what a great sermon we listened to this sunday.
thank you Dr. Blair Monie! it was uncanny that my mom had mentioned something similar to the theme of the sermon the evening before. it was talking about being really mindful of where you were, where you have been from and where you’re going. i guess we all can get in a place where a day is just another day. or we’ve never really changed anything up so that we see the same things, talk to the same people and basically are content. nothing wrong with that unless everything in your life is routine and therefore there is the fear that you could take everything for granted. taking things for granted means that we’re not really mindful of the present.
why is that important?
because someday you will get old and your memories (if that) will be all you have. not just memories of big trips or events like getting married – but everything. like that rainy sunday you went to the movies with your mom and you both shivered under a shared umbrella while laughing and running to the car. or the crunch of that favorite sushi roll you enjoyed with your sister-in-law while talking and sharing and getting to know each other.
the above was more my commentary than that of our pastor. he reflected on the play “our town”, in which one of the main characters can choose one day to go back and experience one more time. she chooses her 12th birthday party. she finally finds it too painful, and realizes just how much life should be valued, “every, every minute.” poignantly, she asks the stage manager whether anyone realizes life while they live it, and is told, “No.
do you realize life while you live it?
dr. monie described a powerful message in psalm 8.
1 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?[c]
5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
my own appreciation of my Lord is another blog post, or perhaps another blog all together. as it is certainly something i don’t take for granted. everyone has their own “religion” (and, to each their own) but i have a relationship with God and this psalm is so magnificent. powerful in the thinking that He is mindful of us. no matter what your upbringing, no matter what pain we’ve been through – or any apathetic, agnostic nothingness (which is worse, to me) – He has crowned us with glory and honor. to me, if God is mindful of me, then that blows my mind. and makes me realize that i must be just as mindful of Him. oh, the challenge in that!
