O My Stars!

This is way too funny! Maybe you heard a couple of weeks ago about an announcement that is just filled with hilarious irony. A Minnesota astronomy professor announced that the 12-symbol zodiac chart is actually missing the 13th constellation called Orphiuchus. Apparently, this effectively changes the zodiac signs for more than 300 birthdays out of the year. So we have all these people who thought they were Leo’s who are actually Cancers; scores who thought their ‘sign’ was Taurus when it was actually Aries the whole time; and so on. You get the picture. Just think about all those poor folks with those strategically placed tattoos of scorpions? Whoops! Talk about an identity crisis!

Now, just think about this for a moment. Here we have all of these people living their whole lifetimes religiously charting their course each day according to a faith system only to learn that what they had been following their whole lives wasn’t actually for them at all! It is made even more hilarious by the fact that they never caught on the whole time!

Here is what one writer had to say:

“For the past 50 years I have been, as an Aquarius, friendly and humanitarian; honest and loyal; original and inventive; and independent and intellectual. Now I am, as a Capricorn, practical and prudent; ambitious and disciplined; patient and careful; and humorous and reserved… This new me is going to take some getting used to.” Kyra Gottesman

This is put in perspective by a Canada AM survey conducted last week that has 43% of viewers admitting that they always take the time to check their horoscope before heading out for the day. That makes it pretty funny really, I think. Maybe? I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry!

But I do know this – if those same people would take the same time to read the Bible before heading out each day they would be a lot farther ahead. Astrology is misguided at best, demonic at worst. Get a Bible and read it. Use it to discover who you really are and to chart your life course.

Reflections

A couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the wife looks out the kitchen window and sees her neighbor hanging her wash out on the clothes line. “That laundry isn’t very clean”, she says. “Either she doesn't know how to wash correctly or she needs to buy better laundry detergent.”

Her husband is sitting there but doesn’t say anything. The same kinds of comments continue over the course of the next few weeks. Every time the lady next door hangs her laundry out, the man’s wife has something to say about how it isn’t clean enough. Then one morning, the man and his wife are sitting at the breakfast table and she suddenly observes, “Well, would you look at that! She has finally learned how to wash clothes. I wonder who taught her.” To this the husband simply responds, “Actually, I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

You may have heard this story before. It’s one I came across somewhere a while back and held onto because it teaches a valuable lesson. What is that lesson? What we say about people probably says more about us than it does about them. It’s true. So often, our opinions about others reveal more about our own understandings (or misunderstandings) of life than they do about anything or anyone else.

Mart DeHaan of RBC Ministries writing in his blog (Aug 27/09) said it like this - “We see things not only as they are, but as we are.”

Ourselves are revealed more in our words than we might realize. As you look at the world and the people around you in it, what you think of as a window could quite well be more of a mirror!

We really need to remember this before we open our mouths to speak don’t we.

“Remember, every time you open your mouth to talk, your mind walks out and parades up and down the words.” Edwin H. Stuart

Beauty Is Fleeting

When I awoke this morning, what a beauty lay outside my window! I hope you got to see it. The snow laden trees and shrubs and fields, it was spectacular. But then, as the day began to warm and the sun made its appearance, within a very short span it was gone. Not completely gone mind you, but mostly diminished. The glory of the snow is not unlike everything else in this world. It is fleeting; ourselves included.

“‘All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ …” 1Pet 1:24,25

Whether it is the desire to be beautiful, or the desire to possess the beautiful one, as a culture, we are obsessed with personal outward appearance. And it seems we become more so every day. In contrast to this is the wisdom of the Bible.

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30

A while ago, I found this nugget in a piece of ‘junk mail’ someone had forwarded to me - “A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him first to find her.”

I was really impressed when I read that. It resonates with truth. It speaks of much more than what we call ‘inner beauty’ but it certainly includes that concept. And, as such, it reminded me of this Scripture:

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” 1 Peter 3:3-4

Here’s one more Scripture for your consideration:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2Cor 4:16-18

As we live out our days in a world that is fading away, our culture is fixated on the temporal. That’s obvious. But what about those who would be known to love Jesus? What about you?

Worship In A Nutshell

Sometime ago I came across one of those websites where people write in and ask questions and other people who are perceived as being kind of like ‘professional answer people’ respond with answers to the best of their knowledge.

I was intrigued by one of the submissions that came in from a lady who wrote:

“My brother, although raised as a Christian, is now both an ex-Scientologist and an agnostic. He asked me this question, ‘What kind of God would require worship?’”

Frederica Mathewes-Green, the author of ‘The Illumined Heart’ (Paraclete Press), offered what I think is a pretty good response to the question. Here is what she wrote:


In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer is asked a similar question. He replies, “God is very powerful, but also very insecure, like Barbra Streisand before James Brolin.” If you picture God as being like a giant human being, that makes sense. But in the Bible, the main thing people who've encountered God say is that He’s the opposite of ordinary humans. He’s holy. Those who meet him say, “You've never experienced anything like this before. It made my hair stand on end.”
Their first reaction seems to be fear, since the first thing they are told is usually “Do not fear.” Then, as they continue to stand in God’s presence, they become overwhelmed with awe and love, and they start seeing their own failings very clearly. Strong light makes long shadows. Isaiah sees God ‘high and lifted up’ and reacts, “Woe is me!” Peter sees Jesus perform a miracle and falls to his knees saying, “I am a sinful man.”
That's what people who have ‘been there’ report: God is ‘other’, He’s inexpressibly wonderful. When you experience Him, you suddenly see how much you need to change. And that’s worship in a nutshell. God doesn’t command us to do this; it’s more like He warns us that this is what will happen. Get ready, because His presence is going to knock you over! I hope your brother will continue to evolve and soon become an ex-agnostic.

This response endears me for a few reasons but one of the lines I really like is, “He’s inexpressibly wonderful. When you experience Him, you suddenly see how much you need to change. And that’s worship in a nutshell.”

The statement begs the question. Can we really say we have worshiped God if there has been no change in our life as a result? And I am inclined to think not. If worship is an encounter with the living God, how could we remain unchanged by such an experience?