Couldn't help but see things as I read the end of chapter two in First Peter. <\/p>\n
[html]<ul><li>An insult contest with a big red "X" across the screen. Peter was trying to get us to imagine a person (Jesus) who was insulted and degraded, but did not respond "in kind." It takes a lot of God in a person to not respond.<\/p>\n
<li>Marchers in Selma and other places in the South were abused, beaten and hosed, but did not turn and attack the perpetrators, set fires, destroy homes and businesses; rather, they endured the punishment, out of which came freedom for so many others. Some of these are very vivid because they happened in my lifetime.[more]<\/p>\n
<li>Strong man contests on TV, with powerful legs and backs carrying barrels or pulling trucks. Even watching, my mind could sense the pain that they must be enduring – after all, when was the last time I pulled a car or truck; or how many boxes have I lifted lately. Yet, there was a man carrying a cross made of wood. At least an eight by eight and probably twelve feet long. That was one heavy hunk of wood.<\/p>\n
<li>Sheep wandering all over the field – "la-de-da". No cares in the world. Nibbling their way to the next blade of grass. And all the time, a shepherd off to one side making sure they were safe from wolves and other dangers. We can come back to the safety of the Shepherd – if we want to.
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Maybe the big picture is this – there is Someone who cares deeply for us and wants to keep us safe. For that to happen, we have to let Him have control of our lives or we'll be like those wandering sheep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Couldn't help but see things as I read the end of chapter two in First Peter. [html]<ul><li>An insult contest with a big red "X" across the screen. Peter was trying to get us to imagine a person (Jesus) who was…
Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesuttle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}