In the Name
Welcome back. You belong here.
This morning my wife and I spent time doing Lectio on Psalm 143 and the verse “For Your Name’s sake O GOD, give me life! In your justice, get me out of this trouble!”
For me the focus the Spirit led me to was the word “Name”. Sometimes I follow names or brands, Obama, church leader’s names, Apple, Google, we all tend to follow things we like. And we sometimes stand for those names, we can feel strongly about all things California, or all things Republican or Democrat.
The best thing I can do is to be about the Name of God. To let God be my focus and the Name I seek to honor and follow. At the school where I volunteer, in my relationships with friends, in how I respond to criticism in the church (yeah, shocking I know), my focus needs to be God’s Name not my Name or another name.
Practically, that means spending time with people whether they know God or not, and being a man of God everywhere I go by speaking of the Name of God. In the church it can be overdone and outside the church it can hardly be done.
I hope this Fall I can focus on God’s Name and have that be my inspiration to all I do.
Have a great day.
Into the future,
davidT
Seth Simonds
September 8, 2009 at 6:09 pmYou say you filter. That makes sense as we all do it in some fashion or other. I'm interested in how you see that filtering as it relates to your role in your church.
Do you fear that those in your church community who already criticize you will continue to do so in this space? If so, why not deal with them and free yourself up to say what's on your heart?
I don't know your situation, but I know a bit about criticism and the voices that speak in one's head right before one clicks “publish.”
Enjoy your week!