You Don't Have to Live Like This

Last night our Sunday school class went to hear this speaker. His name is Rob Bell, and I'm sure you've probably never heard of him. I know he was unfamiliar to me, up until about 2 years ago. Our class did some video devotionals by Rob Bell 2 summers ago. We were knocked out by some of the things that he taught in them. There was one that I will never forget. The video starts out with Rob telling a story from his past when his son was young, less than a year old. Their family had gone to a cabin somewhere for vacation. One morning, Rob and his son got up early and went on a walk in the woods surrounding the cabin. He had his son in one of those backpack, baby carriers. After they had walked a good ways, it starts raining, so Rob reaches back to pull his son's hood up over his head and they take off back for the cabin. What Rob doesn't realize is that his son has pulled the hood back off of his head, so he's getting soaked. Rob is very set on getting them back before they get too wet, but by this point it is pouring down. This entire time, his son is back there howling up a storm because he's uncomfortable and just does not understand why in the world his dad is allowing him to get wet. What he doesn't realize is that his dad is trying his best to get them to the shelter of their cabin. In this video, Rob compares this story to our relationship with God. We may be in the midst of getting rained on in our lives and we think "where is God in all of this, why isn't he doing something to help me!" What we don't realize is God is right there and he's taking us to shelter, we just may not get there as fast as we want to. That story has stuck with me over the past 2 years, maybe because I was 7 months pregnant with my son at the time of watching this video, I'm not sure, but, to me, it makes a strong statement in the fact that we need to have faith that God is going to see us through the rough times in our lives, regardless of how long we have to endure those rough times, He is right there, walking us through them.

Steve, our former Sunday school teacher, associate pastor, pretty cool guy, found out that Rob Bell was on a speaking tour through the country and wanted to know if our Sunday school class would be interested in attending. (Of course he didn't ask us this until after he had already bought him and his wife front row tickets, so we got stuck in the nosebleed section while he was getting sweated on by Rob. Just teasing, Steve! ) So we had a group of 22 people head over to hear Rob speak last night. I was really impressed with how many people were there. I am a terrible guesser when it comes to numbers, so while I want to say there was a couple thousand people there, that's probably not anywhere close to being right. But for the locals, if you're familiar with Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie, that's where we were and it was about 3/4 full. Rob started out talking about the gods that people worshipped thousands of years ago. Initially, I was worried that we were going to be in for a long night because I could not see where this was going. We didn't really have any idea as to what he would be speaking about, just that the title of the tour was "The Gods Aren't Angry". But after going through and sharing with us some interesting facts about the different gods and what they were responsible for (the same god that was responsible for hunting was also responsible for small animals, kind of ironic), he also went over how the sacrificing part went. Basically it boiled down to this, people sacrificed (either gave crops, or killed animals (even their own children in some cases)) important things in order to appease the gods, if they were being blessed, they gave more in order to continue to be blessed, if they were suffering, they still gave more in order to try and get the gods back on their side, so it was a vicious cycle, with no one winning. So then Rob tells the story of Abraham. Abraham had a son named Isaac who he was asked, by God, to sacrifice. So Abraham obediently takes Isaac to the mountain willing to sacrifice him. At the last minute, an angel stops him and gives him a ram to sacrifice instead. Now, what Rob pointed out that was interesting is that most new Christians, or people who aren't really familiar with the Bible, if they are to read this story their initial reaction is to be horrified. What kind of God would ask someone to kill their child, and on the other side of that, what kind of person would willingly go out and do this? But the point he was making was that during the time of Abraham, those other things were going on with the other gods where people were sacrificing their first born children with much frequency. So for Abraham this really wasn't totally abnormal. He knew the other gods were demanding this, so he easily assumed the same from the God he worshipped. But God did this in order to prove to Abraham that He is NOTHING like those other gods. He isn't going to ask you to sacrifice your children in the hopes that you will get on His good side. He went on to share some other stories from the Bible and talked about the fact that Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice so this wouldn't have to be done anymore. I'm leaving a lot out here, I'm just trying to touch on the high points for me. So I'm sorry if this sounds somewhat scattered.

At the end he began sharing stories of how people have done their own "sacrificing" for their friends and loved ones. One single mother of 4 was given a house by people in her church, simply because they knew she was newly divorced and about to lose her current house. Another family had lost their job and were having trouble putting food on the table, so some friends from church took them to Sam's and bought them $900 worth of food. One woman had been severely scarred on her face by a bad accident, the doctor wanted her husband in the room as he removed her bandages, her mouth was all crooked because it had been badly torn, she was disfigured, yet her husband leaned down and kissed her and said "I like it!" These are all stories that really touched me and made me ask myself what I'm doing for other people. What are my sacrifices? In Romans 12:1, we are told to present ourselves as a "living sacrifice". We don't live in the day and age where we have to drag animals or crops to an altar to sacrifice, but we should be sacrificing of ourselves in order to serve God daily. It was a very important message that I needed to hear.