Claude King's blog

I know people who bring a Godly presence with them wherever they go. The presence I am thinking about is the understanding that those people have invited God with them in as many places as they want God to walk with them into.

How do we help to heal the people and the land that we live in today? We need healing not just because we have been living through a pandemic but also because we needed healing long before the pandemic began. We needed healing, in large part, because of the increasingly isolated society that we have adopted that is based on an independent and self-reliant culture that has been forged since our country gained its independence from England.

What mindset and state of heart do we need to get us through a period of hardship, bleakness, or poor health? at one time or another, one or more of those negative things will visit us during our lifetime.

The last year and a half, unfortunately, was another opportunity to show how we handled an intense level of adversity, loneliness, and sickness. Thankfully we pushed through it to be where we are today! I am grateful to see the way that we have navigated the valleys and the peaks of the pandemic to this point.

I try to be as even-handed and balanced as I possibly can as a habit. I believe doing that can do much to provide for a stable environment in my life overall. And I also found out, it is the best way to relate positively to my family, friends, and those that I live around, work with, and serve in ministry. I think being balanced and evenhanded is seen by most as a good way to create and strengthen ties with the people one is close to, though many would agree that it is not always an easy thing to do consistently throughout our lives.

Can you remember a time when you had a disagreement with members of your family about how to best help someone or some group who needed assistance? It might have been another family member who was going through a difficult time or a group of people that have been suffering due to circumstances beyond their control.

We have seen and heard things that people do and say that we cannot quite explain, but deep down in our hearts and minds we know why they happen. It may be that we have acted and spoken in similar ways even though we know that to do so goes against the Godly part of us.

We each have a calling placed on us as God's children and believers in God. Many of us are motivated to bring as many souls to the full knowledge of and lifelong faith in God through Jesus Christ as we can. Others of us are driven to help make better the lives of as many of those who have been left in economic poverty, social isolation, and termed undesirable, as possible.

Who are you to your family and friends? I am asking for the simplest characterization that the people who you know the best use to describe you. Are you a truth teller, a trusted person that most people can count on to get the job done, or the one who lights up whatever room you step into? Maybe you are seen as the smart one, the funny one, the quiet one, the loud one, the stylish one, or the complicated one.

There is a hymn that makes an impassioned plea to Jesus. The first verse of the hymn goes: "Pass me not O gentle Savior, hear my humble cry; while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by." The refrain goes on to say, "Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry; while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by."

I remember going to a lakeside retreat and getting in a boat to enjoy some fun in the water. I eventually decided to have fun by being while riding on a car tire inner tube that was tied to a rope and pulled behind the boat that I was in.