Who cares

 

Robert Sheffey

    "God never forces His will on men. He calls them unto them him self, but if they will not follow Him then they have to go their own way. Because God's people didn't want it and God let them have their own way.

   Every time we give up a part of our faith to try to fit into the ways of the world we lose it forever, we lose a precious part of His promise. Sacrifice to the world and the world will never give back, and some day when the world tells us: 'you can no longer have your religion' except what they say, and God is driven from our schools our government and our homes then God's people can look back and know that our believe was not taken from us. It was given up, handed over bit by bit until there was nothing left.

                         (R.S. circuit-riding preacher 1820 - 1902)     

     

Merry Christmas 2020

 

Inspiring Leading Article

PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE

Written by Keith Phillips

If we haven’t lived the drama, we’ve seen it depicted in movies and on TV. The patient in the intensive care unit hovers between life and death while anxious family and friends fidget and pace in the waiting room and hallway, praying for the best, preparing for the worst, scanning the faces of the doctors and nurses as they shuffle in and out of the ICU, and hanging onto their every guarded word. Will the patient survive? If so, will there be permanent damage? Will life ever be the same?

That scene is being played out today on the big stage, and we’re all players. The patient on life support is our world, and the financial policy makers are the medical professionals. The rest of us watch and wait. A near-fatal blow to the economy would have been hard enough to recover from, but looming complications worsen the odds. Will terrorism, nationalism, and base egoism proliferate like viruses in a compromised immune system? Will society’s moral fabric suffer a complete breakdown? With all that going on, can multiple ecological threats be held at bay? Can international relations take the strain? What’s the prognosis?

There is both good news and bad news, as it turns out—bad news in the short term, but good news in the long term. According to numerous passages in the Bible that foretell future events, things are going to get much worse before they get better; but when they get better, they will get unbelievably better!

We can’t stop the bad from happening, but we can prepare for it. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, so the first thing we should do is find out what to expect. The next thing we should do is equip ourselves to go through those things, to come out on top, and to be able to help others do the same. This issue of Activated will get you thinking and moving in the right direction. Be a survivor. No, be a victor!

Beautiful Nature

Learning from Nature

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.—George Washington Carver

Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumines his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.—Alfred Billings Street

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.—Lao Tzu

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.—John Muir

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.—Henry David Thoreau

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.—Khalil Gibran

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.—Albert Einstein

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.—Jane Austen

Happiness flutters in the air whilst we rest among the breaths of nature.—Kelly Sheaffer

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story.—Linda Hogan

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.—Eleonora Duse

Our Father Does Work In Wondrous Ways

                                            Photo by Steven Quayle

Reverend John Powell, professor at Loyola University in Chicago, writes about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy:

Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith.

That was the day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts, but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped. I immediately filed Tommy under “S” for strange ... very strange.

Tommy turned out to be the “atheist in residence” in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father/God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.

When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a cynical tone, “Do you think I’ll ever find God?”

I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. “No!” I said very emphatically.  “Why not?” he responded, “I thought that was the product you were pushing.”

I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then called out, “Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever find Him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!’” He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.

I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line—He will find you! At least I thought it was clever. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was duly grateful.

Then a sad report came. I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe.

“Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often; I hear you are sick,” I blurted out.

“Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks.”

“Can you talk about it, Tom?” I asked.

“Sure, what would you like to know?” he replied.

“What’s it like to be only twenty-four and dying?”

“Well, it could be worse.” “Like what?”

“Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real biggies in life.”

I began to look through my mental file cabinet under “S” where I had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification, God sends back into my life to educate me.)

“But what I really came to see you about,” Tom said, “is something you said to me on the last day of class.” (He remembered!) He continued, “I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But He will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time.” (My clever line. He thought about that a lot!) “But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, that’s when I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You get psychologically gutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.

“Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn’t really care about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that. I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.’

“So, I began with the hardest one, my dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. ‘Dad?’ “Yes, what?” he asked without lowering the newspaper.

“Dad, I would like to talk with you.” “Well, talk.” “I mean, it’s really important.”

The newspaper came down three slow inches. “What is it?”

“Dad, I love you, I just wanted you to know that.” Tom smiled at me and said it with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him.

“The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me. We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me.

“It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years.

“I was only sorry about one thing—that I had waited so long. Here I was, just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to. Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with Him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, ‘C’mon, jump through. C’mon, I’ll give you three days, three weeks.’

“Apparently God does things in His own way and at His own hour. But the important thing is that He was there. He found me! You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for Him!”

“Tommy,” I practically gasped, “I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make Him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle John said that. He said, God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him.

“Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now.... Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing, it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell it.”

“Oooh, I was ready for you, but I don’t know if I’m ready for your class.”

“Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call.”

In a few days Tom called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it. He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined.

Before he died, we talked one last time. “I’m not going to make it to your class,” he said. “I know, Tom.” “Will you tell them for me? Will you ... tell the whole world for me?” “I will, Tom. I’ll tell them. I’ll do my best!”

So, to all of you who have been kind enough to read this simple story about God’s love, thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven—I told them, Tommy, as best I could.

If this story means anything to you, please pass it on to a friend or two. It is a true story and is not enhanced for publicity purposes.

With thanks,

Rev. John Powell, Professor, Loyola University, Chicago

Mother is Another Word for Love

Happy Mother's Day!

Point to Ponder

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of same magical orchid garden over the horizon in stead of enjoy the orchids that are blooming outside our windows today.                   (adapted- Dale Carnegie)

Point to Ponder

If we make our goal to live a life of compassion and unconditional love, then the world will indeed become a garden where all kind of flowers can bloom and grow.
Elisabeth kubler Ross