I Told You So
I don’t care who you are, I TOLD YOU SO are not words that are well received. Nobody likes to hear those words, even if we know the person is right! I have known people who will invent different scenarios just in case there is a small chance they get the opportunity to say, I TOLD YOU SO!
I have done my best through the years to look at things differently. I have certainly had my moments where I acted or spoke and there was no need to. We've all had those moments when we look back and want to kick ourselves.
Ephesians 4: 2
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
I remember years ago, my son and I were walking around the mall and decided to take a break. As we were sitting on a bench, I asked him if he would shake my hand. When he did, I explained to him that shaking a person’s hand is an honest gesture of acknowledgment. I told him, it is important not to bury the person’s hand; but to grasp it firmly, shake it, and let them know you are honestly glad to meet them. We got up from the bench and no more than 2 minutes later, a colleague of mine came up to us. As I introduced my son, the man shook his hand. The next thing the man said to my son was, "Nice handshake, young man."
I can still remember the look my son gave me to this day!
In Romans Chapter 5: 3-5
3 Not only so, but we[a] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 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.
Each time we fall short, God is preparing us and molding us into the people he knows we can be.
So, this week is the week that has been set aside for us to step back and count all the blessings God has given us. Scripture says:
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
We will gather around family and friends the next 5 weeks and sometimes those with strong personalities will “Get on our Nerves,” and many will want to be right and say I TOLD YOU SO!
This is not a time for right and wrong. This is a time to gather with many unique personalities and be thankful for the blessings we have.
A friend of mine has a quote that says “Quit griping that your stuff is tearing up! Be thankful you have stuff”. Step back and take your eyes off all the "stuff" and look at all the people around you that you have the opportunity to share your life with. God has blessed us.
So, the next time you have the urge to say I TOLD YOU SO, step back and see if this can be a moment of trust, admiration, or clarity. When you say I TOLD YOU SO, it is for your personal benefit? Does it make the other person feel less? Somehow, that does not feel like the right thing to do!
Have a great Holiday Season,
Mike
Living Each Day
Living in the present, not the past, is much easier said than done. We read about living intentionally, about being in the moment, about not dwelling on the past, and not to ruminate over our past mistakes and failures.
How many times have we told ourselves that we should not have said something, and even more often, how many times have we not said something that we should have said. We can not go back and relive any moment in time. Each minute of each day is given to us. It is a gift. A once in a lifetime opportunity. What is it that holds us back from telling a family member that we love them? Paying a compliment to a stranger? Holding the door for the person behind us? Letting in 1 car on highway 98? And even more so, sharing the Gospel?
And yet we all will need to account for our actions, our speech, and our passing up of opportunities. Each moment is a once in a lifetime gift to us, not to given up to a missed opportunity, telling ourselves that there is always tomorrow, or we can do it next time. This is the time. This is the moment that we have been given. Let us go forward, living each day as the gift that it is, and sharing that gift. Let us live each day, as we wish we would have lived it. when we stand before God.
Laura Beth Snow is the manager at our Good Neighbor Thrift Store and We Care. Her laugh and smile are contagious and she continues to break store records on a regular basis.
Religious Exemption
Nobody likes getting shots. There’s an inherent fear about sticking long needles through your skin and injecting something foreign into your body. Yet, over the past several months millions of people have voluntarily received a vaccine for COVID. It wasn’t until move recently where it stopped being voluntary for certain groups of people. The word mandate just rubs people the wrong way to begin with, but when it’s about something that has been as politically divisive and hotly debated as this vaccine it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are looking for a way to get around the mandate.
What has caught me by surprise is the number of people that are now trying to claim religious exemption from the shot. Because this is such a sensitive and passionate subject for some, I have to put in a disclaimer here. This is not about whether a vaccine mandate is ethical, the politics behind the shots, or anything other than the logical conclusions of being a Christian and receiving any vaccine or modern medicine.
The starting point for most religious exceptions to the shot are from the use of aborted fetal cells in the development of the vaccine. This is, of course, part of a much larger conversation, but in general the church has been historically opposed to abortion. People argue that the use of cells that were obtained in a way that departs from church doctrine is sufficient enough to exclude them from the shot. This is a reasonable conclusion. Where things become less reasonable is when you consider that this isn’t the first or only vaccine to contain these cells. Hepatitis A, Rabies, Rubella, and Chicken pox vaccines also use these cells.
We also have to talk about where these cells originated from. All fetal cells used for vaccine research are from two abortions preformed legally back in the 1960’s. Scientists continue to develop and grow these cells in laboratories, which means that the cells used in todays vaccines are several generations removed from the original cells. In other words, we are now over 50 years removed from the actual origin of these cells.
At this point, the argument becomes whether or not all vaccines or medical practices that have roots in areas that go against the church are permissible or should be avoided. There isn’t a single mainline denomination that has officially objected vaccines. Even the Catholic Church, which is vocal about its objections to abortion, took a stand back in 2017 and said that the lack of vaccinations represents a serious health risk. It’s for these reasons that very few religious exemptions are granted, because there really isn’t much to go on. If you have been consistent in refusing modern medical treatment in favor of miraculous healing and have refused every shot or vaccine because of the origins all for religious convictions, then you have a solid argument for a religious exemption.
The other piece of all of this, beyond the medical realm, is the continuity through the rest of their personal lives. I’m reminded a little of Samson from the Old Testament. He had a legitimate religious objection to cutting his hair. However, he slept around, was an alcoholic, and in just about every other way lived a life that did not reflect any kind of religious leaning. That’s why he’s a bit of an anti-hero of the Bible and not exactly the model we want to follow. His story illustrates that even with some deeply held religious convictions, if our whole lives don’t reflect those values we are really missing the mark.
So while there is a small basis for religious exemption from vaccines, it’s really from a viewpoint to which few Christians actually ascribe. Without the full conviction and followthrough in all areas, what this push for religious exemption has become is more of a political scapegoat that hurts the church. I’m aware that this might be a very unpopular statement. However, I’m also confident that this statement wouldn’t be controversial at all three years ago. Our doctrine on the issue hasn’t changed, and we need to be carefully and prayerfully intentional about allowing current events to change our theology.
Stepping Back
How many days do you get up, and before you even step out of the door, you are tired from thinking how much you must do that day? You turn on the morning news to see what happened overnight and find you are more stressed out by all the noise? Or you come in from a long day to find half of the house is without power, and your spouse is not a happy camper? We have all experienced these things and more in dealing with life. How do we cope?
Someone asked me a question a few weeks ago, “How do I read the Bible?” An honest question. Now, you can begin with Genesis and read chapter by chapter; however, I have found you will get confused and get lost by Numbers and then lose interest. For me, the Bible came to life when I was gifted a Message New Testament Bible. I continue to read my NIV version of the complete Bible. I love the scripture wording in Psalms, but when I read the Message Version of the Bible it comes to life and speaks to me like never before.
So, as a worship ministry, we are reading the New Testament in one year by reading a chapter a day every weekday. It takes no more than 5 minutes, and it starts my day off reading the word of God.
This week, I was reading Matthew Chapter 13, when the first lines just spoke to me.
13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore.
I began to think to myself how many times I have stepped back and just said, "Give me a minute." Not nearly as much as I should have. Jesus had crowds of people following him, listening to him, wanting him to heal them, yet he still preached and healed, while he sat in a boat, alone. He needed to gather himself just as we need to step back ourselves.
I remember one instance; I was preparing for an Easter set up where the entire stage and stage set was taking on a completely different look for Easter morning. Rehearsal for Easter was in 6 hours and nothing, I mean nothing, was plugged in or set up, and I had 35 people coming for an Easter rehearsal expecting it to look the way it would for Easter. That morning, we had run into equipment issues, and there was a buzz coming from the sound system that we could not track down. The setup and the mic checks had to be performed to make sure the rehearsal would go smoothly. At this time, the youth director had a bunch of students who were going on a prayer walk around the campus. The students saw the stressful situation all the production team was in. We all gathered, and the students and youth director put us in the middle of a circle and each student placed a hand on the shoulder of each of us on the team and they prayed over us for at least 10 minutes. When we headed back into the Sanctuary to put everything together, the sound man found the buzz we had been working on for hours, two of us set the stage while the other people set all the props on the stage, and we were completely done with 2 hours to spare with everything working and ready for rehearsal.
All we had to do was step back and be calmly reminded that God is in control, and he has our backs.As we begin to roll into the holiday season, we will be stressed over something, it’s going to happen. Take the time to step back just as Jesus did.
FYI, the only thing wrong was that a GFI outlet had been tripped and caused a partial outage. Sometimes we just need to step back.
Give it a try and cancel out the noise and turn your focus on Jesus!
Faith in the Valleys
As I sit here on the back porch drinking my coffee on this crisp October morning, I find myself reveling in the changing seasons. Each with its beauty and purpose, its own perfect timing. Bringing new life and wonder to our world on a scale that can only be described as God designed. But I wonder, what if the seasons never changed? Would the birds who migrate or the animals who hibernate know? I mirror this to the things we so often pray for/about. And what if the times we waited for never came? What if the job we prayed for was never available, or the healing we so desperately needed was never fulfilled? Do we simply turn our back and give up, or is there something more as to why these things did not come to pass? I believe that many times the people of both the Old and New Testaments were called upon to walk by faith. The 400-year break between the Old and New Testaments alone can attest to the faith the Jewish people had in their God and his promise to send them the Messiah. So why, if God’s chosen people were called to walk by faith those many years ago, are we any different now? In Nursery this month we are learning to Sing in the Rain, which simply put, means that while we are going through hard “storms” in our lives, God is looking down on us continually, and so we can be confident in the hope that “His will be done” Matthew 6:10.
How many times can you look back on your life and see God’s handiwork? If you are anything like me, you can see God’s expert touch in almost every circumstance. Now let me ask, did you know the outcome to that plan beforehand or even during? Most likely not. Just as a mountain climber does not notice the heights to which he has climbed until he reaches the top and looks down, so must we also keep our eyes focused on God during the struggles we face each day.
I am proud to say that I serve a God who is faithful in all His promises! Now, does this mean that all the things we pray for will come to pass? Most assuredly not, but we can hold fast, stand firm, unbroken in the knowledge that no matter how we see the circumstances, God is at work constructing His perfect plan. Just as the trees and animals have faith that the seasons will change, so also can we have faith that God will bring us through the seasons in our lives. Seasons of growth and prosperity, and also seasons of sorrow and pain. These seasons are no surprise to our Creator and he longs for us to cling to him in these times that seem hopeless. He did not say in His word that our lives as faithful Christians would be without affliction, however, He made clear over and over again that He is with us through these times and never gives us more than we can handle when we turn to him for strength.
So just as we have faith that the seasons will bring new life and wonder, so will the plans that God has for us. I urge you this next week to listen to the song Hills and Valleys (the Hills Remix) by Tauren Wells and I pray that it speaks to you where you are and encourages you through the valleys in your own life as it has mine.
Kellie Jones joined the NUMC Staff in the summer of 2021 as our Nursery Coordinator. Her energy and cheerfulness is contagious to everyone who works and volunteers with her. She loves Jesus, her family, and the Pittsburgh Steelers.