Antinomies

I  think some aging people develop Dementia and Alzheimer's because they don't have anybody who really cares enough about them to listen to their story.  In this blog  I am telling you some of my story, hopefully outsmarting both diseases.  I make a super effort not to bore you but I can't watch your eyes to see if they're glazing over.  If they are,  punch the delete button.  I'll never know.

My brothers left the farm when I was seven years old. On the weekends, sometimes they came home with their girlfriends. ... or some townspeople just happened to stop by on their Sunday drive.  They knew my mother and grandmother would run to the garden for vegetables,  bring up from the cellar jars of slaved-over preserved fruits and pull farm-raised meat from the smokehouse.  All through the week as these two women were surviving the brutal conditions under which we lived, they were planning ahead for the "feeding of the 5,000" that would show up on many weekends. Those drop-by guests sometimes stayed until supper time when magically, more food appeared;  then they left to drive back to their lovely town homes, satisfied and fatter while my mother and grandmother waved them a weary "Goodbye".

All of my life I have invited others outside the family into our home. Some stayed for weeks and months. When my children were at home, not all were excited about sharing their space with others. Since they are gone and we (and now "I") are blessed with a large ministry home, my gift of hospitality has been freed to fly! Over the past thirty years,  thousands have come to be here for various reasons. I am blessed. Now I don't want to shop and cook so the Lord has provided a young woman who loves to do that for me. He meets our every need.

I live at the very end of a long gravel road where nobody just "drops by".  One part of me loves the seclusion; another part of me...well....  Sometimes, one of my precious girls, or even a fellah (At my age I am no threat to any wife. Darn!)  will call and take me to lunch and that's like Christmas! Often my daughter invites me to come to their house to sit in their Jacuzzi and have  dinner with them. I do not sit around hoping the next generation will invite me for a meal.  When they do I attempt to stifle the temptation to tell them all about me, even when asked, "Jo, how are you...really?"

Jesus came to be yours and my Servant. If not, what was the big deal about the "towel" at the Last Supper? "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me",  He told prideful Peter. Only John records this tender scene. I have no idea why the other guys didn't. Some Christian leaders don't want us to know that Jesus came to serve us,  lest we enjoy Him as our Abba...our Daddy Who promises to "meet our every need". ...but we must watch for the ways He does that, or we might miss them while we are running around serving others, heading at the speed of light toward burnout, heart attack, stroke, depression or somethin' ugly. Are we working hard to please others at the expense of our own health? Is God requiring it or are we tweaking the meaning of Romans 12:1 and 2? Our virtues so easily slip into being vices...and that is exactly what the evil ones wants.  One of the first verses I learned as a new Christian was Proverbs 16:7.  Read it if you want to.

The scriptures are full of antinomies  (Look it up!).  When I tell some Christians that God sent His Son to "give His life for us because He deemed us worth every drop of His Son's blood",  many barely mask their astonishment because they have been told they don't deserve anything at all from God. Those who do not know Christ...yet...say things like: "Really? Tell me more!"

 ...and then there are those "health and wealth" superstars who tell millions that they deserve everything from God. Who is right? Both or neither? What do you think?

With my precious Thursday gathering of women, we often roam away from Romans and visit a passage that meets our factual and emotional needs. My teaching style would drive many a theologian nuts! ...but then they're not apt to "drop by"  to listen because I live at the end of a long gravel road.   
                                              HYMN:  MORE ABOUT JESUS

More about Jesus in His Word; holding communion with my Lord
Hearing His voice in every line; making each faithful saying mine.

MORE, MORE ABOUT JESUS; MORE, MORE ABOUT JESUS
MORE OF HIS SAVING FULLNESS SEE; MORE OF HIS LOVE WHO DIED FOR ME

Love, Jo