The Squeeze of the World Around You

I saw on the news this week that a very creative farmer has been growing his pumpkins inside a precast mold this fall so that they grow formed to look like a "Frankenstein" head or some other Halloween associated character.  I tried to find photos for this blog but could not.  On the TV news video I saw, they looked like plastic but were in fact real whole pumpkins shaped like a head.

Let me say here that I am neither endorsing nor advertising Halloween decorations.  I personally don't like them but from my farm background though I do have to say this is a pretty inventive guy because he is getting $75 per pumpkin.  My hats off to his ingenuity though I will not ever pay $75 for a pumpkin no matter who it looks like.

All this did remind me of this verse from J. B. Phillips translation of the book of Romans -
Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.  Romans 12:2

We live in a world that will squeeze us into its mold if we let it.  It will squeeze us financially, morally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally - any way that we can imagine being squeezed it will and often for someone else's profit. 

Those pumpkins don't have a choice but we do.  We have something strong enough to break the mold the world tries to put us into - the power of Christ in us.  If you are feeling like one of those pumpkins this week, I pray what we will look at Sunday will help you.  Let's all come to break our molds and be "unsqueezed."

for the journey...

Tim

Seven Billion

According to the U. N. there are now 7 billion people on planet earth.  I am number 3,005,575,982.  No kidding.  In trying to wrap my mind around this number I found a website that lets you find where you are in this astronomical number, that's how I came up with that number.  I am not making this up.  I also found a way to picture 7 billion.  One billion pennies (stacked neatly) would make blocks as big as five school buses. So thirty five school bus sized stacks of pennies would be 7 billion.  That is still hard to wrap my mind around.

I remember standing on the 11th floor of a hotel in Manila, Philippines in August of 2001.  It was my first big overseas mission trip and I was looking out at how vast a city Manila was, in every direction, as far as my eyes could see there was a teaming city full of people.  I had been on four different islands in the Philippines, I had seen thousands and thousands of people in this place I had never thought much about before.  For someone who had grown up in Hope, Texas, it was hitting me how big the world was and it was hard to wrap my mind around the size of the world.  It was so much bigger than I had ever thought, I felt very small that day on the balcony.

Trying to wrap my mind around seven billion makes me feel very small too.  But take another perspective on that number - God knows and loves every single one of those 7,000,000,000.  He knows the number of the hairs on their heads. He can hear all seven billion pray (if they would).  He has a plan for each one of them and has created each one like no one else who lives now or ever did in the past or ever will in the future.  And here is the big thing - Jesus died for the sins of every single one.  That is how big the love of God is for each one of us.  He loves all of us as if there were only one of us.  That is even harder to wrap my mind around.

I did find this verse that does help.  Read it carefully because you might hear it again Sunday.  It helps me put all of this in perspective.  "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it."  Eph. 4:7.  Oh, how He loves us.

For the journey...

Tim