyard basketball game or the weekend campout or the trip to Chucky Cheese. Most of us begin to confuse life’s purpose with life’s career that we point ourselves toward. There was a time when I thought life’s purpose was doing ministry. There was a time when life’s purpose was an overlay with being the minister of Aspen Hill Christian Church. As we grow in life we begin to realize that much of what we spend our life on isn’t the same as our purpose in life.

What we do is important — but it isn’t our purpose in life. If we confuse our purpose in life with what we do life will cease to have purpose when we stop doing what we do.
Your purpose in life isn’t your career. Ben Arrelano was a member here twenty five, thirty years ago. He and his wife Barbara were wonderful people. Ben was in the Army. He was a sociologist. One time Ben and I were talking about how some people love the military so much they never really found their place when they retire. Ben told me that one of the things the military knows about and tries to help people with is getting on in life after they leave the military. If you love your career so much you can’t live outside of it you will find life very hard, very lonely, and very purposeless after you retire.

Accumulating things in life isn’t our purpose either. Things are nice. I like things. I want things. I always wanted to be able to give my children the cool things of life. There is nothing wrong with things.

There is something wrong, something terribly wrong if we let things become the purpose of our lives. Things are so hollow. Things are so transitory. They rust, they break, they get lost, they get stolen, and they rot. Anyone who dedicates their purpose in life to having things will always feel empty and hollow sooner or later. Being a millionaire might be a cool feeling but it’s not your purpose in life.

A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree. Proverbs 11:28

There are lots of things we confuse with our purpose in life. Some people think having fun is life’s purpose. Does it sound strange to say “having fun gets old — if that’s all we do?” I don’t think so. Commander Cody (now there’s a musician I’ll bet our very wonderful Choir Director doesn’t listen to much) sings a song called “No such thing as too much fun”. Yes there is. If having fun, if having a good time is our purpose in life we live a shallow and pretty meaningless life. “Wasting away in Margarita Ville” may be a cool song by Jimmy Buffet but sooner or later “wasting away in Margarita Ville” gets pretty boring.

We all hunger for deeper purpose in life.
We need to feel our lives “count” for something more.
We all need to have a sense of purpose that goes deeper than

: career or
: pleasure, or
: accumulating, or
: having a beautiful home, or
: driving a Rolls Royce or a BMW Seven Series.

Good things all — I don’t disparage them — I disparage letting the lesser things in life become our purpose in life.

III. The deepest meaning in our lives, the most lasting purpose in our lives, and the best answer to our hunger for purpose is found in what Jesus Christ told us.

“Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: �If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?’”.

There you have it.
Our purpose in life is to find our soul.
What does that mean?
Well, nothings that easy but I think it has to do with finding our connection with God, with knowing God and with living our lives in such a way that we give up ourselves to find ourselves.

It’s not just mumbo jumbo. It’s not jambalaya. If we want to find our life — we have to lose it.

Jesus was teaching a crowd of people about the suffering he would have to endure in life. He spoke plainly about but one of his disciples, Peter argued with him about it. Even though Jesus loved Peter and would later call Peter “the Rock — the one upon whom he would build his church” called Peter the devil and told him to get behind him.

When we have the things of men as our purpose in life we are following Satan. When we confuse our purpose in life with accumulation and what we do and acquisition and with things material we are following the devil. It is the path quite literally to the hell of emptiness and hollowness and shallowness. When you stand at the grave of someone who is dead do you really think whether they drove a VW or a BMW matters much? Of course not.

Jesus said our purpose in life is found by losing our life. What did he mean?

He meant when we give up acquiring we learn what it means to be rich.
He meant when we give up power we learn what power really means.
He meant when we give up pleasing men we learn how powerful pleasing God is.
He meant when we give up the things of the world we open ourselves to the things of God.

We find purpose in life when we give up ourselves for others.
We find purpose in life when we give up pursuing man’s kingdom for God’s kingdom.
We find purpose in life when we follow Christ’s example rather than man’s example.
We find purpose in life when we live to serve others rather than be served.
We find purpose in life when we live to give rather than live to get.
We find purpose in life when we live to love rather than be loved.
We find purpose in life when we live to serve God rather than live to serve man.
We find purpose in life when we seek to do God’s will rather than our own will.
We find purpose in life when we lose our life in order to find our life.

Ultimately we must take up our cross and follow Christ if we are to find our purpose in life.

Closing

Some days I wonder if my life really has purpose.
Some days I get so mired down in the lunacy of life that I think having a greater purpose in my life is itself lunacy.
Some days I stand over a grave and I wonder what difference anyone’s life really makes.
Some days I struggle to find my faith in the midst of the minutia, and the conflict and the struggle of daily living.
Some days I feel just like Jenny Lewis felt in some of her lonesome and soul wrenching music.

But the more I search for God the more I feel my life must have some deeper purpose.
The more I love the more I think the purpose of my life must have something to do with love.
The more I think of giving away the more rich I become.
The more I serve the more I feel like a king.
The more I look to Christ for my example the more I see who I am not and the more who I would like to be.

Do you hunger for deeper purpose in your life?
Do you hunger for some more lasting reason for living than just being able to buy a newer car or have a bigger house?

Come closer to God in your daily walk and you will come closer to a richly satisfying and eternal meaning in your life. The day you breathe your last breadth the car you drove or the job you did or the things you had won’t mean a thing to you but the people you loved, the service you gave and the things you gave away will bring a smile upon your face and you exit man’s kingdom and stand in eternity, prepared to enter into Christ’s kingdom.

Many people spend their whole life seeking pleasure. Jesus said however that a world of pleasure or possession or position or power is ultimately not our purpose in life. Whatever you have on earth is temporary; it cannot be exchanged for your soul. Follow Jesus and you will find your life’s true purpose. Follow Jesus and you will know what it means to live abundantly now and to have eternal life as well.