Friday, November 25, 2011

Thanksgiving and the Church

So yesterday was Thanksgiving, as most people know by now. And even though I am Lebanese, my family does celebrate Thanksgiving, well my family in America does. Family in the rest of world does not. I digress.

This year, my family was not all together as usual . Typically we all get together and have a potluck type meal. The host family usually makes the Turkey and everyone else makes the extras. This includes the wide range of Thanksgiving staples: ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, gravy, etc. Now I don't necessarily enjoy all the typical stuff, but I appreciate it.

This year, though, since about half the family wasn't here with us, there were foods that were missing. And we didn't realize it until we had sat down to eat. We almost forgot the rolls. No one brought gravy or green beans. Actually there were no vegetables at all. There was a lot of foods missing. That isnt to say that I wasn't grateful for all the food provided. And I actually at everything there, cause it was all really good and I didn't have to overload myself to try all the food on the table. So it wasn't really all that bad. But for the sake of my metaphor let's pretend it was awful. :)

I realized as I sat at the table with no gravy that each person of the family contributed a certain food to make a complete table. Without everyone there the table was missing certain elements. And I remembered what Paul had wrote about in his letter to the Corinthians about the body of Christ. And how the eye could not say to the hand that it didn't need it. Each part of the body is needed to prove to be profitable to the rest of the body. And without one part the rest of the body suffers.

I know it's a stretch, but the food missing from the table made a Thanksgiving meal that was incomplete because some of the people from the family were not there. In the same way the body of Christ is hurt when someone is missing. Each person brings something to the table, something only they know how to bring. Each person has a gift that has been given to them by God. And we all need to contribute.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Intimacy with God

So at work one of my many roles as a process engineer is to create drawings of the process that I am designing. The two sets of drawings that I am most familiar with are called Process Flow Diagrams (PFD) and Piping and Instrument Diagrams (P&ID). I know that those don't mean anything to most of you, but it is just a set up, so follow me.

For the project that I am on right now, I am actually drawing these diagrams. Like I literally sit the with a pencil and ruler and eraser (for my many mistakes) and draw every line. We finally issued our first set of P&IDs the other day. I was looking through them with a co-worker today and noticed how much I knew about the drawings. I mean, I drew every line, every valve. I know this drawing back and forth. I know its purpose and the purpose of everything on the drawing. I am intimate with these drawings. I know them well because I made them.

In the same way, God made me. He formed me purposely and knows my purpose. He is intimate with me. His knowledge of me goes beyond what I could even imagine knowing about these drawings. This is intimacy.

I can rest knowing that God knows me so well. He knows me more than I will ever know.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Empty Calculations

The other day my boss was talking about a company he had done a job for. He was talking about how the work he had done was so foolish. All the calculations were just busy work and simply stupid. They would have assumptions that did not make sense and messed up the whole calculation. And they didn't care as long as it looked like they did a lot of work.



My boss made a point to say that this company wasn't a bad company because they didn't spend money on safety and calculations, but because they spent tons of money but it was directed at the wrong things. This company, according to him, spends almost more than any of their competitors in the very places that they are worse at.

That is when I thought of a blog post. It reminded of the religious in our time (and Jesus'). They spend a lot of effort on the doing the right thing. No one can deny that they are really trying hard to be good. In fact they are trying harder than most. They are expending so much energy and effort to get to this place of right standing with God. Yet, they are not righteous. Their good deeds do not cover over their sins. They are still evil sinners who have no place before our holy God. And it isn't because they don't try.

Yet God doesn't expect us to earn anything. He knows that we are not capable. He knows that we can not do anything to be righteous, and he has planned for that. He doesn't want us to work for our salvation. That is why he sent Jesus. Rather, we are to trust in his grace to work in us to do good. I am not saying that we are to be bad and not work to do good. But God wants our good work to be found in his glorious grace.

Today, are you like that company my boss did a job for who is looking toward their effort to be seen as good? Are you expecting to be rewarded for having done more or performed better? Or are you looking to the cross? Knowing full well that your only hope is outside of yourself. Knowing that only be the grace of God are you even able to be counted as righteous. Is your good work coming out of a heart of praise?

These are questions that I have been asking myself. I hope they help you look at your life from a different angle.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Behind enemy lines

At work a few days ago I was at a meeting for a project I worked on this summer. The project manager was commending the whole team for the work they had done. It was an impossible project schedule, yet we actually completed in time and under budget. And he used an analogy that I really thought applied to the spiritual life.

He said that there are two ways to look at a difficult
project: we can either think of it as being held captive behind enemy lines or we can think of it as occupying enemy territory.

I think this is a good analogy for us, as God's people, since we really are foreigners in this land. We are native to here, this isn't our home. In fact, this land is enemy territory. So we really do have two response, we can either mourn our status as captured and give into the ways of the enemy and die.

Or we can occupy the territory we are in. We can fight for God. Claim victory in Christ. For this is a war and we are in it. And we are called to fight.

This looks like living with a mission. You are where you are to do some thing. To avoid preaching, I am a process engineer in Houston, TX to impact the kingdom of God here in this place. There are lost souls and weak brothers and sisters who need the gospel of God each and every day. I am not supposed to sit back and let the enemy take a stronger grip on the lives of those around me. I will fight, I must.