Ebenezer Scrooge, when he met the Spirit of Christmases-Yet-to-Come, said, “Of all the spirits I find you the most dreadful.” And when he says that in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, we all somehow understand what he means. The thought of that which is yet to come can … Continue reading Pastor Note #49 — Living in Time, Living with God, Part 5 — The Future Tense of Faith
Tag: time
Pastor Note #48 — Living in Time, Living with God, Part 4: Obedience–Faith in the Present Tense
We human beings live within time very much the way fish live within water. One way to think about the relationship of faith to the passage of time is to think about the tenses of faith. I’ve described it this way. Faith oriented toward the past faithfulness of God is gratitude. Faith oriented toward … Continue reading Pastor Note #48 — Living in Time, Living with God, Part 4: Obedience–Faith in the Present Tense
Pastor Note #47 — Living in Time, Living with God, Part 3: Disciplines of Christian Remembering
Time can seem like an enemy to us sometimes. Our lives flow away from us into the past. And as they do, they seem to slip through our fingers like sand. We can especially feel that way as we watch our children and then our grandchildren grow up and … Continue reading Pastor Note #47 — Living in Time, Living with God, Part 3: Disciplines of Christian Remembering
Pastor Note #46 — Living in Time, Living with God, Part 2: The Past Tense of Faith
Time flies. Or, time drags. But the unalterable reality of human life is time. We live in time as fish live in water. I have a past. I am in the present. And in some form I will have a future. This time-orientedness is the fundamental framework of our lives. Everything we do, everything … Continue reading Pastor Note #46 — Living in Time, Living with God, Part 2: The Past Tense of Faith
Pastor Note #45 — Living in Time, Living with God: Part 1–Introduction
Living in Time, Living with God I do not have a good natural sense of the passage of time. Some people are very good at estimating how long an activity will take to complete. Some folks almost never lose track of how much time has passed between when they sit down to work … Continue reading Pastor Note #45 — Living in Time, Living with God: Part 1–Introduction
Prayer Note #36 — The Time of my Life
Here I am, Lord. It's a little before 5:00 A.M., and I've been awake for a half an hour or so, lying in bed, my mind wandering from thought to thought. I seem to be done sleeping, though the clock tells me that I shouldn't be. Have you wakened me for some reason? Or is … Continue reading Prayer Note #36 — The Time of my Life
Gary Chorpenning's Notebooks 