Wanderings – Page 70 – The Life and Times of Joe Suttle

Thought Collision

joe April 11, 2008 Faith

My mind is spinning. Too many books being read by my eyes, feeding my mind, which then has to digest the information and then try to reconcile everything. In addition to my daily Bible reading, there is a copy of “The Idiot’s Guide to the Reformation” and then there is the Bay Hills 101 course I am in.

For some reason, this is the day they all came together at one point – kind of like what we think of as an “atom smasher”. The three points seem to have all fired the same arrow from three different directions. You are probably wondering where this is going. It’s back to “having faith ought to make a change in the way you live”. Notice, that’s not “change things around you”. Rather, it’s what happens in the way you act and respond to people and events – how we “do” life.

I guess that the arrows even came in the TV show “Eli Stone” last night, in the “Live Brave” line. One of the characters said to the prisoner “I guess I should have done something – something more”. Believers (I not sure that fits Eli) ought to be different people – different enough that those who aren’t, see them as different. Kind of like a seed that gets planted – the water and sun make it different than it was. The little seed grows up to be something else, and people (birds and animals too) see it as “different”. It is no longer what it was. Now the question is “am I?”

Whoa There!

joe April 10, 2008 Church

Life is busier than ever. Between the classes I teach or help with, and the time spent learning things… Well, it’s filling the hours. On top of that, there are the little jobs that need doing at home and church… And then there’s the time spent with the family… Looking around, everything seems to want to get in the way of Bible study and family time. Just need to do it! No “making time”, just open the Word and study.

Taking a class at church on Wednesday nights, and really enjoying it. Spending time with other people finding out what the Bible has to say – looking at ways to study and apply the Word.

Look for more tomorrow, ’cause the time will be spent wisely.

Seeing Is Believing?

joe April 5, 2008 Faith, General

Sometimes I wonder about that. Yesterday, I was returning from Santa Rosa, and saw a “fake” cow. You know, one of those black and white “California” cows that produces the milk that makes the great cheese. Hopefully you have the picture now. This “statue” was so realistic looking – even had bones sticking up on her back. Not skinny type bones, just the bones that are on cows backs.

It was so real looking that the give away was how it’s tail kind of wagged the same as the mechanical cows in window displays. Better description is the cat tail on a halloween costume – just kind of rotates from the attachment point like a big crank or a winder. I thought, “what a great picture to advertise California cheese.

Then, the cow moved it’s head, ate some grass and raised it’s head. Oops, my mistake. It was a real cow – how did I make that mistake. Was it that fake cows look so much like the real thing, that on seeing the real thing, I could not tell the difference?

Maybe that’s how it is with our lives – it’s what we look like as we live every day. How we live (“do”) our lives is all people have to go by. So, if we look like the real thing, but don’t, won’t or can’t do the real things, then they see that we are fakers. Maybe I need to change the way I live so that others see by my actions that I am what I really look like or say I am. Maybe this is what James was talking about when he said “by our works” we are known. What if there aren’t any works? What if…