Theme #5: Love people. Use things. Never get the two mixed up.It was during my college years my mom passed this nugget of advice on to me.
This year, I've been very convicted about a mindset that's began to creep in on me. It's a consumerist, therapeutic, it's all about me, do everything I can to make my life easy mentality that I would say is running rampant all around us. I've been very tempted to get the two mixed up.
For me, the big theme here has been taking one step further. I believe the "stuff" in my life is only there so I can better love God and love people. At times, the stuff can be used in a way that sets me up to love people. At times, some of that stuff needs to be sacrificed in order to love people better.
- In ministry, you would think it would be easy to remember that people are not pawns, but the temptation can rise to think just the opposite.
- There are many students that I see as obstacles to ministry. God, forgive me for not realizing they ARE the ministry.
- I can't count the number of times I've had a thought, "If I just had ______ (insert blank with a "thing") life sure would be ___________ (insert some statement that indicates an easier life)."
- I enjoy disc golf, fantasy football, watching ESPN, the internet, my ipod, and fast food. They are all things. At times I think I run the risk of letting these THINGS take priority over the PEOPLE in my life.
- Last year, we disconnected our internet at home... partly to save some money, but mainly because I had gotten out of whack and was letting the THING take priority over the PEOPLE in my life (mainly my wife and daughter).
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."We live in a society where we need salvation from our stuff. We need to recapture what it means to love people. Jesus said that Loving God and loving people are one in the same. It's all about Him and others.Matthew 22:35-40
For me, the big theme here has been taking one step further. I believe the "stuff" in my life is only there so I can better love God and love people. At times, the stuff can be used in a way that sets me up to love people. At times, some of that stuff needs to be sacrificed in order to love people better.
2 comments:
German philosopher Immanuel Kant put it well when he said: "Always treat people as an end in themselves and never as a means to an end" (or something very close to that). I think of this maxim often in my interaction with others.
I Kant agree more, sir Cramer. (oh I crack myself up!)
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