Spiritual Ponderings

Let me share a parable with you that just came to me this morning. Remember, it is a parable, which means it is limited in scope but contains important analogies that may apply to spiritual realities to help us connect our head with our heart a little better. I have a few vehicles sitting around my place right now. This is not the parable part but is actually real. I have several that are dead, undriveable, pretty much unfixable. And if it were not for very low prices on scrap metal at leas some of them would be gone by now. Others are being used for storage space which is cheaper than buying storage sheds. But that is beside the point. We have other vehicles also sitting around taking up space for other reasons. Some belong to someone else, one is waiting to be licensed, but that gets complicated. And several more are in various stages of useableness. That means that if possible we drive them but it seems they spend a lot of time being fixed, so much so that recently we purc...

I remember a time when I was quite young that my parents for whatever reason, allowed me to ride somewhere in a car with a young man I didn't know. He evidently seemed trustworthy enough for my parents to send me with him for a ride alone, and while I have no recollection of where we went, I distinctly remember the nature of the conversation we had in the car that day. This man was not a member of my brand of religion, so I felt a bit awkward. I was raised very religious, and most of my life I had only been around people who belonged to my church so I knew little of how to talk with 'outsiders.' I was however, keenly aware about witnessing to unbelievers about 'the truth.' At the same time I was not yet thoroughly trained with all the answers for every question people might ask, so when he asked me what my church believed I suddenly felt paralyzed with fear. I felt like God was putting me on the spot and felt ashamed that I was unprepared to have an answer to ...