Moving on...

It has been a long hot summer with too much sun and not enough sarcasm. Actually it is more like where was the summer? I fear I spent too much of mine being sick so I am a bit tired and worn out. And sadly I am talking to too many others that kind of feel like me. The energy to be creative is many days just not where I want it to be and someone else has it. And yet the days flit by at an ever faster pace. So summer holiday is about finishes so back to work. Somehow the thought that I had figured I had worried to death like a dog with his rawhide chew bone will just not leave me alone as I preach my way through the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. “Let brotherly love continue...” 

I see the news and the hearts of people from around the world comes glaring through, thankfully not the majority, but enough to make me realize this ‘brotherly love’ thing is not the world we live in. Oslo Norway comes to mind, the events of last weekend in London jumps out at me as an unavoidable problem. Again the financial crisis of the world economy is heart breaking in many ways, wars and rumours of more war, the political system being questioned in countries around the world including our own... and I think to myself if only...

Then I get to chapter 13 verse five where it says and I paraphrase: ‘let your life be free of coveting because of the love of money and the stuff it buys, instead be content with what you have.’ And I think, wow if we add that to living a life of love that would just about get rid of 90% of the people problems we have. Violence would almost go away, theft disappears, abuse in families and homes—gone, corruption in all areas of life—yes you guessed it: gone. Charities thrive to help the poor and needy in ways we cannot imagine, employers have money to hire folk to work and can even pay decent wages, the burden of taxes goes way down because no one is trying to scam the system and only taking what is fair. And the list goes on and on of how life improves with love and a lack of greed.

Now comes the hard part for me again, this challenge of wanting more than I have, more than God gives into my life. I too desire the nice things in life, stuff that too often I don’t need anyway, I just want it. We all seem to and we don’t know how to get past it. So we have to take on board the promise of God to provide our needs as we trust him and then we work on changing our hearts to meet what godly principles we are to live by. I just know for me it is not always as easy as it sounds.

On a life long journey,

Rev. Jon Bergen