a drop of water

Our new Lodge Enameled Cast-Iron 6 Quart, Carribean Blue Dutch Oven arrived today!  It’s supposed to be equal to its $250 dollar Le Creuset counter parts in quality but at a fraction of the cost.  It’s certainly of equal weight.  We tested it out first thing with a yummy hot pot meal!

Building a Community that Loves the World [Part One: Loving Our Neighbors]

A Message from the Parable of the Good Samaritan

Sermon by Jamie Wilson @ Coast Vineyard on October 19th, 2008

Some Reasons We Fail to Love When It Matters Most

1. We think we lack the time.
2. We think we that we lack the resources.
3. Fear.

Compassion in Action

1. Compassion is always a risk.
2. Compassion is a commitment to care regardless of the cost.
3. Compassion is a commitment to care regardless of the results.

Build a Church that Loves our Neighbors

1. We will need a willingness to love people in their place of need rather than our place of comfort.
2. We will need courage.
3. We will need Spirit given expectation.

Jamie opened up his sermon acknowledging that our culture is one that “passes by on the other side of the road” in respect to crisis.  We come to the point where we all too often avoid and secretly cringe in the face of friends sharing their problems with us, evaluating if we really have time and energy to deal with what they are dealing with, on top of the pressures that society has already placed on us.  We are already so stretched and our resources so expended, that we fear an overwhelming crisis to which we have no answer or solution for.  But Jamie encouraged us that it is in that “effxiating weakness that we can give God,” if only we would have the courage to walk off the road into the crisis.

Compassion definitely has costs, emotional, phyiscal, financial, etc.  But I would dare to say that compassion and its associates costs are more like investments.  I do not believe that they are just costs, where what we give goes into some void and is never seen again.  Instead I hold onto the idea that our compassion and its emotional, physical and financial costs have great returns even when the outcome is not what we might expect or even hope for.

Jamie closed his sermon acknowledging that our culture is trending towards one where “No one will come to the church without being loved first.”  Or maybe it has always been that way, if you consider what church really is.  When we consider that to love, is to set to achieve what is good for the object of that love, we realize that loving people in their place of need rather than our place of comfort is common sense.  I’m guilty of not looking to God for a Spirit given expectation for the results from investing in the Kingdom with compassion and the costs associated with it.  But it is time to change my vision of compassion and God’s power in respect to that!

At Bethel Seminary San Diego’s recent spiritual renewal conference, Dr. Dallas Willard presented VIM, a reliable pattern of kingdom growth.  VIM stand for Vision, Intention, and Means and it is a method of change, including spiritual change.

• Vision is our reality of what is good, that which governs us.  
• Intention is a decision whose stability is dependent on our vision.
• Means is what allows the doing, dependent on proper vision and intention.

When we have a more accurate vision of God, we are primed to form stable intentions of becoming a disciple of God.  One of examples that Dr. Willard brought up was that of God’s love.  An inaccurate vision of God would be that he really doesn’t love us, that he merely lets us off the hook and gives us a break from what we deserve.  This inaccurate vision will result in unstable intentions and shortlived (worthless) means.  But when we consider the vision that God is love, right obedience in the form of right intentions and right means will come easily.  Dr. Willard noted that

“the main thing that has to change is our understanding of God, before our will can sign on to God.  When we have the correct vision of God, we are ready to form the intention of becoming a disciple of God.”

For me, one of the most difficult struggles is finding significance in my work.  My vision of life, career and vocation often drifts toward assigning significance to only the spiritual, ignoring the secular.  But if I were to take a step back and refresh my vision of career and vocation as something individually prepared by God, for me to be at the right time in the right place for the lives of those who I will come in contact with and have the responsibility and opportunity to influence for good, then I can make right intentions to hold on to that vision, and find means that God has provided right in front of me to make it happen.

A neuro surgeon gave a brief testimony about compassion this week before Pastor Jamie gave the sermon Part One: Loving Our Neighbors in the series, Building a Community of that Loves the World.  He talked about how God was encouraging him to pray with his patients.  He explained how he was worried about being misunderstood.  If he prayed with his patients, would they think he doesn’t know what he is doing or didn’t study hard enough in his classes?  If he prayed with his patients, would they feel like he is trying to convert them?  If he prayed with his patients, would his reputation be muddled by people labeling him as one of those “weird” people who talk to God?  If he prayed with his patients, and the procedure was not successful, would he have done more spiritual damage than good?

But now he prays for his patients, “Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for always being with this person their whole life.  Please give me the wisdom and the success to repair their blood vessels.  In Jesus name, amen.”  He shared how he realized that Jesus said we will be misunderstood, because he [Jesus] was misunderstood.  The fear of being misunderstood is not a reason not to love.  By overcoming this fear of being misunderstood, he realized that the greatest form of authentic love for someone is to pray for them.  As his patients look to him to work miracles in the blood vessels of their brain, he is able to acknowledge the one true God and his power to heal.

I fear being misunderstood.  I think the root of that is the misconception that I “understand so much” that others will have a hard time understanding what I’m saying.  Or maybe that what I am trying to do is so complicated that others won’t have the background to understand what I am trying to say or do. But when did God’s love and a relationship with God get so difficult to understand?  Neither should be difficult to understand.  They may be difficult to receive, but that is not a sufficient reason to not love. Kingdom style loving is like sowing seeds on the rocks, the path, the shallow soil and the good soil.

Apple computers are gaining market share on college campuses like crazy.  With their in store support (Genius Bar), optional (but well worth the money) 3 year warranty upgrade, their default suite of software productivity solutions, and their strategic marketing, Apple is poised to jump into the mainstream market share as the current collegiate-apple-fan graduates and becomes the majority of the technological work force.

Apple has made its product releases “events” that are cultishly followed by live feed and wildly rumored about on fan websites.  The interesting part is that once their new products are released, the older generation of products are substantially marked down, creating bargain deals for those who are at peace with the reality that 1st gen products typically have bugs and issues, while the tried and true nth gen products of the outdated product line are stable and dependable.

Here is an example:

Previous generation: Apple MacBook Pro MB133LL/A 15.4-inch Laptop (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD SuperDrive on Amazon for $1444 (After Rebate [AR]) when just a week ago, it was around $1999.

Now, obviously if you were to buy this, then you wouldn’t have the newest and the best and the fastest and the shiniest, but you are also stretching your dollar by buying the previous product model.  What I mean is, let’s say you sell this laptop a year from now for $1000.  This would mean you “rented” this laptop for $444.  On the other hand, if you were to buy the newst model Macbook Pro, you would pay something around $2100 (retail in CA for the “low” end MBP barring any discounts), and probably sell it for $1300, resulting in a “rental fee” of $700.  As much as I like to have the newest model with all the fancyness, I must remind myself that waiting usually pays off.