August 29th, 2007 - Healthy Habits Study #3 Purpose - Eyes on the Surprise
Host: The Beans

Reading: 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 22:36-40

Alisa & Brian Bean were gracious hosts. Many who attended were thankful for the Bean's air conditioned home on the hot day, just as the children were thankful for the opportunity to swim at the Strombergs to stay cool.

Most of those who came were those who shared a camping experience last weekend in Estacada. There were conversations and stories that were shared with those of us who did not attend both before and after the study.

Pastor Mark guided this last Bible Study, which seemed to build on the themes of Sunday’s worship. Is God’s purpose revealed in what we wanted to be or what we do now in career or vocation? Or can it be in moments where you cannot articulate what would be personal purpose?

Susan talked about her attempts to keep her own desires and fears out of God’s way. She wanted to keep “her eyes on the surprise” of what God was doing in a moment or situation.

John mused on how much we still want to be in control of our lives and feel that God or Jesus must be behind all our good plans and decisions. He mused on how many self-help books and programs there are and then on Christian self-help books and programs in particular. He put to our group a question “As Christians should we be thinking about self-help?”

1 Corinthians 12: For now we see in the mirror, dimly but then we will see face to face

Pastor Mark saw something new in this familiar verse as we read it tonight. That we see in the mirror dimly because we see ourselves as individuals and that as individuals we are dim. That seeing face to face was moving beyond our perception of individual identity.

As we talked about God’s purpose the mystery began to engulf our stories more and more. Pastor Mark told of an a struggle of a congregation to come together, that he had tried to help in that struggle and judged the efforts he and others had made to be a failure. Yet he had seen many of these people in a funeral he recently attended and recognized there had been tremendous growth that had come out of those failed efforts.

There was also discussion around our focus on accumulating wealth as well and how that can get in the way of our truer purpose. “To not concentrate on what we can hold in our hand but rather on the hands that hold us and that we hold is for me what justifies us in the eyes of God” Mansor declared.

It was an important discussion. We learned from and about each other and it turned out to be a great study to end the series.