Skip to main content

God Moves In A Mysterious Way...."


Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (I Thessalonians 5:11)
"God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform...."  William Cowper.

            "Encourage" is one of those marvelous words that just begs to be taken apart. The first two letters mean "in" of course, so to encourage means to put courage in. Ah, but the "courage" part has a secret, too. The "cour" part comes from a Latin term meaning "heart." The heart only recently became associated with sentiment. For most of recorded history, it was the home of the will. The word comfort is like it, meaning "with strength" rather than "there, there. it'll be OK."
            For some, encouragement is cheerleading, "YOU (pompom rustle) CAN (pompom rustle), DO (pompom rustle) IT! (Jump, twirl, pompom shakes with lots more jumping thrown in.) There is a time and place for that. We could all use cheerleaders in our lives, though they might not use the pompoms or jump around.
            There are other ways to encourage. Yesterday, I went to see an educational display of birds of prey. The senior exhibit personnel gave me permission to take pictures of the birds - but not the people. One person on the team even said that he should be "photoshopped" out. I took 60 pictures, which is probably far too few, and I was frustrated by the fact that my camera seems to blur out images whenever  I try to get it to zoom in too close.
           As I got back in my car, something someone had suggested before came to mind.: I should check my settings. When it was suggested, I thought, "That's too complicated." It's not, really. By doing so, I found out what I was doing wrong and a couple options that might be better.
           After downloading my shots to my computer, it came to mind that I could try using Photoshop. In the past, it has seemed far to difficult for me, but there were too many human body parts and too much background in my pictures. I wanted pictures of birds, not people and buildings. I began cropping. The results are lots better than the originals. I turned to some older pictures, and happened on one that was tilted. I was able to rotate the trees to vertical and crop it. It's still not a good picture, but it's better.
             None of this should impress you with my skills as a photographer or photo editor. The point is that "YOU CAN DO IT" was not the encouragement that got me there. What got me there was a repeated request (birds, not people) and the word, "try"  said not as a command, but as a gentle challenge
            Yoda, and other motivational speakers, said, "Do. Or do not. There is no try." Perhaps for Luke, that was encouragement. Perhaps there wasn't time for  repeated trying. But as an aphorism, Yoda's encouragement was wrong. God allows and even encourages us to "try" and to have the freedom to fail and try again.             

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In the Sky:
Strawberry Moon
Summer Solstice

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen!

  While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)            Do you like roller coasters? I don't. You spend forever climbing a hill. You get to the top and have half a second, then you race down to a low point. Sometimes the racing down involves tying your insides into knots. At the bottom, you either have to be dragged up another hill or you get off the ride. Peter's life was a roller coaster from the time he met Jesus. There would be miracles, and then Jesus would teach things that didn't always make sense, and then they'd go out and perform miracles, and return to be taught. Peter was praised for giving the right answer to "Who do you say that I am?" Jesus said that said answer came from God. Peter was at the top of the hill.            ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Prayer Lists

                 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (I Peter 2:2-3)   In connection with what I wrote yesterday about the possibility that I’m wrong, I’m feeling the need to go back to basics - craving spiritual milk because somehow, I missed something. It’s a little embarrassing, craving milk like a newborn, but the truth probably is that we are newborns many times in many ways in our lives. From God’s perspective, we may never be anything more than newborns, forever needing that milk. On the other hand, being a newborn can also be exciting because so much is new. My mind is playing pinball - ricocheting from one idea to the next and through six more before it happens to hit the third again. The main topic is prayer. I have at least seven organizing structures all somewhat influenced by the movie War Room , which I’v...
Post a Comment
Read more