Sunday, January 01, 2012

NEXT TIME!

 John 7:7 "If any one of you is without sin - let him cast the first stone."

     As you and I face this new year - perhaps we need to allow ourselves a new and fresh perspective on life. I'm thinking of a friend who had many successes in life. He graduated with honors from the prestigious University of Southern California. He became a medical doctor and set up a very successful medical practice. He was happily married and had a beautiful daughter. For some time, life was his oyster. It seemed as if he had nothing but success.

     Then, in rapid succession, things began to unravel. Some of his business decisions didn't pan out; his wife became increasingly unhappy and demanding. His medical practice suffered due to the way health insurance companies tightened down. Everything he had dreamed of and worked for seemed to come down crashing at his feet. He wound up divorced and heart broken.

     He went to a Christian counselor who was a wise elderly gentleman. The doctor poured out his heart and after two or three sessions the counselor said, "I'd like to keep working with you but now that you have things out on the table I want you to shift from, `if only' to `next time.' The past is frozen, it's over, and you must now learn the lessons and move on to the, "next times," in life.

     If any one of us has grown to adulthood - I suspect it's too late to worry about innocence. Each of us has things in the past we wish were different. There are things we wish we had done - but that's in the past too. We all have skeletons in our closets.

     Now is the time for a fresh perspective on life as we move into the new year with the emphasis on, "NEXT TIME" rather than on the, "if only."

 Sincerely,
Dr. Peter G. St.Don 

Sunday, January 08, 2012 

OUR MOLTEN MOMENTS!

 Read: Matthew 19:16-22

     As the drama of today's scripture passage unfolding, we have the picture of a rich young man who came to Jesus knowing that something was missing in his life. "Master," he says, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" He then went on to unfold his story as to how he'd been generous, faithful, and very religious all his life. Indeed, he had an impressive resume and life-style, but Jesus honed in on his issue. It was wealth. "Go," says Jesus, "sell all that you have and give to the needy and come follow me."

     The truth of the matter was that "materialism" was his real god. So, in this "molten moment," a moment in which his life could have gone in an entirely new direction, the young man chose to stick with the familiar. The bible says, "He went away sad."

     I grew up in the far north of Ontario, Canada. There was a great deal of mining in that area. My father owned and operated an Industrial Tool Company. One of his business customers was the Wabi Iron Works. It was a smelting and fabrication plant. They'd take in loads of iron-ore and scrap-iron and melt it down. Above the huge furnaces was a catwalk and you could look down into the bright, orange, fire and see the melting process. Looking into that fire from above made your skin feel like it was sunburned. It almost hurt your eyes to look into the flames. We were told that there were just a few "molten moments" in which the iron could be easily cut and molded into the intended forms. Only in those molten moments, when the metal was malleable, could it be shaped for its greatest usefulness.

     You and I also have molten moments. There are times in our spiritual journey when God becomes so real that we can sense the nearness of His presence. There are molten moments in our families, like the few years in which we can share our Christian faith with our children and grandchildren that are very precious. My experience, as a minister, has taught me that such molten moments come at the most unusual and unexpected times. I recall in my first pastorate how a family that was greatly disadvantaged in every way possible, came to the church. They often spoke out loudly during the service, they sang off key, and because they had no indoor plumbing - their personal hygiene could be off-putting. I saw the looks of consternation in the peoples' faces. One man summed it up this way, "Pastor, we've got to help these people find another church."

     That made me feel uncomfortable. I was feeling a lot of internal pressure and I didn't say anything for a while. That was a molten moment in my life, and in the life of the congregation. Like the metal, we sometime have to feel the heat before we are malleable and ready to be shaped by God. Finally, I spoke up and said, "Some of us have been praying for months for God to give us a fresh vision and direction for this church. I'm thinking that perhaps, this is God's way of answering. It seems to me that God has placed an entirely new mission field in our lap and is waiting for our answer." I'm pleased to say that the tide turned in that church from that moment on. Today, that church is one of the strongest in the community.  

We must chose. Like the rich young ruler, in our molten moments in life. We must decide. The Lord is waiting silently to see which way we will go.