Your Relationship with God is Misdirected

Quick hit (and trying out this "blogging from google reader" thing)...Professor Richard Beck writes the following great article on what practical ways that Christians might want to start working on if they truly want to embody the love of Christ.

The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity: "

A few years ago a female student wanted to visit with me about some difficulties she was having, mainly having to do with her family life. As is my practice, we walked around campus as we talked.

After talking for some time about her family situation we turned to other areas of her life. When she reached spiritual matters we had the following exchange:

'I need to spend more time working on my relationship with God.'

I responded, 'Why would you want to do that?'

Startled she says, 'What do you mean?'

'Well, why would you want to spend any time at all on working on your relationship with God?'

'Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?'

'Let me answer by asking you a question. Can you think of anyone, right now, to whom you need to apologize to? Anyone you've wronged?'

She thinks and answers, 'Yes.'

'Well, why don't you give them a call today and ask for their forgiveness. That might be a better use of your time than working on your relationship with God.'

Professor Beck ends with this nugget:

I truly want people to spend time working on their relationship with God.
I just want them to do it by taking the time to care about the person standing right in front of them.

Yeah. Ow. Nailed it!

I don't mean to say that one is better than the other. But time spent embodying kindness even in the most mundane of situations may offer you greater blessings and opportunities to share Christ than hours in prayer could do.

Thoughts?

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Never thought I would see the day...

That a church prayed over SUVs...

No real comment; I'm not in their dire situation.
Just very....very....unimaginable.

(hat tip: Pam's House Blend)

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Prayers for Tennessee Valley UUA in Knoxville

Image via Wikipedia

One of the great things about the Internet is that prayers can go straight to the recipients almost as fast as they go to God.

To that end, there's a blog set up where you can where you can express your condolences to the Unitarian Universalist congregation that suffered the shooting on Sunday.

Supporting Our Friends in Knoxville

If you don't know anything about the tragedy, I would suggest Philocrites.  Scroll down to Sunday, then start reading up. 

Details are starting to trickle in.  While I have plenty to say about this extreme case of an echo-chamber in which the man was living (judging by his reading list)...that can happen later.

If you feel moved, I'm sure this UUA would appreciate your kind words or a lit candle in solidarity with them during this difficult time.

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