Soul-utions is a carefully crafted worship experience designed to help you on your spiritual journey. We are a group of people who are seeking God's plan for how to live our lives. You are welcome to join us on Sunday mornings at 11:00 AM at Morrison United Methodist Church in Leesburg, Florida. Come on in, grab some breakfast, and experience the love of Christ.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Claustrophobia is one of the most common phobias in America. Claustrophobia is characterized by panic that is a result of being in enclosed spaces.  It can develop from either a traumatic childhood experience (such as being trapped in a small space during a childhood game), or from another unpleasant experience later on in life involving confined spaces (such as being stuck in an elevator).  When an individual experiences such an event, it can often trigger a panic attack.  This response then becomes programmed in the brain, establishing an association between being in a tight space and feeling anxious or out-of-control.  As a result, the person often develops claustrophobia.
Jonah is certainly a great candidate for developing claustrophobia.  Jonah’s prayer to God from the belly of the great fish comes from his distress and anxiety over being in this confined space.  Yet Jonah is thankful to God for being saved by the fish.  Jonah had done nothing to deserve being rescued; his salvation was by grace alone.
The Lord deals with us not according to strict justice, but rather in ways that are consistently full of grace.  We have a tendency to turn away from God until there is a crisis.  Then out of panic or anxiety, we turn to God for help. 
When you are in a desperate situation, do you have a tendency to pray with hope or is prayer a pessimistic last resort?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Lent

All of us have times when we think our own personal situation is so blighted with an imperfection or a mistake we might have made, that we can never repair it.  This is the point of a wonderful story by a famous Polish-Jewish teacher called the Dubna Maggid, or the preacher from the town of Dubna.  Here is the story:
A king had a large beautiful jewel, a ruby that was especially precious to him because it was a gift from his deceased queen mother.  Through some careless accident, the jewel was ruined by a deep scratch and the king was in despair.  He called many experts to repair it. Some tried polishing. Some tried chemical solutions. Nothing worked.
A proclamation went out that if anyone could remove that scratch, the king would be indebted to him for a lifetime. Many tried and failed.  One day a craftsman of humble demeanor came to the king saying that he would like to try to repair the ruby, and the king, who had nearly given up hope, turned it over to him.  Some weeks later, the craftsman returned. No, the scratch had not been removed but the king was delighted because the craftsman, through his artistry, had turned the jewel into something far more precious than before.  At the end of the scratch, he had engraved a beautiful rose. The scratch had become the stem of the rose through that craftsman’s skill.  A curse turned into a blessing beyond price.
Each of us is given a precious jewel by God, more precious than any earthly jewel.  There can be a scratch in any one of our lives, an imperfection that we sometimes think can never be repaired.  But through the artistry in our own souls, the image of God within us, we can turn those imperfections into works of art that make our lives priceless blessings, not only for ourselves but for many others.  I think this is what God meant when he blessed Abraham with the words, "Be thou a blessing."  We can be sure that we will be a blessing with God’s help.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Some of life’s storms come upon us suddenly as was the case for the disciples in the ship. (Mark 4:37) We suddenly lose someone we love; we have a bitter disappointment, a crushing financial situation, or a physical illness that threatens to change our life forever or even threatens to end it.
Other storms come more slowly.  You see the sky darken around you and the visibility of your life dims until it seems a black cloud has surrounded you.   It is during the storms of life that our God equips us for service. The history of mankind has always been rough and rugged.  No one that wishes to be of value in this world will escape the storms that shape and mold us.
Randy Travis sang the “storms of life are washing me away.”  God wants each of us to be washed away by the storms so He can mold us into His creation.  As life rages around us, let’s remember that God is there to guide us through the peril and bring us to the other side.

The next time you start to experience the tempest, thank God for his abiding presence and embrace the new you!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

So What Is Lent?

People ask me this all the time.  I wanted to share with you some of the details about this season in order to help you understand it and to give you the knowledge to sound smart if someone asks you that question.

Many Christians throughout the world observe Lent. Catholics, Orthodox, and many Protestants look forward to this annual time of sacrifice and simplicity. For non-Christians, Lent can be a bit of a mystery. To some, Lent is a period of going on a diet; to others, it is when Catholic co-workers show up to work with ashes on their heads, and fast food restaurants start selling fish sandwiches.

Lent is meant to be a season of fasting, self-denial, Christian growth, penitence, conversion, and simplicity. Lent, which comes from the Teutonic (Germanic) word for springtime, can be viewed as a spiritual spring cleaning: a time for taking spiritual inventory and then cleaning out those things which hinder our corporate and personal relationships with Jesus Christ and our service to him.  Thus, it is fitting that the season of Lent begins with a symbol of repentance: having ashes mixed with oil placed on one's head or forehead. It is important to remember that our Lenten disciplines are supposed to ultimately transform our entire person: body, soul, and spirit.  There are a few basic rituals that have traditionally been associated with Lent.  Many of these (fasting, almsgiving, and prayer) have a long history.  In addition, reading the Scriptures and the Church's Writings can help foster growth during Lent.

Let’s take a closer look at the beginning of Lent.  Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday. It comes from the word "shriving" meaning confession and absolution. Traditionally, this was a day when Christians would confess their sins in preparation for Lent. It is a custom to eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. This probably originated because of the ingredients in pancakes: oil, eggs, and butter, which were forbidden during Lent. Making and eating pancakes was an easy and convenient way to get them out of the house before Lent began. Shrove Tuesday is also called "Fat Tuesday," which is what Mardi Gras means. It is called this because many took it to be the last time to party before Easter. However, the Church has traditionally tried to discourage the carnal and material celebrations of Shrove Tuesday.  In the Western Church, Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, a mixture of ashes and consecrated oil is imposed on the heads or foreheads of the faithful in the sign of the cross. The symbolism is rooted in the Old Testament (and sometimes early Church) practice of wearing sackcloth and ashes to symbolize penitence. It also symbolizes our being ashes and dust, our mortality.

In the course of a year, the Church celebrates the unfolding of the mystery of Christ, beginning with Advent, the anticipation of his first coming, and reaching a high point at Easter, the feast of feasts, the celebration of Christ's resurrection. Throughout the Church Year, which includes the seasonal, daily, and yearly cycles of Christian time, we commemorate and participate in events in the lives of Jesus and his followers, through sanctified time. Thus, we experience in symbol what Jesus and his followers experienced in reality.  Join me in making this season of Lent a meaningful spiritual journey!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

There's An APP For That! - Part 8

In the late nineteen-sixties, Carolyn Weisz, a four-year-old with long brown hair, was invited into a “game room” at the Bing Nursery School on the campus of Stanford University. The room was little more than a large closet, containing a desk and a chair. Carolyn was asked to sit down in the chair and pick a treat from a tray of marshmallows, cookies, and pretzel sticks. Carolyn chose the marshmallow. (Although she’s now forty-four, Carolyn still has a weakness for those air-puffed balls of corn syrup and gelatin. “I know I shouldn’t like them,” she says. “But they’re just so delicious!”) A researcher then made Carolyn an offer: she could either eat one marshmallow right away or, if she was willing to wait while he stepped out for a few minutes, she could have two marshmallows when he returned. He said that if she rang a bell on the desk while he was away he'd come running back, and she could eat one marshmallow but would forfeit the second. Then he left the room.
Although Carolyn has no direct memory of the experiment, and the scientists would not release any information about the subjects, she strongly suspects that she was able to delay gratification.   Most of the children in the experiment struggled to resist the treat and held out for an average of less than three minutes.

Dr. Mischel’s conclusion, based on hundreds of hours of observation, was that the crucial skill needed to delay gratification was the “strategic allocation of attention.” Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow—the “hot stimulus”—the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from “Sesame Street.” Their desire wasn’t defeated—it was merely forgotten.
Self-control is a fundamental character strength.  It is also a gift from God offered to us as a fruit of the Spirit.  This experiment highlights the fact that if we focus on Jesus instead of earthly desires, we too can delay gratification in search of heavenly treasures.
I pray that each of us will download the APP of Self-Control and “turn our eyes upon Jesus.”  God bless you!