Not So Famos Amos
When you pray, what do you say to God? It's a fair question. How we answer reveals much about where we are with God. If I'm honest with myself, most of my prayers are about me...for me...for God to help me...bless me...and take care of those who are not like me.
Before you decide to fire this pastor, know that I battle right alongside you. The late French Bishop, Francois Fenelon declared that our greatest battle is our "addiction to self." We are hard-wired for self preservation.
Some of you have heard me jest about my two values in life:
If you're going to be wrong, be wrong with authority
Why take responsibility when you can blame somebody else?
What I have said as humor has sadly become the values for so many of us. So when life throws us a curve...as it inevitably does, so few of us are prepared to navigate the adversity. We want God to swoop in and take care of all that is causing us grief. When God doesn't seem to do that, at least in our way and in our timing, we tend to get a bit grumpy at best, or at worst we reject God all together.
Well, there's great news--the Bible helps us in the midst of this.