This Week With Jesus

                                                                                                                                Image: Scout Life Magazine Prayer is a pillar or actually the cornerstone of Christian life.  A typical prayer may include giving thanks, intercession, blessings, praise etc.  And we may ask for help with the problems and challenges we face. Tom Clark from Life, Home and Truth has this to say -  ... "do we always pray for the right things?  Let me illustrate this with a paraphrase of a story by Peggy Porter on  usscouts.org  that I read many years ago. Eight-year-old Gilbert had only been in Cub Scouts a short while when the scoutmaster handed everyone a block of wood, four tires and a sheet of instructions, and told them to go home and “give it all to Dad.” Unfortunately, the dad part was not an option for Gilbert, so the block of wood sat untouched for days as a befuddled Gilbert struggled to figure out what to do. Finally, without a better option, Gilb

Growing up there was no television and going to the movies was a treat. The daily entertainment came from reading books. Two such book are ones I will never forget - All things bright and beautiful and All creatures Great and Small by James Heriot, a vet surgeon in rural England.  His books are about his daily experiences as a vet and  Gods creation, farm animals, birds and other creatures in our daily life, as well as the challenges they face as do their owners and farmers. One common picture which will keep popping up is that of fences on farms, pens and enclosures where the animals are kept safe. A gate left open accidentally can result in tragedy for the animal, so the farmer makes sure all gates are shut. In case it is not and animals stray, they are sitting targets for wolves, speeding cars and other dangers, so the farmer immediately goes after the strays and tries to bring them back to safety. This is much like our own shepherd who may leave 100 of us while we are in the safe

                                  Addiction is so prevalent in the world today that it encompasses nearly a quarter of the world. And if we add food addiction that figure would probably be three fourths. Food addiction will probably include you and me. Addicts of all kinds are looked down on, sometimes with sympathy and sometimes with disgust. Seldom with empathy. Addicts need to be treated not with sympathy or disgust but with kindness and support. Pastor David Jacobs says - "No matter where you are from, if you are old enough, you have been exposed to some form of addiction. Whether you have battled addiction yourself as I have or you have seen it grip somebody that you know, the depths of addiction and the hold that it can have on people is terrifying. Knowing all that we do about addiction and the harms that it brings, how are we not more wary of it? How do we not do more to resist its temptations? The enemy is stronger than we imagine, prowling like a lion on helpless prey.

Who has the power to reject you? Isn't rejection a judgement? And who in this human world can judge?  Unfortunately, we all do, belying what Jesus taught or tried to teach. Judging others seems to be second nature to us. The question is why we do it. Firstly, we build our own castles by bringing others down . For example, some public speakers comment adversely on their audience to make a point, thereby positioning themselves higher than the audience, so that the audience accepts their views without question. Secondly, it sometimes helps to fit in the crowd . If 5 people we know don't like someone, we too pretend so that we may fit in and build a bond. And sometimes it may just be a self defense mechanism , not to get close enough to someone so you don't get hurt, therefore we build a justification for that by a negative judgement. Lastly, and this is a universal fact, we all have a perception that we are entitled . No. We are not. That's an illusion we have created abo