Monday, July 29, 2019

Laundry Time

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

“O Israel and Judah, what should I do with you?” asks the Lord.  “For your love vanishes like the morning mist and disappears like dew in the sunlight.      I sent my prophets to cut you to pieces—to slaughter you with my words, with judgments as inescapable as light.  I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices.  I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.  But like Adam, you broke my covenant and betrayed my trust.  Hosea 6:4-7[2]

Robert Dale wrote in To Dream Again about the tendency of humans to take a deep breath and return to being sedentary once a crisis is in the rear-view mirror.  It’s part of the lifecycle of things.  Churches have life cycles, beginning with a dream God has placed in a heart, shared with others, and then becomes a reality.  The building phase (accumulating supplies, funds, and help) is the most exciting part of it all, as energy flows, a structure emerges, and then the final cherry on top – the day the new church is dedicated.  All the pews are in place, new paint on the walls, carpeting, pulpit and baptismal font ready to go!  The dedication service is followed by dinner on the grounds with speeches, and great hope for tomorrow. 
You really can’t hear it, but something happens when a crisis is resolved, or a great effort has produced a satisfying result…there is a collective group sigh…a deep breath of whew…there were times it looked like an impossibility…but here we are…it’s finally done!  The inevitable connection with the phrase finally done is the sound of a death knell for any church, business, family, or nation.  The truth is, accomplishments like building, membership campaign, meeting a budget, or any success, is merely an invitation to begin the next phase, to re-dream the dream!
Resting on laurels of past achievements is despising the purpose of the original dream.  In the case of Israel, Hosea pointed to God’s family perfunctorily going through the motions of serving/loving God, but ultimately having other things on their minds.  They said the right words, but there was no music in their hearts. 
A mentor of mine once said that the difference between failure and success is that successful people are willing to do those things failures want to avoid.  Hosea was a prophet who hung out Israel’s dirty laundry, and God was ready to teach them just how much they’d been avoiding the business of getting on with the dream of being a Godly people on mission to share the love of God with the rest of the world.  They’d been too busy building their own kingdoms to serve God.
For You Today
There is a temptation to pay more attention to life’s little urgent demands than engage in the eternal work of God’s kingdom.  Perhaps it’s time to re-dream the dream of serving.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com        Unless otherwise noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©
[2] For another devotion on this topic see Broken Covenant or Latte Salute - Scottie Salute - Sermon Salute

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