GLBT Evangelism
Last week, President Obama revealed a somewhat surprising statement: “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said in an interview with Robin Roberts of ABC News.
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Reactions to Ellerslie?
During the holiday break, I did a lot of reading, praying and thinking. I happened to come across a preacher named Eric Ludy and the Ellerslie Church. After watching hours of his sermons, I have both inspiration and questions. I’d like to hear our reader’s thoughts and reactions. This is a follow-up to the last mid-week question on Different ways to present the gospel.
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Snow
Perhaps because it is so hot here in the midwest, or perhaps because these words struck a cord with me today, I decided to publish a poem submitted by Brian Annear. I think we authors on ubfriends and our readers too, need to stop. Stop and take a moment to reflect on God and His creation. A snowflake seems so helpless. Yet entire cities bow to the power of snow!
One year!
One year ago, ubfriends began with an article entitled, What is good communication?. I thank God who has led many of us to better communication with each other and with the Holy Spirit. I believe our Lord wants us to become new wineskins and form a holy vessel. In honor of this milestone, I am publishing a poem submitted by Joshua Brinkerhoff.
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Is there a time to use deception to get God’s blessing?
As I read Ben’s post earlier this month, What is the Point of Genesis?, I began thinking a lot about my own Genesis Bible studies. I have studied all 50 chapters of Genesis four times. But Ben’s thinking challenged me to rethink what I had learned. Do I really know Genesis well? I found that I really have just learned the proverbial tip of the iceberg of what Genesis has to teach.
I remembered a question that came up once during Bible study on Genesis 27: Is there a time to use deception to get God’s blessing? I don’t recall how anyone at the study answered the question. This sounds like an odd question, especially when asked of Christians. Why would a Godly person lie or use deception to get a blessing or to glorify God?
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My Son
As an admin for UBFriends, I’ve been working with Mary J. on some technical issues this past week. We’ve also had some intense discussions.
For this holiday weekend (well at least in America it’s a holiday!), I’d like to publish a heartfelt story that my grandmother sent to me today.
It is in slideshow form and was translated from French into English: Mon_fils_English
Here is a free viewer if you have trouble viewing the file: Free MS PowerPoint viewer.
My Confession
To Rebekah B. Kim in Houston: If you are reading this, I want to apologize. I was one of the Toledo brothers who broke into your house one cold winter afternoon. I would rather say this to you in person, but I do not have contact information for you. Please forgive me.
It was a normal day in the winter of 1990. My friend and roommate rushed into the house and said “We have to move everything out of James and Rebekah Kim’s house. They need our help to move to Houston.” My friends and I immediately mobilized for action. I walked out of our house on Montebello Street, over to the Kim’s house on Kensington, which was only 2 houses away. But there was a problem. No one had a key to the house. One of my friends ran behind the house, another one ran up to the front door. Crash! I heard glass breaking in the back of the house. Crash! I hear glass breaking again, in the front. I started to go back to the house, but then someone called out, saying that the truck was here. Within a matter of minutes, the Kim’s belongings started to be packed into boxes. I walked into the Kim’s house. I picked up a box and loaded it onto the truck. Then I fled.
Did God already answer?
The other day I walked into the elevator at work and pushed the button for Floor 3. The doors began to close, but then immediately opened back up. So I pushed the Floor 3 button again. And again the doors immediately opened back up. I walked out of the elevator and back in. That’s when I realized something. I was already on Floor 3! I had been thinking deeply about a database script I needed to write and was distracted.
After having a good laugh, I thought: Isn’t this how we sometimes react to God’s answers to prayer? We pray and pray for something or someone, but don’t realize that God already gave us an answer. Sometimes I think God must be thinking, “What are these people doing? I answered them already!”. It is amazing that our God is a patient God.
This is also something I experienced in my practical life the past several months. Since coming to Detroit six years ago, I’ve been praying to find a stable job. A few months ago, I realized that God already gave me the means to find a stable job. There is a specific skillset I have that is quite rare among technology people. When I re-organized my jobsearch based on that skillset, my phone and email inbox were suddenly swamped with job possibilities. God had already answered my prayer; I just needed to take action with what I had. This is a major life lesson I’ve been learning in recent years. Be thankful for what I have and look to what God has already given me for answers.
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