Faith

NOTE! My comments doesn’t work. I’m working on figuring out why..
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Lately I’ve been thinking a bit about why it is that I believe in the impossible. Yea, because I do! And sometimes I wonder why that is. Because, in a way, it would be so much easier to just don’t believe – to just say “well, I don’t think it is that possible to be raised from the grave” or “I’m sure the disciples just missed him so much that they started to believe he had resurrected, even though it all just happened in their minds”  (just to take a few of the many reasons not to believe).

But, you know what? I still believe. I can’t use these (or other) sentences because I do think the impossible is possible, I do believe that God is bigger than my understanding of him is. And I can’t find any reason for the change that occurs in the disciples behavior and attitude, other than in believing they tell the truth.

Thomas helps me find my faith in the resurrection. And in a way this is his Sunday. He wasn’t with the others on Easter Day. For some unknown reason  he wasn’t there when Christ came visiting. And when the others, with joy in their voices, told him that they had met Jesus. That he was alive and not dead. Thomas could not believe, not until he could see it with his own eyes. The next Sunday (as in this Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter Day) Thomas was together with his friends and he got to meet him. He got to see, he got to touch, he got to say with joy and wonder in his voice: “my Lord and my God”. He knew now, as the others had known for a week already, Jesus was risen. It was the truth. Jesus is alive.

I’ve been there with Thomas today. Stretched out my arm, touched the wounds, feeling the joy and wonder as I too have said: my Lord and my God.

I don’t understand it all, but I do believe.

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read more in John. 20:16->

We’ve reached the last Sunday in our church year in my Lutheran church of Norway.

When Advent rolls around we’ll start the new church year, with it’s new beginnings and Christmas story unfold.

But first we have to get by the Last Sunday of the Church Year. And as you might have guessed the theme and texts are from the Last Day, the Day of Judgment. There are so many different approaches to this; some thinks that this is more important than life on earth and spend their whole life thinking about how they are going to be judged – others thinks that this is the most unimportant thing to worry about and spend their whole life living in and of the world.

Most of us is somewhere in between.

I know I am, and even though I love living my life knowing there is a heaven and hoping for the future beyond my life here on earth, I’m also a very down-to-earth kind of person. So for me the most important about this day in our church year isn’t to prepare for Judgment Day in it self; I know Christ died on a cross for me and payed my dept and in him I’m free – no matter what!

Still I think it is important to let the texts and the theme inspire me to do good – not for my own sake, but because other people needs me and my help; big or small.

Yesterday I found this challenge to be nice – Operation Nice. I’m not always nice, but I try to be – so I’m putting this in my sidebar (later today) hoping that it’ll inspire me to do better, make it a priority. Imagine how the earth would be if everyone tried to be nice each and every day.

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Scripture from Matt 25:39-40.

Have a blessed Sunday – remember you are loved by God!

When I prepared for the sermon(s) for today I was stuck in a rut for a long time. I just could not figure out how to tackle the text in a down to earth and simple sermon. But finally I got help from above (glad God always comes through when I need it; he just lets me think good and long; getting some use of the brain he have designed for me……lol). Anyhow, I ended up in the baptist church I visited in New York all those years ago (May, 2003) – a few words from the sermon hold by a energetic female pastor really stuck with me (- and I know; I’ve told you before, here and here but here it goes again..since it’s still good and useful).

LET GO – AND LET GOD!!

When everything are being just too much, whether it’s the faith or the life in general getting too hard to handle; give room for God and amazing things might happen <3 And also remember that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6) – maybe we won’t catch all the balls we joggle in our life; everything probably won’t be all finished and made complete before the day we’ll meet our Lord. But while we’re down here we have our God by our side – helping us; giving peace when things gets a bit overwhelming; telling us how much he loves us when we need that extra loving to pull through – and more. So:

LET GO – AND LET GOD!!
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It’s been a day filled with church, psalms, sermons and being together as a congregation. I’ve had services in two churches and met a lot of people (some new to me, a good bunch of them family and people I knew off back when I visited Grandma in her yellow house – a long time ago!) – it’s been nice and I love to get to know more about the churches around here and the people as well.

Tonight I’ve enjoyed a few more videos of card making over at K. Werner’s blog (love them) and now I’m listening to Christmas music and getting in the holiday mood. Got to love that Can’t wait to hang my stars in the windows at the first Sunday of Advent; think I might need a few new stars as well; this house comes with a lot of windows Soon I’ll be heading to bed, though, it’s after midnight here at our place (again)..

Blessed Week to you.

This Sunday was all about keeping two thoughts in our head at the same time.

1. we are loved by God and are free to live with joy
2. we are different from God and do (or don’t do) things that mess up our relationship with God

In our service today we had both this aspects clearly with us: 4 children where there to be baptized and we had a special liturgy focusing on our need to repent and pray for mercy (we called the day bots- og bededag in Norwegian). I think we managed to give both these aspects weight through music, words and actions, but it took some preparations and thoughts throughout the week.

If we speak the truth about our selves – God will speak His truth.

When we realize just how much we are loved, when we realize just how much effort God took to make the wrongs right between himself and us, when we realize what we have in Jesus Christ – our life will change. We will not become perfect human beings doing nothing wrong to God or the people around us, but we will dare to go to our God with our life; the good and the bad. We can do that because through Jesus we are forgiven, still sinners – but forgiven sinners.

So speak the truth and receive Gods grace and forgiveness. There is nothing like it (and to be honest we need it more than once a year!).

Blessings

Today I’ve been thinking about the man that got lowered down before Jesus while he (Jesus) was preaching the word of God inside a friends house. Someone thought that bringing their friend to there were more important than keeping up with the normal rule about not breaking anything that doesn’t belong to you (like a roof…). I’ve been thinking about the man laying on the stretcher; what was he thinking about it all and how did he felt when everybody was looking at him – the intruder.

I guess a myriad of thoughts and feeling went through him, but one might have struck him as something new. He got to experience that he was loved by God, maybe for the first time ever. Back then they believed that there was a reason for being sick; someone (he or his parents) must have done something really bad for him to be this sick. They thought the sickness was God’s way of punishing people for their sins. So naturally most people kept a distance to the sick people,  they couldn’t go against God’s punishments; so to speak. It’s not an easy burden to carry, in addition to being sick he also felt that God didn’t like him very much. I’m so glad we don’t think like this any more (or do we??!).

I’m so glad Jesus is by our side for the good as well as the bad days. I’m so glad that I everyday can know that Jesus loves me more than I know – he loves you too; all of us!!

The man got his life back, he got forgiven and he got his health. I’m not sure what he would say was most important if I asked him, but I know that even though life doesn’t always show it’s good side – through it all we are loved by God. We can live our life knowing that that never goes away. This week I will think about the blessing in that; even though I see sickness and hard times so many places – God does see it too.
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PS: you can find the text in Mark 2:1-12

a faith scrap – from the bible; psalm 17:8
credits: paper and element from unconditional love by late night scrap

I’m working on a couple of sermons today and I thought I might check my archive here to see if I found something interesting. And I did. So this is a link to some thoughts I had in late May 2005 about the text for coming Sunday. Nice!!

In June 2006 I found some other thoughts that help me find the words for the service today. I wished I placed all my sermons and faith thoughts here – but sometimes it’s just too much work to translate it to English. Sorry.

I do, however, plan to bring my favorite pillow to church today.

And I do plan to tell them about an old movie (from the 70s?!) – I can’t remember what it’s called in English, but the Norwegian is Korset og springkniven (it’s a well known book as well). I found it, the English title is the same: The Cross and the Switchblade. It’s about David Wilkerson (or some more from him here) and his meeting with the gangs of New York city. I never forget the passage where one of the gang members tell David to shut up: -  if he tells him one more time that God loves him he will cut David into small pieces. David is afraid, but still manages to say:

If you do that, every tiny bit of me will shout out to you that God loves you!

The gang member goes away, but later he finds his way into believing in Christ. (Note, I don’t have the book in front of me, so this is the happening as I remember reading it….. Should really dig out the book and read it again, it’s been years since last time I looked in it).

And there you have it, a real blog post from me Great! I love writing blog post – and it helps me gather my thoughts Now if I only could do it more often……

Anyhow, it’s a rainy day at my place – hope there is sun where you are. Remember God loves you no matter what the day is like – or how good or bad you are – he just loves us!!

I’m not Irish and neither do I celebrate St. Patrick’s day that much. But I love the blessings and the green. So I’ve been walking around all day with my green sweater (and MT had green clothes too, but the photo above is an old one), I guess nobody around me noticed though since we don’t celebrate this day here, but I had some fun Now I’ve been looking around a little in the cyberspace and found a few blessings and sayings I’d want to share with you before I call it the night.

Go mbeannai Dia duit
(May God Bless You)

You’ve blessed me with friends and laughter and fun
With rain that’s as soft as the light from the sun-
You’ve blessed me with the stars to brighten each night
You’ve give me help to know wrong from right
You’ve give me so much please, Lord give me too
A heart that is always grateful to you.

May your neighbors respect you,
Troubles neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And Heaven accept you.

May those who love us, love us
And those who don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts
And if he can’t turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles
So we will know them by their limping!

Dance as if no one were watching,
Sing as if no one were listening,
And live every day as if it were your last.

May the roads rise to meet you.
May the wind be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rain fall soft upon your fields
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

The last one is my long time favorite. Hope you had/are having a good day!!

Today we took the youth club out to the local ski trek (a small one) and gathered quite a few youths with the love of alpine skiing and snow boarding. After a little more than an hour we tried to get all of the youths together by the bonfire, we grilled some hot dogs and wanted them all to be there for the devotion. We used almost half an hour to get everyone (more or less) to stand still and not go for the just-one-more-down-hill-while-the-others-gathered tour…. In the end I counted 25 people there, all together, and then it was time for one of the young girls to have the devotion.It must have been so scary, but she jumped into it. A bit low voiced at the beginning; I could see the youths concentration and trying to catch her words, but after a bit all of us heard quite well.

She told about her self being an artist, a painter, and how she thought about her creations. Even when she had finished a painting she sometimes had to add a bit or change some, maybe as long as a year later, because she wanted it to be just like she wanted it to be and she cared about it. She put so much of her self into the paintings. Then she reminded us to look at each other, us self and the nature around us to see the beauty of it all. She told how God made it and made it with great love and care -  just like an artist. He put something of his in the creation – and sometimes he too wants to add a bit or change some – just to make it better, just because he cares – just because he loves us.

My day so far had been rather blah, but standing right there I felt how much doing what I do means to me. I want to go out with the good news about Jesus to the youths, I want to tell them they are loved and I want to stand there by their side while they find their words and their way in life – with Christ by their side. I just pray for strength and staying power. Sometimes it’s an un-thankful job to work with youths, but it is so so so so important!! I needed this reminder today.

Today under the Holy communion I really got a sense off being a part of a big family kneeling. There was the old trusty visitor that always comes, the sick and handicapped who needed some extra help receiving the gifts, the first timer and slightly unsure teenager, the been-her-lots-of-times-and-know-how-to-do-it 5 year old, me – the pastor – and several more. It spoke to me, and it felt great to share this together.

The photo is from a Confirmant Camp; we don’t usually have this kind of bread.

The communion is so not a price table where anyone that’s been good can come and receive the reward. It’s a gift table with something for everyone that wants to know Jesus. No matter if we’ve been good or bad, are young or old, understand a lot or just a tiny bit or can use or legs or need a wheel chair – this is for all of us. We don’t get a whole lot of food as this table, but what we get is enough to give strength, love and forgiveness (- and more!).

When I think about all the churches coming together for services all around the world today – and about all the other people gathering together for Holy communion – I feel so blessed for being a part of this great big family of faith.