Hi Church!!

Last Sunday was the unofficial beginning of summer and is historically one of the least well attended Sunday church services. As such, I know a lot of folks weren’t there…like most of my family . You have to admit the beach and the mountains and all the totally neat stuff we are blessed with here in North Carolina can simply be too much to ignore on occasion…and you know what? That’s Okay. I grew up as a Catholic and I can remember going to church every Sunday because the doctrine of the church at that time (and maybe still today, I honestly don’t know) was that it was a sin to miss mass on Sunday. That’s not meant to be a rap on Catholicism, just a personal observation. Lest we never forget, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet, I digress.

I just wanted to give you a snapshot of last Sunday’s word as given by our pastor that touched my heart deeply. As an illustration he had an empty glass gallon jug. He also had a small blue ball (about the size of a handball) and dozens of smaller yellow balls.

Matt drops the blue ball in the jug first and tells us it represents the woes in our lives, and truthfully doesn’t everybody have some problems? They could be with child rearing or if you’re a child or teen it could be with the way your parents raise you. It could be finances. It could be a broken heart or home and the list just goes on.

Next Matt picks up the yellow balls and asks the congregation what blessings do they have in life? The response is fast and furious…family, home, children, parents, cars, school, freedom, work, health and on and on until all the yellow balls were used up and the blue ball was all but invisible.

Then the question is poised: If your life is like this gallon jug with all the yellow balls and the one bigger blue ugly one which one do you focus on most? I won’t begin to suggest that I have any idea how you’d personally respond to that, but I knew my response. I didn’t like it but it’s true…the blue ball gets a lot of my time and attention.

So if you missed last Sunday might I suggest you ask yourself that question?

It’s a troubled world we live in, it’s a fallen world and I suppose it can even be a scary world…but when I take the time to stop and recognize the blessings that God has bestowed on me, the world feels like a much better place.

If you’re willing to take that mental task on and see how it fits, I need to remind you of something else that’s also very important (and you already know it). Each of us has that gallon jug. It’s not just you and it’s not just me, it’s all of us.

It’s so easy to pass judgment on others. But if we stop and we picture our jug and concentrate on our blessings instead of our burdens and still have the wherewithal to realize that others have gallon jugs filled with balls and maybe they have a multiplicity of the blue ones and they’re having a hard time focusing on the yellow ones…maybe, just maybe, instead of passing judgment we’d look at them and say (or think) I know. I know where you’re coming from and I feel your pain.

That’s all. Matt’s anointed words spoke to me on Sunday. It wasn’t especially anything I didn’t already know, but it was certainly something that I can’t be reminded of enough. So now I take all Matt’s hard work and boil it down into a few paragraphs and pass it on to you and hope it will be a helpful reminder.

Peace and Love!!