Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Let the words of my mouth

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Hosea 6:4-6
Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away ... it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

We sat across a table full of meat loaf, collard greens and polenta at the Hyde Park Bar and Grill near the University of Texas. Our friends are pastors at a church which finds its roots before the Civil War. Since 1846 it sits smack in the middle of campus and near the state capitol, surrounded by monoliths erected in the names of wisdom to the north, and power to the south.

The church is near several museums. The Ransom Art Museum owns a Gutenberg Bible. Of course, it's a little too precious to actually read. Our pastoral friend tells his visitors, "We don't want to become one more museum ourselves."

There are enough of those already.

He is working with others in his church to understand what might be called the entropy of organizations, and how to work through and beyond it. Church begins as a vision and finally becomes a form, mostly empty of the original vision but paying more and more homage to it. But the homage is hollow, because it is not rooted in my own experience. This doesn't happen just sometimes. It happens every time.

The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law which predicts that chaos will follow order. When no new energy is infused from outside, every system experiences entropy and disorder. This applies just as much to organizations (like churches and Congress) and relationships (like marriage).

So we have revivals, elections, and couples enrichment retreats. Is that enough? Statistics and common sense both resoundingly say, "No!" What else is there to do?

Anthony Bloom calls the present moment "an imaginary line, very very thin indeed, between the past and the future, and we roll from the past into the future, continually passing this line in the same way as you can roll an egg on a cloth."

But that moment is all I have. All we have. To let it become rich with mercy, with love, with words and meditations acceptable to God must be a part of the answer.

Lord, You are my father, my God, the Rock, my savior. You will forever maintain your kindness toward me, and your covenant with me stands firm. I can rest in this moment and rejoice.

Devotions Archive

Let the words of my mouth

Saturday, March 17, 2012