Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Posted by zane on December 31, 2011
So many people want balance in their lives. How often have you heard someone say he or she was looking for more balance? Maybe you’ve said it too. When our lives get overly busy or chaotic, we think they’re off kilter. We want things to go back to being more balanced: just enough busy-ness, just enough leisure, just right.
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Posted by zane on March 10, 2010
We sometimes want to choose who God calls us to love and to serve.
For example, many of us say that poor people are poor because of their own bad choices, so they don’t deserve our help. Now, first of all, this largely isn’t true. But secondly, and more importantly, God calls us to love the poor no matter what. He doesn’t say “love the poor unless they made bad decisions.”
Similarly, he calls us to love immigrants. He doesn’t say love the immigrant, but only if he has his paperwork in order.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (The Message) says:
When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt. I am God, your God.
Why do we struggle with that? Why do we make our love conditional?
Posted by zane on August 18, 2009
If you are to love your neighbor as yourself, who is your neighbor? This is of course what the Parable of the Good Samaritan is all about, and it’s fascinating to me. Christ says we are to love everyone without regard for race, nationality or any other trait or characteristic. That’s powerful, isn’t it?
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Posted by zane on June 14, 2009
I got married a week ago to the love of my life, and thus I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. In fact, I’ve only recently come to understand that loving each other is the most important thing we can do in life, second only to loving God. The idea seems simple, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how big that concept is.
Posted by zane on April 26, 2009
God calls us to have leisure. In Psalm 46:10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” In his book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper says this can also be interpreted to mean, “Have leisure, and know that I am God.” For those of us who work fifty or sixty hours a week, this is a welcomed message.
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