Opening the Envelope

 The new day begins. You walk into the kitchen to get your coffee to start the day, and there it sits, the invitation that you have refused to open. You sigh, wondering why some unknown person would send you an invitation to an unknown event. Everyone that you have talked to about that invitation has asked you, "Well, aren't you going to open it?" Talk about pressure. Each one is sayind to you, "Go ahead. Open it. See what it is all about." 

Why won't they leave you alone? They keep pushing you to do something that you don't want to do. Why? Why can't they just leave it be? Do you have to open an invitation when it comes to you? Do you need to see what it is all about? What if you decide you want nothing to do with it? Can't they understand that it is up to you and not up to them? You just feel like screaming, "Leave me alone! Let me be!"

Taking a sip of your coffee, you pick it up. Well, maybe, maybe you will open it. Maybe you will see what it is all about. Setting your coffee cup on the table, you sit down. Holding the envelope in your hand, you run your finger along the edge, opening the flap of the envelope. Your heart begins beating a little faster, this just might something important. Looking around to see if anyone if the family is watching, you lift the flap. 

There inside you find...another envelope. Of course. That is the way invitations work. So you pull the inside envelope out of the other envelope. It is not sealed. And on the envelope you see, your name printed nicely. There it is. It is sent specifically to you. But it still doesn't tell you anything.

The invitation is personalized. It has your name on it. What do you do now? Do you open that second envelope, just to see what it is about and who it is from? Picking up the coffee cup, you toss the envelope down. Not at this time.

How many times do you toss down the invite? How many times do you see that your name is listed, but you do not respond to the invitation? What will you do?

Why should I open it?

 "Aren't you going to open the invitation?" your spouse asks you. Picking up the invite and turning it over and over, "Do you think I should?" you ask. "Why would I want to open an invitation from someone that I don't know, an invitation that I did not ask for?" True, most invites come without being asked for, but the fact is, you generally know when one is coming. You hear about the cousin getting engaged, so you expect the invite. The grandson is graduating from high school, so you expect the invite. The neighbor is having a party, so you expect the invite. 

But this one, came from nowhere. It doesn't even say who it is from. Why would you open such an invite? It isn't right to feel pressured to open it when you don't want to. Your spouse shouldn't push you to open it. When you mentioned it at work yesterday, your coworkers asked you a variety of questions. "Who is it from?" No clue. "What is it to?" How should I know. "Aren't you going to open it?" Why should I, it is probably just junk mail. "But wasn't it first class postage?" Leave me alone. Let me be. It is up to me if I open it or not. No one can force me to consider that invitation. 

So you leave it sitting on the table. Unopened. Unattended. Sitting there, drawing your eye as you pass it by. So you put it on the counter with other things that you will get to at some point in time. Maybe you will open it tomorrow, or next week. But not now. Not at this moment.

That is how the invitation to hear the Word of the Lord is often treated. People treat the Word of God that way. The Bible sits on the table, unopened. It calls out to be opened, but so many just pass it by. Why should I read that? Why should I open it? My life is all right as it is. The invitation lies unopened.

Will you open it? Will you see who it is from? Maybe? Time will tell.

You are invited to worship at your local church tonight (if they have Advent Wednesday services). How will you respond to that invitation? 

Will You Open the Invitation?

 Walking past the table, you see the invitation that you had tossed there. It had arrived yesterday and you had not bothered to open it because you did not know who had sent it. There was no return address. Why would you receive an invitation from someone who did not even have the courtesy of putting their return address on it? Why would you consider the invitation? You pick it up again. Turn it over in your hands, looking for any clues as to what it is inviting you to attend. You wonder to yourself once again, "Who sent this? Why did they send it? What is it about?" 

Looking at it again, you toss it back on the table and walk away. Why did you not open it? Why would you just let such an invitation lie without seeing who it was from and what it was about? It seems incredible that you would just let the invitation sit there unopened. 

Have you ever done that? Have you ever not opened something because you did not who it was from or what it contained? What if you never open the invitation? What would happen? Nothing. Really, nothing would happen. You will not be arrested and jailed for not opening an invitation. You will not be out the need to buy a gift for someone. You will not know what you missed. In fact, since you have not opened the invitation, you will have no idea what you missed. So actually, by not opening the invitation, you did not even have to decide if you would accept the invitation. 

Leaving it unopened frees you from doing anything. Nothing. You have to do absolutely nothing. You can live your life as before because the invitation means nothing to you. 

That is the way that many people treat the invitation that they receive from the Lord. They receive it, toss it aside and then live their lives without having to change a single thing. What do you do with the invitation that the Lord lays out before you? When He reaches out to you, how do you respond? What do you do with the invitation the Lord has given to you? What is that invitation? 

What is the invitation to? Tune in...

An Invitation arrives.

 You go to the mailbox. It is a day like any other day. You don't have much expectation for mail. There might be a bill or two. There would probably be some advertisement, there seems to be something like that every day. How can they afford to send out so much junk mail? Then there will be the obligatory credit card application or the "you are approved" loan letter. Really? Do people really fall for that? They must, because they continue to send them out. 

You open the box, pull out the few pieces of mail that the mailman put there, and close the box. Holding your mail, you sort through it. Yep, there is the credit card application. Some things never change. There is the ad paper. Doesn't look like there are any bills today. Wait a moment, what is that? You look at the envelope. What is it?

It looks like an invitation. The envelope looks nice. There is a first class stamp on it, meaning that it is not junk mail.

 

It definitely looks like an invitation. (The sample that I put here is just a sample I pulled off the internet.) You turn it over in your hand. Looking at both sides. Who was it from? There was no return address. Who sent this to you? It is addressed to you. Your name is there. Your address is correct. 

Holding it in your hand, you go into the house. "Hon!" You call out. "Look at what we received today. An invitation." Your spouse responds, "An invitation to what?" "I don't know. I haven't opened it." Tossing it on the table, you walk away.

An invitation is so nice to receive. But if you just look at the envelope and don't open it, the invitation holds nothing for you. You need to open it. But if you just let it sit on the table, you are wasting that invitation.

During Advent, our Wednesday evening services will be following the theme, "Invitation to a Stable." We will be looking at the invitation that is sent to us. The first week, we will see what it announces. Come and join us at St. John at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 1st. (And stay for the dinner served by St. John Noah's Ark. What will they serve? Lasagna!!!! yum)

Next...will the invitation be opened?

The lunar eclipse

 I thought about setting an alarm to wake up at 3:00a.m. but then, the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. Therefore, I did not set an alarm. I figured if I woke up in time, I would go out and see the lunar eclipse. If I did not wake up, then I would see the pictures that others posted. So with that thought in mind, I went to sleep last night. In truth, I figured I would miss the eclipse. Not that I was upset by that thought. I like to sleep. It is bad enough when Wrigley gets me up to go outside. In case you don't know, Wrigley is our chocolate lab. There are nights when she decides she wants to go outside. I think she has a date or something. Perhaps she is visiting with the rabbit that hangs out in the yard. 

So there I was, sleeping away. The lunar eclipse began at 2 or something like that. The height of the eclipse was going to be 3:05 a.m. Seriously, 3:05 a.m. So what happens? at 3:07 I wake up. I lay there thinking, "Do I want to get up?" I debated for a few minutes. Then I thought, if it is cloudy, I can go back to sleep. I got up, looked out the window and saw stars. And it is was dark. The full moon was NOT shining brightly, which meant the ecplise was going. Sigh. That meant, in my mind, I should go outside and see it. 

So there I was, three in the morning, putting on a coat, picking up my camera, heading out the door. Really? Was I doing this? Yes. I looked up and it was breathtaking. The moon was glowing red. There was a sliver of silver, since was not a total ecplise.

This picture does not capture the red. I have a couple that do, but they are blurrier. I shot them with my handheld Canon with a telephoto lens. I tried various speeds. The slower speeds caught the red. 

So the question is, was it worth getting up? Yes it was. I enjoy seeing the wonder of the creation that God has created. As I stood there watching the ecplise, I thought of how amazing it is that God created this universe the way He did. It is an amazing universe, a wonderful world and a glorious life. 

Thank You Lord. Then, I went back to bed. Yes, I did fall asleep quickly. Thank You for that, too, Lord.

Time change thoughts

 Time to eat supper. We must be eating late today. Why? It is dark outside. So that must mean that it is much later than usual. The sun has set shortly after 5, and the skies are growing dark. But wait, it is the regular time to eat supper. What happened? 

Daylight savings time has come to an end. We have returned to standard time. This has caused many to have that discussion - do we still need to have the time change? The numbers each year seem to grow, those who don't like the time change. Will it be brought to an end? Will the country cease to celebrate what some call "outdated" and "no longer needed"? Each person probably has an opinion on it.

Do I? Of course. I like the fact that the sun comes up earlier with standard time - especially in November, December and January. But that means the sun goes down earlier in the evening. I did not like the fact that the sun wasn't coming up at 8 in the morning. That would get later and later, pushing towards 8:30 and later. That would drive me nuts. But at the same time, I do not like it getting dark earlier. Yet, at the same time, evenings are the times when I have meetings, and other events, when I am inside anyway, then it really doesn't make a lot of difference. 

Staying at standard time would mean that sunrise in the summer would be mighty early. It would be around 4:00 a.m. I don't think I would like that. I know, those who live in Alaska and the far north have long daylight hours and long nighttime hours. I couldn't do that. You can have it. 

So what am I saying? As much as I don't like time change, because it messes with my sleep patterns, I think I like it. I like how it changes things in the winter, getting sunlight earlier in the day. I like the changes in the summer, staying light later. Do we need it? No, we don't need it. But I hope we keep it. 

Those are my thoughts. Good luck with yours.

Waiting is a challenge

 Waiting. It isn't something that we like to do. In today's world, we are used to getting things instantly. I am not sure when it "officially" came into being, but we became and instant society. Perhaps it was with TV dinners back in the day. You did not have to wait for a dinner to be prepared. Instead, you could have it "instantly." They really were not instant, but it was quite a bit easier.

Then came the microwave. Instant. Pop something in, hit the button and presto! It is ready. What used to take an hour, might take only a few minutes. Instant! We get our information instantly. I remember having to get up in the morning, and watch the TV to see if school was called off. You waited to see if it scrolled along the bottom of the screen. If you had to leave for a moment, you could miss it and have to wait till it came around again. If you wanted news, you had to wait for the newspaper (what is that?) or for the news that came only once an evening. We hear instantly when something happens thousands of miles away. We live in an instant world.

We are waiting. And there is nothing we can do to make it happen sooner. What are we waiting for? The gingko tree to let go of it's leaves. Others have lost their leaves, but our hasn't. Why not? Come on, let the leaves fall. It has been 2 days already since others have lost their leaves. The catalpa tree has dropped it's leaves. But not our gingko. Waiting.

Waiting is tough. Waiting to hear back from the doctor on the tests that are run. Waiting for the family to arrive on a holiday. Waiting to get paid. Waiting in line at the store. Waiting to go somewhere. 

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" Psalm 27:14 ESV Waiting for the Lord to come again. We must wait for that time. We do not know when it is going to happen. So we wait. As we wait, we trust in the Lord. As we wait, we take courage, because Jesus Christ has already come to save mankind. Waiting in faith, we find comfort and strength. In the Word we are given comfort, strength and assurance. 

So we wait. When will those leaves fall?