I always remember a comment a dear. sweet man from my former church made about the Old Testament. He said that when he read the stories about how God loved all those lying, cheating, murdering, thieving, adulterous, warlike people in it, and in fact chose them to be His favourite people it gave him hope. That God might love him despite his many sins...This man was one of the cheeriest and most hospitable people I have ever met and I was in a very difficult phase (family tragedies making me savage...). One of the lessons I drew from his comment was that one should hang around a place to be kind to others as others welcomed one in (when did we see you a stranger?). To your comment, I would add that one sometimes stays at a church when one feels that one is getting nothing from the place, because (I think, perhaps I am deluded?) that is precisely the time that God is calling us to give something to the place that will be what someone else needs from the church. Of course, I still write wish lists for churches the way those kids in Mary Poppins wrote theirs for the perfect nanny....
I always remember a comment a dear. sweet man from my former church made about the Old Testament. He said that when he read the stories about how God loved all those lying, cheating, murdering, thieving, adulterous, warlike people in it, and in fact chose them to be His favourite people it gave him hope. That God might love him despite his many sins...This man was one of the cheeriest and most hospitable people I have ever met and I was in a very difficult phase (family tragedies making me savage...). One of the lessons I drew from his comment was that one should hang around a place to be kind to others as others welcomed one in (when did we see you a stranger?). To your comment, I would add that one sometimes stays at a church when one feels that one is getting nothing from the place, because (I think, perhaps I am deluded?) that is precisely the time that God is calling us to give something to the place that will be what someone else needs from the church. Of course, I still write wish lists for churches the way those kids in Mary Poppins wrote theirs for the perfect nanny....
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