Joy in the Journey

It had been a busy weekend for me.  Most of my weekends are busy. As Pastor of two churches who works a full time job with an hour and fifteen minute commute each way during the week.  Friday night and Saturday are the days that I put the finishing touches on the Sunday message, put together a PowerPoint presentation to go with the message, create the order of worship for the next Sunday and try to do some work around the yard and house.  Sunday’s are, hopefully, the positive culmination of all the busyness throughout the week. This past weekend was one of the busiest of my pastoral career.  My schedule for the weekend included a wedding rehearsal on Friday, the wedding on Saturday, and two baptisms on Sunday.  In order to have everything done, I spent Wednesday and Thursday evenings completing the Sunday Sermon and worship preparation for the next week. So Friday and Saturday, I was able to concentrate on the needs of the wedding party.  The wedding was be...

Think about how many people have had such a negative effect on the events of their world that their names have become so synonymous with betrayal or destruction.  Few would consider naming a child with their names.  The names are used to insult others.  How many can you think of?   The name that most would put at or near the top of this list is Judas, the betrayer of Jesus.  The man who followed Jesus for around three years as one of the band of friends identified as the disciples and sold out his leader for a bag of money. There are a number of speculations about how Judas got to the point of betrayal.   Theories about Judas’ motives and hoped for results continue to be hazarded by theologians and lay people.  But no matter what the motives Judas was working under, the results were not positive.  Jesus would suffer humiliation, beatings and crucifixion.  While Judas would commit suicide and forever be known as the chief of histories betrayer...

I finished “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kerns Goodwin the other day.  Goodwin does a good job of showing the political wisdom of Abraham Lincoln.  As you probably already know, Abraham Lincoln is one of my heroes and this book points out that he could find ways to work through adversity and build relationships with rivals and political enemies. One of Lincoln’s most amazing attributes was his ability to forgive past affronts and continue to work with those who insulted and at times even betrayed him.  Some of these affronts took place years before Lincoln’s rise to national prominence while others took place while he was president.  In both cases, Lincoln chose to overlook them and continue to work with these individuals to get the job done. In the end, many of those rivals that he chose to be closest to him in his White House years would become the closest and most trusted of friends. Lincoln’s special abili...