Follow Me

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Mark 1:16-20 

As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. Mark 2:14 

Recently I helped lead an adult class in an intergenerational Bible School at my grandson's church in Iowa. We talked about the disciples of Jesus and one of questions we asked was, "What if Jesus ran a want ad in the local paper to find his disciples?"  What would it say? Their responses were the following: 

• Wanted persons willing to make a 3 year or longer commitment to follow me.
• Wanted persons willing to participate in personal spiritual growth.
• Wanted persons willing to travel long distances by foot.
• Wanted persons willing to learn about the kingdom of heaven.
• Wanted persons willing to participate with the Rabbi (teacher) working long hours with multitudes of people. 
• Wanted persons who believe in miracles. 
• Wanted persons who are willing to do my bidding.
• Wanted persons who believe in me. 
• Wanted persons who are willing to take risks and hardships to be one of my disciples.  

It was a good discussion. Then I thought about this list and how it might pertain to today's Christians. Review the list and consider how you would answer the want ad to be a disciple of Christ.  

Prayer: Dear Jesus, thank you for challenging us to be one of your disciples. Thank you for your invitation to "follow me". Help us to live up to the high standards of your call for discipleship. Amen 

Nancy Hall 

Service

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind...In humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:1 - 11

Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. Proverbs 11:25

I have been dismayed at how much time and energy I have had to put into the simple act of changing cell phone service providers because I have been given a phone that is not one used by my current provider.

There are so many large and complicated issues in our daily lives; sometimes we must meet draining challenges in our work, and other times our loved ones might need our help in addressing overwhelming obstacles.  Our own personal situations often lead us to have to sort out issues in areas where we are called to make big changes. 

I find myself in all three categories at the moment, and alongside those issues my focus is drawn daily to the upheavals our country and the world are experiencing.  Times like these require more effort to connect to God's heart and to be God's vehicle to the world he created. 

My communications with my current cell provider have been frustrating.  The customer service is truly customer disservice.  The company has done everything it can to frustrate the customer looking for essential information, and to keep the customer powerless and ostracized. 

The situation has made me realize that frustration with worldly things is a distraction from my life with God.  I am anxious to solve this problem because I don't like what it is doing to my mind.

The one successful thing I did might not have helped to advance my request, but it helped me not to lose myself in this mess:  I wrote a letter describing how Harry Potter might need to wrestle the information I need, and filled it with references to the stories I love so much.  Who knows? Perhaps the person pushing the button of the automated email response got a chuckle out of reading my email.  Anyway, I tried to make the best of a communication that was intended to convey the resistance I was sensing by the company that supposedly is set up to "serve" customers. 

It is illuminating to note the times each day when something worldly tries to distract me from my real purpose.  Praying for blessings on each person driving alongside me on the commute to work is more important than anything except driving safely.  It is something I can do to serve the God and the people in God's world. It is small, but mighty.  Like most prayers, the power is in how it changes the feed of human consciousness, and how it changes me. 

It must be so frustrating to work in the service industry when the company you represent will not allow you to truly serve and relate to your customers.  I can recall so many instances of helpful people on the other end of a phone call or email recently, and I hope I have indicated my gratitude sufficiently to those who have served so well.  In my own work, I find that when people understand that I am ready and willing to be of service to them we accomplish great things.  We connect and we engage our gifts. 

Service is for some people their complete mission, their utter joy.  I have not been guided to that kind of purity yet in my life, but I do know how right it feels sometimes to join the forces of those who feel complete in themselves and at the same time feel completed by the service they can offer to others. 

Prayer: God who calls us to celebrate our being simply by being the gifts we can be for one another, teach me to focus on the beauty of serving you and my brothers and sisters rather than by wasting energy on things that pull me away from you. Help us all to remember these words: (1 Peter 4:10-11:) As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies - in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Mollie Manner (reprinted from 2017)

Kindness is Essential

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:10 ESV

This past week, the weather has been hot, humid and unbearable. My calendar has been too full for my liking, and I have not been in a happy frame of mind.   

As my mind went in the direction of frustration, the words of a Glen Campbell song from the early 70’s came to mind, “Try a Little Kindness.”  That thought was followed by a phrase I had heard expressed several times while I listened to tales of mail order brides during the settling of the west. Those male/female pairings were of two people who had never met before promising to marry out of necessity, not love. The brides often asking the same question, “Will you be kind?”

In the late afternoon on Wednesday, the gentleman who was to give me an estimate on the removal of a dead tree in my backyard arrived. After settling on a price and a date for removal of the tree next week, he prepared to leave. I told him I’d been baking cookies while waiting for him and asked if he would like some. He said he would really like to take a few to his 4-man crew who had been working in the heat all day. So I sent a dozen cookies with him thinking his crew might need a break at that time in the afternoon. It was just a simple gesture of kindness and it made me feel better as well. 

A little over an hour later, I heard the sound of powerful equipment and I went to see where the sound was coming from. The tree removal crew was in my backyard, the tree was already on the ground and they were preparing to take it away. It was almost 6 pm when my doorbell rang. One of the young crew members was at my front door. I asked if he wanted me to write a check. He replied, “Oh, no, I just wanted to know if you were happy with the work that had been done.”

I told him I was very happy and I was grateful as well because I would no longer have to worry about that dead tree falling on a neighbor’s house during a storm. I told him that I also appreciated how they had cleaned up the mess. Then I said, “Tell the rest of the crew I said thanks for coming so quickly and for their hard work. He said, “I will and by the way your cookies were delicious. They all said so.”

Was it the gift of cookies or the little act of kindness I’d shown them that caused the crew to come so quickly? I’ll never know.    

“Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor.” Proverbs 21:32 ESV

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your words that never fail us. They remind us to do as Jesus taught when He said to be kind and to love one another the way He loves us. Amen

Judy Welch

Words from Galatians

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9 

Sweden

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:1-2

Whoever loves his own life will lose it. John 11:25

I, at first, thinking of myself rather than my father, said “No” to his request. He kept mentioning the request that he would like to visit Sweden. His forefathers had come from there and he wished to see where they lived. He did not have information about them but did have a name or two.

Finally, I realized he was in his late 80s, and I was the only opportunity he had to help him travel across the ocean to see Sweden. Many opportunities had taken me to Europe so it would be easiest for me, his oldest daughter, to help him travel. We had lost my mother to brittle diabetes (she had been one of the first diabetics in Nebraska to have an insulin pump); so, I agreed and started planning the trip.

Our connection to Sweden came from Sixten Loftgren. My father, LaVern H. Johnson, had met Sixten when he was in Phelps County Nebraska at the Court House looking for his deceased brother’s farm. The worker who was helping Sixten saw my father in the room and said this man knows Phelps County very well and can show you where your land is located. LaVern and Sixten became very good friends and continued to communicate. When we told Sixten we were coming to Sweden he invited us to his home first and made us reindeer stew which was delicious.

Bryce Hastings and I were dating long distance because he was still running his Hastings and Chivetta architectural firm in St. Louis. When he heard I was taking my father to Sweden, he decided to take a vacation and join us. This was a blessing to me. Another addition came when I thought I wanted to take my oldest granddaughter, Allison, with us. Her parents were agreeable, so we became a foursome. It was easy for me to share a bedroom with Allison, but more of a struggle for the two men. Bryce was wonderful as he cared for my father.

Sixten took us to the archives of Swedish people and helped us find our relatives in Sweden. It was unbelievable that when he called them, speaking in Swedish, they wanted us to come visit right away. We drove in rain for a few hours and then the sun began to shine. As we pulled close to the relatives’ home, we saw a dozen people and cars in the road blocking it so we wouldn’t miss the relatives. It was awesome.

We have since had several of the families visit Nebraska and stay with us. My brothers and sister have had the opportunity to meet these Swedish family members and helped us show them LaVern and Pauline’s farm home.

For thou art my rock and my fortress: therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me. Psalm 31:3. I am so happy I quit thinking of myself and did what my father asked of me.

Sandra Hilsabeck

Words from John 10

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. John 10:27-28 

Our Wonderful World

 

How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small.  Psalm 104:24-25

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Psalm 8:3-4

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” Romans 1:20

The birds of the sky nest by the waters; they sing among the branches. Psalm 104:12

I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine. Psalm 50:11

"Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” Matthew 13:32

"Something about the very essence of birds seems impossible. They are ethereal creatures of the earth and air, unimaginably refined and complex, yet so common as to be the first animal we usually see when looking through a window or hear when stepping through a door" (from Creature: Paintings, Drawings, and Reflections by Shaun Tan). Birds are both ordinary and miraculous. How wonderful that God has chosen this incredible creature to be in so many places for us to enjoy, and to sing for us to know they're there! I agree with Shaun and have found myself in awe of the simple fact of birds when I’m out “in the field” photographing them. A creature that can fly! Truly amazing. And the fact that many of them migrate thousands of miles each spring and fall...incredible.

My intention here is to draw attention to what we take for granted, the seemingly everyday that is miraculous, God’s hand at work. I think wonder goes hand in hand with gratitude in making us realize God’s love for us and the awe-inspiring features of the world in which we live. In that vein, I would encourage you to take a walk in your neighborhood, a nearby trail, or just explore your backyard.

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for the miracles of our natural world. Help us to keep an open eye to the wondrous world you have created. Thank you for your bounteous beauty! Amen.

Donna Gustafson

(photos by Donna, from top: cedar waxwing, yellow-rumped warbler, common loon, indigo bunting, belted kingfisher, blue-gray gnatcatcher, female cardinal, meadowlark. Click on each photo to view larger.)