It’s really a Simple Subject.  Why Do We Make it so Hard?

 Howdy folks!  Today we were back in our Church for the first time in several months.  It felt good!

It felt good to know that we had been missed.  It also felt good to be together with our Church Family and rejoin the fellowship and wholeness that we feel when we are together in His house.  So many smiling faces, so many friends and loving neighbors.  God is so good to us.  He is always good to us.  That was Eddie’s message today; A Faithful God.

His message came right behind Doug Reynold’s lesson today on “Envy” in the ‘Young Adults (in Denial)’ class.   As Jerry Archer so eloquently reminded us, they really are ‘Young Adults’ until Cindy and I show up!  Was there a connection between the Doug’s lesson and Eddie’s sermon?  Probably not, but both the lesson and the sermon made me stop and think.

The original basis for the ‘Letters from Roscoe’ series was actually a letter I had written for my sister.  At one point in her life, she had declared herself to be an ‘atheist’.  I think she has now swung around to where she now declares herself to be ‘agnostic’.  (Not by anything I have done)  Having just recently come back to God I wrote this letter to her in an attempt to talk her back to where she needs to be.  She was baptized as a child and was later exposed to the same Church that I’ve told you about before.  I tell you all this to bring up a recurring ‘topic’ for this ‘Christian in Training’.

The topic is Pride.  The problem is Pride.  The answer to the problem is – To be as a child.

Children have no pride.  Sure they can be proud of a recent drawing or award, but they have not evolved yet into the egotistical adult that many of us are.  They look at things differently from you and I.  They see them at face value.  They do not attempt to force our laws and rules onto the things that they see and hear.  When you tell them about God, Jesus, Heaven and the Holy Ghost they accept it wholly and completely because of their child-like innocence.  I’m not sure innocence is the right word, but I believe you understand what I mean.

In Doug’s class this morning the following verse rang out loudly to me:

The passage is from Luke Chapter 10 (New Living Translation).  The seventy-two disciples had just returned and were joyfully telling Jesus about their power to cast out demons when using his name.

²¹ At that same time Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and he said, “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike.  Yes Father it pleased you to do it this way.”

Hidden from the wise and clever, but revealed to the childlike.

Take me for instance; I am a prideful person.  I believe myself to be intelligent and to have been around the block a time or too.  I believe in science, space exploration, the power of medicine…all of the things that Man has wrought.  As a result, I have had a very hard time with my faith.  I tend to throw all those worldly things into it that are rational and scientific.  I will not let myself ‘see things as a child would.’

It is very hard to let go of that pride; to admit that I am nothing but a child myself and that I have no ‘real grasp’ of the world and universe that surrounds me.  To actually listen to, understand and absorb the words of that incredible song “How Great Thou Art!”

I just have to have faith.

The faith of a child.

Faith as small as a mustard seed.

In closing, you might be wondering, did I ever give my sister the letter?  No.  At least not in that form.  But I have given it to her in the form of this series of “Letters from Roscoe.”

How Great Thou Art

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on a Cross, my burdens gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.