What are you Saying?

   They say when people are asked to name their greatest fear the most frequent response is public speaking. Yet, have you ever considered how frequently the opportunities to speak in smaller settings come to each of us? Someone asks for advice, or you see something that needs to be addressed? Consider these three unrelated moments I’ve had in just a few short days:

• Sitting across from a couple talking about baptism and raising children, I share how baptism functions - what does it do? Since we do not believe baptism is the same as salvation, what do we believe is happening when parents stand to present their child? I found myself talking about...
• Standing at the end of a bed in the ICU, where I had been called to offer a prayer for someone I’d never met, I felt led to say one additional word...
• On the edge of my seat in the circle this week at GriefShare, I was about to lead more than a dozen folks who were walking through a deep sense of loss and sorrow in an opening prayer. I found myself sharing...

I was led to say nearly the same thing each time. I said,

“You are God’s Beloved. You are loved by God before your best day ever happens and after your worst. Before you accomplish anything and after it feels like everything is lost, you are God’s Beloved. God’s love for you is larger than all of it and small enough to squeeze into even the smallest spaces.”

   It took me forty years to finally have these words take effect. I am still a long way from integrating them into my life completely, but I am learning hby speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ.”
ow true they are in a wide range of moments. Ephesians 4:15 says, “
Next time you are asked to speak, what will you say? Is it true? Is it worth repeating? Does it build someone up?
   Grace and peace, Scott

Guide our Leaders Lord - by Melissa Killian

Melissa Killian wrote this in 2004, but when it was shared with me this week I knew immediately that it was still God's word for today. This is literally a word for all of us this inaugural week. The original book is Breath Prayers: Simple Whispers That Keep You in God's Presence, published in 2004 by David C. Cook.

First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. - 1 Timothy 2:1-2

  Listen to the news. Read the papers. Hear what people are saying. Most reports about our elected leaders are critical and negative. It doesn't take long to recognize the difficult position in which many of our public officials find themselves, especially as viewpoints grow diverse and naysayers become louder. We know that the loudest voices are not necessarily the wisest and that it is impossible to please everyone.
  Pray for our leaders. Pray that moral clarity and excellence will govern our elected leaders. As small interest groups become more vocal, pray that principle takes precedence over popularity. In today's media-driven political campaigns, pray that character is valued more than charisma. Today more than ever, we must pray for our political system and its leaders.
  ....Killian goes on to write that the three simple words, Guide our leaders, can be prayed on our breath in each of these instances:

• when they are struggling with decisions in foreign-policy 
• when fear and confusion blind us to justice and truth 
• when moral clarity is confused by complexity 
• when Christian leadership faces strong opposition 
• when their first reaction is to blame the other side

  Let this be our prayer for leaders of both parties: Lord, Guide our leaders. May our first reaction to every news story be pray and not anything else. Grace and peace, Scott

The Greatest Gift we can give to One Another...

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight.

- Proverbs 3:5-6

   I try and find the time, everyday, to listen to a daily podcast by JD Walt. He started this New Year reading and commenting through the 31 chapters of the Book of Proverbs to match the 31 days of January. Day 3 stopped me in my tracks when he took this passage and pointed out the importance of the word all, used twice. He said, "The Christian faith of the Bible is all or nothing.... If you push back on my emphatic “all or nothing” assertion, it’s because you lack the courage to choose. Settling for the easy out of, “At least I’m doing something,” is not biblical faith. It’s nominal Christianity. The enemy of our age is not doing nothing. It’s the mentality that says  something is enough." He went on to propose that must happen to be all-in for God requires, "trust and submission, or surrendered-ness. This must be resolved at the subterranean level of one’s will—far beneath the ephemeral nature of emotion."
   He then closed with a line that made me pull over the car in order to capture correctly!

The greatest gift we can give to one another is to become graciously,

yet brutally, honest with ourselves.

- JD Walt

   Grace and peace, Scott