Thursday Oct 30- Better Together

Eugene peterson in his wonderful translation of the New Testament, has a great twist on Romans 15:7

"Reach out and welcome one another to God's glory; Jesus did it, now you do it."

So cool, so direct

Last night at our Wednesday evening worship, Pastor Lisa reminded us of the central theme of God's grace in our lives. I later recalled a story I recently heard. It was about a man who had a rather public role in a small New England town. And he was always in the middle of controversy, always seemed angry, always yelled at people and tried to get everything to go his way. This behavior, obviously made other people in the town angry at him. One evening, as some people at a church were talking about this man, a woman spoke up, and said, "I have a friend of mine who has known this man his whole life. She said, he was always angry as a little boy too." It suddenly dawned on everyone... what must it be like to be that man they thought. How broken, angry and filled with venom his life must be, his soul must be.

I thought about how much pain must be present inside that man, and I had compassion on him, and I realized how we all need God's Grace - perhaps some more than others.