01-04-06/More Sermons You don't Want to Hear
This is from 12-23-05:
Reflections of the Lessons My Mother Taught Me-My mom, God bless her strong, sweet, intelligent soul, used to take me with her when she visited her many friends. I learned so much through listening to older people's conversations. For instance, I'll never forget at 16 years old sitting in one of "Ma's" friend's living room and we'd just passed a drunk/wino on the street and I was innocently disgusted in my self-righteousness, when Ma's friend said, "He's a drunk, but he's a Christian". My mother agreed with her and I looked at them incredulously. Childlike faith, I'm sure my facial expression said it all: 'if he believes in God so much, why is he drunk?'
In unison they answered, "Because even when he's drunk, he's talking about the Lord".
The lessons I got from this- Don't judge a book by it's cover, and none of us is perfect (and that's probably on purpose so we can grow and develop on the inside). Afterall, if we know everything and got it altogether, why are we here? Isn't there a better place for such perfect people? After Noah obeyed God down to the inch, didn't he get drunk? Wasn't that a huge undertaking that God assigned to Noah? Noah obeyed. Yet afterwards, Noah needed a drink, or 2 or 3... Maybe he suffered post traumatic stress disorder. Think a global flood aint stressful? We didn't even handle Katrina easily. A lot of people don't believe the Flood happened and they use the dinosaur bones as proof. My seriously thinking four-year old daughter at the time, asked me about this. Questions can make you ponder. Yes, there were dinosaurs back then. The Bible actually mentions the leviathan in the Book of Job (Job 30:29 and Job 41:1) The Ethiopian texts and many ancient Egyptian texts tell of the earth being one (as does the Bible) and the Epic of Gilgamesh also, and the earth was moistened by a mist. Upon the Flood, the waters parted. Upon the drying of the earth and with the separation of the now continents, it is said you can take the world map and paste the pieces of the continents and subcontinents together like a puzzle. Whatever your belief(s), that's your path to travel, your life lessons to learn. I am not trying to make anyone believe anything, basically because I want to believe what I want to believe and I don't want anyone to tread on my personal beliefs. I think everyone should respect that, because hatred, misunderstandings, prejudices and other serious problems and "isms" occur, when we cannot mind our own business and allow others to follow the path that life has them on. Maybe it's not in the cards or the stars or part of God's plan for you to believe what others believe. Jesus said "Go ye therefore unto all the nations and preach the gospel, teaching," not forcing nor ridiculing someone else's beliefs. And if you are really progressive, liberal, religious or whatever, you will respect that basic, human right. I guess the basic point is, your path is your path; your life is your life and variety is the spice of life. Everybody can't be the same. Respect that.
Peace
Reflections of the Lessons My Mother Taught Me-My mom, God bless her strong, sweet, intelligent soul, used to take me with her when she visited her many friends. I learned so much through listening to older people's conversations. For instance, I'll never forget at 16 years old sitting in one of "Ma's" friend's living room and we'd just passed a drunk/wino on the street and I was innocently disgusted in my self-righteousness, when Ma's friend said, "He's a drunk, but he's a Christian". My mother agreed with her and I looked at them incredulously. Childlike faith, I'm sure my facial expression said it all: 'if he believes in God so much, why is he drunk?'
In unison they answered, "Because even when he's drunk, he's talking about the Lord".
The lessons I got from this- Don't judge a book by it's cover, and none of us is perfect (and that's probably on purpose so we can grow and develop on the inside). Afterall, if we know everything and got it altogether, why are we here? Isn't there a better place for such perfect people? After Noah obeyed God down to the inch, didn't he get drunk? Wasn't that a huge undertaking that God assigned to Noah? Noah obeyed. Yet afterwards, Noah needed a drink, or 2 or 3... Maybe he suffered post traumatic stress disorder. Think a global flood aint stressful? We didn't even handle Katrina easily. A lot of people don't believe the Flood happened and they use the dinosaur bones as proof. My seriously thinking four-year old daughter at the time, asked me about this. Questions can make you ponder. Yes, there were dinosaurs back then. The Bible actually mentions the leviathan in the Book of Job (Job 30:29 and Job 41:1) The Ethiopian texts and many ancient Egyptian texts tell of the earth being one (as does the Bible) and the Epic of Gilgamesh also, and the earth was moistened by a mist. Upon the Flood, the waters parted. Upon the drying of the earth and with the separation of the now continents, it is said you can take the world map and paste the pieces of the continents and subcontinents together like a puzzle. Whatever your belief(s), that's your path to travel, your life lessons to learn. I am not trying to make anyone believe anything, basically because I want to believe what I want to believe and I don't want anyone to tread on my personal beliefs. I think everyone should respect that, because hatred, misunderstandings, prejudices and other serious problems and "isms" occur, when we cannot mind our own business and allow others to follow the path that life has them on. Maybe it's not in the cards or the stars or part of God's plan for you to believe what others believe. Jesus said "Go ye therefore unto all the nations and preach the gospel, teaching," not forcing nor ridiculing someone else's beliefs. And if you are really progressive, liberal, religious or whatever, you will respect that basic, human right. I guess the basic point is, your path is your path; your life is your life and variety is the spice of life. Everybody can't be the same. Respect that.
Peace
posted by Constance at 8:11 AM
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