Day: February 11, 2018

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My Prepared Self’s Day Was Made

Here’s my possible’s contents.

I have written before about my possibles bag (here) and the four things that I typically have on me for problem solving (here). My friend Eric G tends to laugh at me because of my possible and my band-aide in the wallet, but you see, I like to be prepared. Today I was the one laughing because of my preparations.

Sometime during setup for Tapestry‘s Sunday morning worship gathering Eric & Natalie’s youngest child hurt her finger. Nothing bad, just a small scrap that left a small skin tag. I learned of this because Natalie walked up to me and said she needed my wallet band-aide. That’s right, she knew me well enough to know that I would have a band-aide in my wallet. Day already made right there. So I grabbed my wallet and gave her a band-aide. That’s when I saw how small the cut was, so I asked if she would like a smaller band-aide because I thought I had one in the small first aide kit I keep in my possible. She said yes so I grabbed it.

Here are my four things. Upper Left: a knife, Lower left: a bandage, Upper Right: a quarter, Lower Right: a pen

That’s when Eric, a trained RN, walked over and examined his daughter’s wound. He said, “If only I had a pair of tweezers I would remove the skin tag before dressing the wound. You don’t have a pair of tweezers do you?” He asked this last part with a smile. Why yes I do Eric. Bam! I pull out my keys and the Leatherman Style 5-n-1 key chain tool (which they unfortunately don’t make anymore). There are your tweezers. He started to cut off the skin tag when I thought to ask if he would like an alcohol swab to wiped down everything first. Why yes he would. Bam! I had a smile across my entire very well prepared face.

Who’s laughing about my possible and band-aide now Eric? 🙂

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Discipleship = Being With Jesus

Every now and then there is some small, cool point within the passage that I am studying for Sunday’s message at Tapestry that I am fairly sure will get lost in the rest of the message but I feel is fascinating. Tomorrow’s passage (Luke 8:1-15) has one such element that I thought I would quickly post concerning.

In regards to verse 1b-2a of the eight chapter of the Gospel According to Luke “The Twelve were with him,  and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases” Joel Green writes in his New International Commentary of the New Testament “The Gospel of Luke“:

As a summary, this text also introduces more blatantly what has only begun to be apparent in the narrative—namely, the ongoing presence of traveling companions “with” Jesus. Being “with Jesus” connotes “discipleship” 3—an implication immediately born out by the identification of Jesus’ companions as “the twelve” and as women who (as we will see below) embody the meaning of discipleship for Luke. (emphasis mine)

I love this description of discipleship (the process of growing as a follower of Jesus Christ), being with Jesus. Far too often discipleship gets turned into a program. Do this for this, then this, then this. I’ve discussed my struggle with discipleship program before here. When these programs work properly they are a means to helping us to be with Jesus. When they aren’t working properly they become a end themselves, rather than being something that helps us to be with Jesus. We just have to always remember that “being with Jesus” is the means and the end of discipleship.