Sunday, January 11, 2009

so long, good bye...

Today at church we did the neatest thing. Everyone wrote down things they want to give over to God on a slip of paper. Things like selfishness, anger, unforgiveness, etc. The pastor then nailed it to a plain wooden cross. We prayed and sang and when we went home, we left it there. The paper with our burden clearly spelled out...the one we want to give to the Father who loves us and longs for us to trust Him with our every care. I am so blesssed with this type of visual thing. In my mind I will see the Pastor nailing that paper to the cross and me leaving it there for God to deal with and find strength in knowing I cannot keep going back to the same old problems over and over again. I also loved when the pastor said we can't use the old Flip Wilson excuse, "The devil made me do it." any more. Plain and simple. Not new, but it's those plain and simple words I need to hear to encourage me. I guess when you boil it all down, I need to hear simple encouragement and words of faith repeatedly.

He commented about the often stated, "we are living in the worst of times." But, because we live in a land where we are free, we can openly worship Our Lord. We can openly support each other in our Christian walks. He said we are living in the BEST of times. What a great way to look at life. Starting today I will work harder to cultivate an attitude of gratitude and thankfulness. I usually am fairly thankful and positive, but not enough. I think it's just the plain meat and potato(e) sermon I needed to hear. I am uplifted...and smiling.

God is good.

2 comments:

Deb said...

It was an incredibly powerful sermon and visual. When he nailed those papers to the cross - I lost it. The tears flowed and with the tears went all that stuff which I had been holding on to for so long. Powerful indeed. We serve a mighty God!

Margie said...

I need to do that!! thank you for sharing!