One thing a lot of you may not know about me is that I am a quote junky. I LOVE looking through quotes and I get excited when I find one particularly insightful. Nerdy, perhaps. But hey- it could be worse. All that to say, tonight I was looking through quotes and ran across one I particularly liked.
"While God waits for His temple to be built of love, men bring stones."
It took me several minutes of just sitting here thinking about it before I really grasped what it was saying. When I got it though, I absolutely loved it. This quote is so true. I am probably a broken record when it comes to this topic, but I will continue to say this as often as I can, because I think it is so important. We are the church. Not the building, the stones and brick and mortar. Us. The church is just a place. Now don't misunderstand me. The place where the church goes on Sunday and Wednesdays and whenever else is so important because it gives a place for members of Christ's body to meet together and encourage each other and learn from each other. But if that's ALL we do, sit in a church building and listen and sing a few songs- what good is that? The Bible tells us that faith without deeds is useless. I am as guilty at this as the next person. But how many of us pray for God to change the world through us or pray for God to bless this person or that person, and then go on our way and think to ourselves that now God is going to take care of it so it's out of our hands and that we've done our job? In this case, it is NOT the thought that counts. It is OUR responsibility to help people, to be Christ's hands and feet. What if, instead of just praying that Susan starts making better choices, we befriend her and SHOW her just what the love of Christ can do in a person? Or instead of just saying that we hope that the Allan family's situation gets better, we rallied the church to buy them groceries or provide free babysitting for their children so that the parents can work extra hours? Granted, these are random for instance-es. But you get my point. There is something we can do to help people, and we should. If the church was what it should be, a body of believers determined to be the light of Christ in this world and show people with our actions how Christ has changed them...how could people argue with us? Instead of Christians going out to convert people, people would be coming to the church because they WANTED to be there. There would be something so attractive, something so wonderful, that they couldn't help but want to be a part of it.
One last thing that's on my mind about this- I think something we can all do better at is looking with the eyes of Jesus. If we saw every person as a broken person who desperately needs the love and healing power of God, then it would help us as well. We would gossip less, because we would be concerned for that person instead of wanting to belittle them. We would get angry less, because we would realize we ALL fall short. And the list goes on.
Going back to the quote, we need to focus less on the building itself and more on the people IN the building. My challenge to you for this week is simply...do something. Praying is good and useful and you can never underestimate the power of prayer. But don't stop there. Do something for someone. And then...do something else.
Be salt and light!!!
~Hannah~
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Lessons Learned from Movies
This summer when I am going to be able to have scheduled time to blog, I'm going to have different categories. One I'm implementing now is "Lessons that I learned from movies".
This is a goofy movie to say the least, but the other day I watched "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". It's one of those "have to see it to get the quotes" movies, but it was very funny. I'll let you watch it on your own sometime (it's on youtube, alright!) but two teenagers get involved in time travel. At one point in the movie, they get asked for a piece of advice. Their advice? "Be excellent to each other".
As random as this may be, this is my challenge for you. Be excellent to each other. Be kind, be patient, be humble, be forgiving, be a friend, be a mentor...whatever the other person needs- be that for them. Simply... be excellent.
That's my insight for the week. Nothing deep, just something I was thinking about recently. Have a great weekend!
Be salt and light!
~Hannah~
This is a goofy movie to say the least, but the other day I watched "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". It's one of those "have to see it to get the quotes" movies, but it was very funny. I'll let you watch it on your own sometime (it's on youtube, alright!) but two teenagers get involved in time travel. At one point in the movie, they get asked for a piece of advice. Their advice? "Be excellent to each other".
As random as this may be, this is my challenge for you. Be excellent to each other. Be kind, be patient, be humble, be forgiving, be a friend, be a mentor...whatever the other person needs- be that for them. Simply... be excellent.
That's my insight for the week. Nothing deep, just something I was thinking about recently. Have a great weekend!
Be salt and light!
~Hannah~
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