Buy The Field!

"The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of Shallum, your uncle is going to come to you and say, 'Buy my field at Anathoth. Because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.'... I knew this was the word of the Lord, so I bought the field at Anathoth." Jeremiah 32:6-9

The Lord asks tough things of his prophets. In this passage, there are wars all around the city, the Babylonian army has completely closed in and burned all crops, destroyed the land and is about to destroy the city of Jerusalem. It is certain to fall. Property values are plummeting to say the least. It would be like buying up a little piece of property in the west bank of Palestine right now, or in downtown Port au Prince Haiti where daily there is chaos, violence, no government able to protect people - or in Greensburg KS, a place where "normal life" has been completely disrupted. Yet here comes God with his eternal optimism. Buy this field. God says, "I am working here. I will turn things around here." What an act of faith by Jeremiah!

How often do we invest in the areas where God desires to work? Surely Jeremiah's decision to buy this particular field would have been considered "poor stewardship" by today's standards. When we look to plant new churches, we tend to look toward the growing suburb populations, but what about the decaying inner cities? Would we consider buying up some property in the decaying inner cities because we believe God is working there? We tned to see things like this as foolish investments and a waste of our - I mean God's - money. Yet if all the earth is the Lord's and everything in it (Psalm 24:1) and He leads us to invest in something that looks like a loser, isn't that actually good stewardship because it is stewarding (or managing) the resources in the manner that the owner of the resources desires them to be managed in? What field is God asking you to buy? Where is God asking you to invest? Are you doing it? Or are you holding back or not even considering it because it's 'bad stewardship'?

Gracious Lord, merciful and mighty, slow to anger and abounding in love, open our eyes to the fields you are showing us. Open our minds to think more like you. May we grow daily, as individuals and as your body in our churches to eb a little less like ourselves and a little more like you. Amen.

(Photo by Ortenesque www.sxc.hu)

Under Great Pressure

Under great pressure I am posting a new post to my blog. The open house on April 29th had ten groups through. We had another one on May 20th that had 14 groups through. We have another showing tomorrow at 10AM AND we are loading up all our storage stuff to go to Michigan AND the folks are coming to repair the screwed up flooring job AND we are taking the cats to their new home (see the very first post on this blog a long long time ago) AND Matt was supposed to have a CAT scan tomorrow afternoon to see what's up with his perotic gland (but we rescheduled that) AND don't forget to pick up Katherine from school AND get the house to perfection before we leave because there is an open house while we're gone AND the price is reduced nearly $5k (goodbye wealth - I never knew you anyways) AND my kids are driving me crazy AND it's not a very long trip anyways.

So if I don't get to the blog very often - I'm sure you feel my pain. I have one journal that I've been writing in for seven years and have only 1/3 full (see introspecinsights.blogspot.com for more about that - my TWIN's blog.) Scary I know. Yes. I have a twin.

Alright then. Looking forward to a weekend in Michigan before coming back to wrap up my time as pastor at Emmanuel with a five week series on how to deal with the junk in your heart. I'm still trying to figure it out myself. Read Matthew 15:19ff. and Proverbs 4:23. Call me if you have any insights.

See ya,
Rich

Open House

We have our first open house tomorrow (Sunday April 29th). The house is shining like never before, Maya got all the mulch beds done, and I got the last of the exterior scraping and spray painting on the ironwork on the porches. All the screens are in and during the week Maya and Christopher powerwashed the house and all the sidewalks and driveway. Katherine did a great job spray painting. I have spray paint in my hair and on my arms and a little on my face, so hopefully that will come off before I have to try to be a pastor at church tomorrow.

We're praying for someone to love this place tomorrow! The weather is supposed to be perfect. Blessings to you all on your time with God in worship tomorrow and we'll keep you up to date!

Bye for now,
Rich (with Katherine standing next to me reading everything I type)

Hell on Earth

"Thy Kingdom Come - Thy Will Be Done, on earth as it is in heaven."

These words of the Lord's prayer prayed frequently by followers of Jesus in many languages around the world will find their fulfillment when Jesus comes back. But they find partial fulfillment in every act of goodness and kindness flowing from the heart of a forgiven, redeemed person.

But if we can bring heaven to earth, we can also bring hell to earth to. In hell, there is disregard for human life. Human beings devolve from individual unique creations of almighty God - each worth dying for - to object of rage or wrath, or to conquer or use.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:27-30, "If your eye causes you to sin pluck it out . . . if your hand causes you to sin cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have your whole body go into hell."

Jesus is talking here about the danger of what happens when we let our view of human beings devolve from God's view to just objects. The end result is hell on earth. That's what we saw on Monday at Va Tech, that's what we saw in the Holocaust of World War 2, and in the ethnic cleansing in Serbia, and in Rwanda, and in the streets of our inner cities in America.

Each individual person was created uniquely by the Creator of all things and even if that person was the only person to ever live, Jesus would have died to redeem that one person. You are that person. Every person you lay eyes on today or tomorrow is that person. We lose sight of that when we hold a grudge, when we despise someone poorer, dirtier, older than us.

How is your interaction with spouse, family, coworkers, neighbors, people on the street demonstrating your understanding of who human beings are to the creator?

May we be all about bringing heaven and hindering hell.
Amen.