Satisfaction

Aren't we all looking for this? We want something, not quite sure what it may be that gives us a deep sense of well being.

The world may tell us that satisfaction comes from more money. But, we only have to look at the wealthy to know that that is not necessarily true. In fact, the wealthy seem to be less satisfied, by in large than the poor. The poor live simply and they are very focused first on basics like paying the rent, getting food in for the family and taking care of loved ones.

It is not about achieving, it is about being in relationship to others that we can find deep satisfaction. Wealth, in fact, can isolate a person from what he or she most needs and that is love and interaction with others and not just the rich who are just as "edgy" and self focused.

Jesus talked about a kernel of wheat falling to the ground and dying before it came to life again. Like so many illustrations we need to think about this.

l. The kernel is not important until it goes into the ground.

2. While it is "unseen" the life that has been put into this kernel sprouts and the plant grows. Roots go down into the soil and the kernel becomes a plant that emerges into the light again.

3. The plant then reproduces and more kernels fall to the ground.

This pattern is a cycle.

There is death to the kernel as it was. There is hidden growth in the ground. There is resurrection of the new plant which becomes much more fruitful by bearing more kernels that can then fall to the ground.

Of course, that is fine for a plant but Jesus spoke in parables so that those who had ears to hear could really hear what he was saying about them.

Satisfaction? Do you have it? Are you willing to die to self in order to find new life? Are you willing to be invisible and hidden so that the growth can take place in order to make your life both satisfying and fruitful?

Think about it. Are you satisfied?

Living Above Our Circumstances

Most of us believe that we are in charge of our circumstances. That is what gets us into trouble to start with. It is true that we may have done something to land us in our circumstances, but getting us out is not all up to us.

Here is why. God sees our circumstances and is above them. He has promised us that ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD FOR THOSE WHO LOVE GOD.

Apostle Paul wrote that he has learned how to abound or be abased. In other words, he knew how to live with plenty and live without. Now, we all might prefer the first choice but that is not always how life goes.

How do we do when are job disappears? When the money goes down? When we are abased? Paul says to live above our circumstances we must:

l. Rejoice in the Lord always.

I think rejoicing involves thinking back on all the ways God has taken care of us in the past. Rejoicing helps us reflect on God's unchanging character.  His faithfulness, his mercy etc. Rejoicing is a celebration of our unchanging relationship with the Lord. He still loves us even if we are paupers.

2. Let the Lord strengthen you in the trial or circumstance that is pressuring you.

Talk to him about your work. Let him into the pressure area. Spend time with your eyes and heart upon the Lord who can make a way through the Red Sea. Who has provided a Savior? Who is only a prayer away?

3, Cast your cares on the Lord.

Think of a fisherman throwing his line out into the sea. He casts it out there and then he waits. We cast the current care on the Lord with a prayer. Something like this: "Lord you know the pressure I have about X, Please strengthen me and guide me with your wisdom."

It is very easy to let the circumstances become god to us. We think it is in charge. We will never escape it, we will never survive it.

Remember, Paul was in a Roman prison (not a good place to be) when he wrote the letter to the Phillipians. He told Christians to rejoice. He was practicing rejoicing in his circumstances so he could live above his circumstances and be used in his circumstances for God.

His courageous, outrageous faith burst out of the prison he was in and gave us a roadmap to follow. Pull out of your bog. Get your feet into the path of faith. Let God into your circumstances today.

Home

There is an old saying: "Home is where your heart is." Home may be a physical place but it can also be an area.

Few of you may know that San Jose is my home town. I grew up here. Went to elementary school through high school. My parents owned a home in San Jose for 50 years and so there was a home that was "there for me" for many, many years.

Since relocating back to San Jose, I am discovering a huge love for San Jose and for the children.

It is a very different city from years ago. It is much more diverse. It is also more affluent and more needy. In San Jose there is a 10% unemployment rate. How does that translate for the children? No money for extras: in some cases not enough money for food. Every bill is a struggle for the poverty level family.

THE NEED IS GREAT but God's HEART IS BIGGER than the need here. We are working here: meeting with a few friends to start the ball rolling towards opening a work for the children. We have a potential place for the work. We are seeking how we can best serve.

Recently I met a woman who has worked for a county agency assessing children who may have learning disabilities. She works all over Santa Clara County including San Jose. I asked her about San Jose and where the need is the hardest.

"There are pockets of need all over San Jose," she told me. The start up team here will assess and decide where we start. It is probable that in time the work may be larger than one location.

An interesting fact: only 7% of families in Santa Clara County have any kind of church affiliation. This means that there is a huge opportunity for people who care to reach out with love, kindness, and practical help to make a life changing difference in this valley.

The lost sheep need all of us to do something. Jesus said, "As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."

Choices

Every day we decide how we will spend our time, where we will invest our money, etc. Many of our choices are "I" centered or "My family" centered. That is why sometimes the other children in our city may be not seen.

In Blindside, a wealthy southern woman sees a homeless black teenager known only as "Big Mike" by her son. She sees that he is cold and doesn't have any place to sleep that night.

The mother, played by Sandra Bullock, makes a choice to "bring him home" rather than let him sleep in the gym. The first thing about a choice to extend ourselves to others may be a "risk" or seeming risk. Will he steal something?

Big Mike has folded the clothes on the designer sofa and started to walk back towards the school when Luanne Foley (Sandra Bullock) goes out after him.  She invites him to stay and have Thanksgiving with them. Eating together is another choice she makes and ones which brings the TV dinner eaters to the table where God is acknowledged before the meal.

Her increasing compassionate choices from guest for the night to "one of the family" with the entire family agreeing not only make a radical change in this under resourced high schooler, but the choices of acceptance and integration change the Foley family as well. Even the Dad becomes aware that he should consider some options beyond throwing out the left over food from his multiple restaurants.

The daughter decides if she studies with Mike at home she should walk across the room away from her girl friends and sit with Mike in study hall. This choice of including him changes him into a "player" from a non player in academic and of course football.

Know your players is one of the mother's admonitions to the football coach. Luanne has done her research on this boy and knows that he scored very, very high in protective instincts. He becomes a successful defensive linesman and is recruited by various colleges.

Does a choice of one person or a few people to step over lines and help the other children really make a different?

After 15 years of experience I can say in Project Lost Sheep that God has been with us as we have been changed and seek to reach out to other cities for change as well.

Are you ready to go out and do something rather than just read the paper?

My Observations

In this story we have two feuding famillies at each others throats and blood has been spilt. But, inside one of the famillies there was a man who wanted the feud ended.

Gerald Fitzgerald inside the Cathedral took action. 
1. He ordered a hole be hacked in the oak door
2. He humbled himself by asking his enemy, Black James for a truce.
3. He took a personal risk by placing his arm in the hole in the door.
If there was no truce, he would be without an arm.

The result was that Black James shook his rival's hand ending the feud. We see here some keys to forgiveness. Wanting to stop the feud. Taking personal risk.

Forgiveness always is risking and humiliating. It is costly and dangerous but the results are worth it.
l. Families are healed
2. A pattern is set that makes forgiveness an option for future generations
3. There is a Door.
When we position ourselves to forgive we have God's grace on our side.

Door of Reconciliation

I have been thinking a great deal about Connie Rhodes (see previous) and remember that one of the things she taught me was about using the door of reconciliation. She showed me a picture of a door with a hole in it and one person reaching through the whole to the person on the other side.

I cannot remember what my problem was at that time but it was an issue with someone. She told me that forgiveness was a key to reconciliation and THAT SOMEONE HAD TO BE THE FIRST ONE TO PUT A HAND THROUGH THE DOOR as it only could fit one hand and wrist.

This stuck in my mind as a good visual. By the grace of God, we can be the first to forgive. The first to say "I'm sorry" and reach out to the person on the other side. The first to communicate anyway we want DIRECTLY to the other person.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. We have power to forgive within us. We have grace. Is there someone you need to reach out your hand and forgive?
Take a few minutes and think about this.
The Story Of The Door Of Reconciliation - from Services of Halton

Family

We are all aware of what a biological family is. But, there are family connections in friends, and even those who have been influenced by our parents values by either living with us through adoption or influence.

Because parents have a set of values that are given to their children there is a common bond in these things. For example, in my family growing up, my mother was very keen on education. All three of us daughters got teaching degrees and spent some time out there as teachers.

Beyond the common bond of blood, we have the common bond of shared influence, values and memories.

When we come to faith in Christ we are born again into the family of believers that is worldwide. We have a common teaching (The Bible) and we have a direction for our lives through that word. We are related not by the blood line but we are integrated to one another because inside us we have the same Spirit that cries out "Abba, Father". We have a heavenly Father and we share Him with each other. That is why we pray for each other and root for each other and I sure hope LOVE ONE ANOTHER which is a command.

I can remember my Dad saying when we sisters were having a fight with each other. "Will you girls just knock it off." By this he meant that we didn't need to do this and he was directing us to stop doing what we did right now.

Of course, Christians have fights with each other. We are human. We misread each other. We judge each other thinking we know ..but we don't. Only our heavenly Father can judge. He alone is the righteous judge.

We are born into a biological family but look around because beyong this if you have asked Jesus into your life and have accepted his death on the cross for your sins, you have a BIG BIG spiritual family with all kinds of relatives.

You have brothers, sisters, mothers and dads. You have, in fact, the body of Christ and you are very important in it. You can get taught. You can get corrected. You can get redirected. You can also help others. Pray for others. Love others. In fact, if you take this very seriously, you will discover that in the body of Christ there is a miracle for you.

Momentum

In memory of Connie Rhodes who went to be with the Lord a few months short of her 105 birthday

What can I say about Connie? She was a true friend of mine and a true friend of Project Lost Sheep. She lived in Menlo Park the entire time I knew her and lived independently until the last few years.

She was someone you could trust when you needed advice because she had walked with the Lord a very long time.

One time a number of years ago I was very discouraged about Project Lost Sheep. We had a meeting coming up but my heart wasn't in it. I was tempted to cancel the meeting.

Sitting at her kitchen table in her small apartment in Menlo Park I poured out my hear to her over a cup of tea. She listened carefully. She wrote things down on little scraps of paper. She had a bird clock that would sing on the hour. (she loved birds). She had many friends even in her golden years and a wonderful family. But the thing I loved about her most was her heart for the Lord was so constant.

She looked me in the eye after I told her I wanted to cancel the meeting and said. "Momentum, Joyce, momentum. Never forget momentum."

We held the meeting and went forward. When I think of Connie I smile. She kept me steadfast when I would have wavered. She is missed by me and the Project Lost Sheep.

We honor Connie Rhodes for her life, her example, her always being there. We will certainly miss her and look forward to our reunion someday.