Thoughts and happenings around the Belgian Free Christadelphian Ecclesia Brussels-Leuven – Gedachten en gebeurtenissen rond de Ecclesia Brussel-Leuven van de Broeders in Christus
Death
One more day we look at a posting of pastor Tony Franklin who also has looked how people in their fear had denied Christ or even given him up for betrayal. (See: It is Finished!)
Like Peter denied Christ and said he was not one Jesus his friends and was not in the garden with him, we find lots of people at work or in their surroundings who also deny any connection with Christ. Like in the past many wondered how it was possible that God could be called “good” when they saw so much pain and having Jerusalem under Roman rule, we find lots of people who still do not understand that God gave the power to govern the world in the hands of mankind, and man not making the best out of it and bringing lots of suffering to others. That not being a fault of God.
Also we as man dream about so many things we would love to see accomplished, and we see oh so few things come into reality.
So it is that regardless of whether we look to the past, present, or future, there is no absolute certainty regarding what is to come. All of it requires some leap of faith over gaps in the information. How then, do we plan for the future? Is it even realistically possible or are we simply deluding ourselves? {Why Time Matters. Part 4}
For him
Giving up is a legitimate response. We can crawl into a survival mode, preparing at once for everything and nothing. There may be very real reason for the despair, depression, and anxiety that plague many people who cannot see hope in their future. I’ve heard it said before that pessimists are slightly more in touch with reality that optimists are, and if there is no real way of knowing what tomorrow may bring, there may be some truth to that. Even if that saying is wrong, it would be the pessimists in for a pleasant surprise rather than the optimists caught off-guard by a curveball. Some of us may laugh at the idea of those who make bomb shelters in their basements, preparing for the end of the world – but there may be a semblance of real preparation and security in that kind of attitude. If they are delusional, it is more likely along the lines of their belief that they can do anything to change the inevitable. The bomb shelter mockers might instead choose to live in carpe diem terms, not in that they are somehow optimistic about the future, but believing they lack the power or the motivation to change what might be considered an inevitable outcome. {Why Time Matters. Part 4}
Each day brings some other worries and by the years we see them sometimes have cumulated leaving us with even more worries about what we did not accomplish and how much we would have loved to do certain things in our life but did not manage that set goal from our childhood dreams.
Peter Somervell and wife
Sometimes we may feel like we can not establish the things we did hope for. It may bring us to feel like our life has no purpose, like Peter Somervell, an other pastor and a husband and a father of four adult children writes
everything becomes rather routine and dull. You get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep, wake up and do the same thing over again – day after day, week after week, month after month. It’s life on the treadmill. Everything stays the same. The only thing that changes is the pace. Then at around 45 years of age something happens. They call it the mid-life crises. That’s when people start doing odd things like changing careers, buying expensive sports cars or taking up an extreme sport and nearly killing themselves. {The Mission}
Perhaps then we thought to have had it, but when we pass 60 we think again of what we made of our life and feel depressed when we see that as a twen we had so many dreams and now see how much of those dreams were scattered or not fulfilled. though for others it may well be that they feel like entering golden years.
Then after mid-like crises (if you’re still alive) you enter those golden years of the 60’s. The kids are well off your hands and you can sit back and enjoy life. You have the house, the boat, the bikes, and the caravan all to yourself. You spend those years going on as many adventures that your health will allow you because now the clock is ticking. You know there isn’t much time left. {The Mission}
Or are it those 60 and 70 year olds who have no such material wealth who feel they failed? Or is it because earlier than others they start feeling they are forgetting and that their body does not want to do any more what it could before?
Then you hit your 70s and you’re faced with a new problem: downsizing. All that stuff you’ve worked hard for all those years – well, the granny flat won’t hold it. It’s got to go. Who’s it going to? Your kids, or grandkids – most likely, if they want it. Sometimes they don’t want it and you have to sell it, for a tenth of the price you paid for it. And as you watch it being towed away from your driveway you feel this huge sense of loss and you are reminded that everything you own – all that you worked for, will one day go the same way. You go out of this world the same way you came in – with nothing. {The Mission}
The feeling that everything you had to work for seems now to have been a battle … a battle not bringing the results you hoped for. Were your strategics not good enough? Where have you failed?
No one sets out in life wanting to end up like this. No one starts out in life thinking,
“I’m going to waste my life by working as hard as I can and amass tons of stuff I don’t really need only to give it all away and then die unfulfilled.”
An ill life will effectually drown the voice of the most eloquent ministry.
Having the ability to review our life we should wonder if we gave enough attention also to our spiritual life.
As followers of Christ we received the task from the master teacher to go out and preach the Good News of the coming Kingdom. Though often we are feeling confronted with us driving against a strong big wall of non-interest, and feeling as in a deadly collision.
Facing the adversity, resistance and frustration, we try to cling to the hope we are given and do have the inner desire to get others warm for the hope we want to share we so many. Though it requires patience and perseverance, always with the trust that it is God Who calls and God Who is our best Helper and Guide, in whom we should trust. Him who, though sometimes we may feel like dead, shall give us the long lasting life in a much better world.
How much can you cope with your state of hardship or affliction;misfortune , and how much do you manage to face calamitous events? Trouble, distress, trial, mishap, affliction may overcome all and sometimes people may feel in deep water, taken by woe. Sometimes not knowing any more how to cope with the hard times or bad luck or even disaster.
In life we should come to see that there are moments we have to “Stop and Declutter the Mind” and put everything in order again, first of all by setting priorities right, always with the knowledge that we cannot direct the wind, but can adjust the sails. At such moments we should declare certain things “dead”.
For sure we should all recognise that
Life is too short to put up with a job you hate, a boss who demeans you, or a company with no soul.
Many people convince themselves that they can put up with a job or career situation that makes them unhappy because they need the income, because they don’t know if they can find another job, or for some other reason. But the truth is none of us knows how long we have on this earth, and spending too much of it in a bad situation will only make you miserable and regretful. If you’re in this situation, take a step today — no matter how small — toward a better situation. {10 Important Career Lessons Most People Learn Too Late In Life}
writes the financial analyst with a passion for running, fashion, and interior design & decor, Amanda Pensinger from Grand Rapids, MI.
But in that short life too, many people do forget, that this is the time to prepare for the Kingdom of God. Now is the time to make sure one shall be ready to go through the small gate when time is there.
14 But tzar (narrow) is the delet and constricted is the Derech (Way) that leads to Chayyim (life) and few are the ones finding it. {Mattityahu 7:14 Orthodox Jewish Bible}
In a way our life is too precious to let ourselves to be carried away by people who mock with us, or who have no interest in us for who we are and for what we believe. Life is also to short to wast the knowledge of the Words written in Scripture and to live like the majority of people want us to live. We better prefer to live according to the Will of God. No matter what happens we always shall one day have to face “death”, but when we look it in the eyes we better see behind it the doors to “life”.
Stoning of Saint Stephen by Paolo Uccello
The PhariseeSaul of Tarsus was changed by what he saw when the preacher Stephen confronted the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, trying to speak truth into their lives on their home turf, they would not stand for it. That Stephen (meaning “wreath, crown, honour, reward”, literally “that which surrounds or encompasses”) had aroused the enmity of members of various synagogues by his teachings. Accused of blasphemy, at his trial he made a long speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgement on him, got stoned to death.
The foreign-born Jew who spoke Greek and lived in Jerusalem who had become a Christian was not afraid to speak out and say what he believed. How many would be prepared to die for their faith? We do not get stoned or killed when we say what we think, but lots of people are afraid as death to say they believe in Christ Jesus, the new life giver.
But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.
writes the financial analyst with a passion for running, fashion, and interior design & decor, Amanda Pensinger from Grand Rapids, MI.
Belgian Ecclesia Brussel - Leuven 
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