The following article seems like an odd place to start with a “Pastor’s log.” Perhaps, by the grace of God, I’ll think of a more intelligent place to start, and put that ahead of all my other blog entries. For now, this is it.
There are a couple of things I would like my readers to know, things that will make the following article make a little more sense. One of the “side hats” I wear is “President of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metro Area Beekeepers’ Association.” I tried to avoid this honor. “There are many members of this organization with much more knowledge of beekeeping than I have.” It was a valiant (and vain) attempt. The response came: “That’s okay, Reverend, we don’t really need someone who knows a lot about beekeeping. We need someone who knows parliamentary procedure so they can run the meetings.” I could have said I wasn’t good at that either, but that would have stretched the limits of honesty, and it was pretty obvious that everyone already knew what they wanted to do anyway. I was elected.
Well, that’s one thing I wanted you to know. The second is that in Luther’s explanation to the first article of the Creed (“I believe in God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,”), he never once makes reference to salvation or eternal life. That comes in the second article. In the first article’s explanation, Luther is content to enumerate the blessings of life in this world, and then conclude, “for all which it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him (God).” If all we ever got out of life was 70 or 80 years (or less or more) to breathe the air, drink the water (sometimes mixed with the extract of hops and barley, of course), eat the food, know the joy of love and all the pleasures that this life brings us . . . if that’s all we got (and it isn’t! Thanks be to our Lord Jesus Christ!) we would still owe God a life of thanks and praise, service and obedience.
Okay. Those are the two things. Now, without further ado, the article I have been trying to introduce, which by now is much shorter than the introduction. By the way, it was sent to me by my Momma (for the gift of whom I do most sincerely seek to thank and praise, serve and obey God), who attends Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Orange, California. She lifted it from the newsletter or bulletin or something, but didn’t say who wrote it, so if someone should get credit for this, let me know and it will gladly be given.
The Honeybee
There once was a honeybee out gathering nectar. She found a beautiful garden not far from the hive and was buzzing busily from flower to flower. Suddenly she was rudely interrupted by a human who began to pick some of the flowers.
She became furious, for this man (who happened to own the garden) was picking the biggest and best flowers- the ones the honeybee had planned to sample next. The Honeybee became so enraged that she attracted the human and gave him a good sting on the arm.
Now we all know that when honeybes sting they die, and she did.
The productive behavior of the honeybee was of no effect, because the bee did not own the flowers. The anger of the bee was, at best, misdirected.
Like the honeybee, we sometimes become mistakenly defensive. We act like the honeybee, wanting to defend things we don’t even own.
Our health, wealth or number of days on the earth are not ours. God controls all and portions out as He desires. Therefore, who are we to become defensive when He wants to use our lives to serve His church? Rather, we should harmonize our thinking with God’s.
In doing so, we will discover an important truth: Although we can think of many things we could do with our time, talent and treasure, we will recognize that God owns it all and provides us with plenty to share. We will discover that loving and giving are related and that God can love and give more than we can give in response.
Well, that’s it. Thanks, Mom.
God grant us all to learn to pray “Thy will Blog Introduction, and “The Honeybee.”be done,” and mean it.
God grant us the joy of knowing the forgiveness that is ours in Christ, forgiveness even for praying “Thy will be done” with our lips while saying “My will be done” in our hearts.
