(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
If it had been me, I would have stayed in the winepress. Especially when I heard someone call out, “Mighty hero!” I would have known for sure it wasn’t for me. Just beat that wheat; that was definitely something I could do. “Beat the wheat!” “Beat it!” My winepress theme song.
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
Today’s Catch is part of a new series on the story of Gideon, not like the one we ran seven years ago. It will carry new insights and current applications for all of us as believers, but especially for our MemberPartners — old and new.
The story of Gideon is the story of an ordinary guy who gets called to do something extraordinary, and for that reason, it applies to all of us. Now that doesn’t mean you’re going to be famous over five states. It means you’re going to do something that is extraordinary for you — something that might be easy for someone else, but for you it seems impossible. And it’s not just anything that’s difficult, it’s something that God has called you to do, just like He called Gideon, but you don’t want to; you’re afraid; or you don’t think you can do it.
(Click here for a video of John reading today’s Catch)
When our story begins, Gideon is not at all aware that he has been chosen to do anything but try to stay alive. Like everyone else in his country, he is hiding. All of his people have left their homes and are living in the mountains in caves because their homes are constantly being attacked and looted by the marauding Midianite army. They are all hiding and they are all afraid.
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
There’s no doubt about it, Gideon was hiding. When God found him and called him out to free his people from their enemies, he was hiding in a winepress where he was beating out wheat on the floor where they usually stomp around in their bare feet pressing the juice out of grapes. He would have much rather been making wine, but wine was a luxury when they were starving from lack of food.
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)
On an earlier Memorial Day, Tammy wrote us the following:
My dad and all but one of his brothers served. My mom’s two older brothers were drafted. The oldest volunteered. One died at Normandy. One died at the Battle of the Bulge. After a year of red tape, Mom’s oldest brother was allowed to go home. Sadly, because of PTSD, he took up drinking, and it killed him shortly after returning home. War? I hate it. Necessary? Yes it is. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of my sweet uncles waiting for all of us at the pearly gates.
God bless our troops. God bless America. My hope is that everyone remembers why we have this three day weekend.
Tammy, thank you for helping us remember why.
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
My first understanding of grace came by way of my worst understanding of me.
“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” (James 1:23-24)
I wonder if James wrote this for people like me who would spend a lot of time in church — hearing the word constantly and doing nothing about it. So when we look at ourselves in the mirror (the mirror of the law) and are horrified at what we see, of course we immediately forget it because it’s just too painful and too damning. I have devised all kinds of ways to forget what I see in that mirror. I was a Christian for many years before I really allowed myself to stare long and hard into that mirror and for the first time realize God’s grace was for me. I am the sinner I have been talking about most of my life! I am the pompous loser, and everyone but me could see it. I am the worst one.
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
by Marti Fischer
My heart hurts.
This is Makenna Lee, fourth grader from Uvalde, Texas. Yesterday morning that priceless smile of hers brought joy to those who knew her as she wished them goodbye before heading off to school. I imagine she had thoughts of summer vacation which was only two days away. But for sweet Makenna Lee, summer vacation will never come. She was cut down along with 18 of her classmates and two of their beloved teachers yesterday by a school shooter.
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
Inspired by yesterday’s Catch on learning to understand “the other side,” Terri, who has spent most of her career as a college professor, sent me some insightful comments a few of which I am pleased to share with you today.
I was on the debate team in college. A debate tournament has six rounds. Three on the affirmative and three on the negative. It was an amazing experience. We were debating things like privacy issues, war powers, wage and price controls; oddly enough, many of those issues are contemporary. Then after the debates we would meet up with the opposing teams for supper. Nobody got angry because they lost. We learned about the issues on each side and probably made more reasoned personal decisions as a result. You often didn’t know where a person was personally on an issue because they could argue both sides so well.
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
In a recent interview in United Airlines Hemisphere magazine, singer/songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Bonnie Raitt, stated: “This time is the most fraught and worrisome in my lifetime. The polarization and the increased vitriol and the delusional misinformation and the lack of a responsible center, in journalism and in the culture and in politics, is a source of great stress and pain for me personally.” And when the interviewer asked her if she had any hope looking forward, she said: “we really gotta stop turning each other into the other side. I want to try to encourage whatever activities we can do and whatever coming together we can have that allows us to see the humanity in each other.”
(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)
Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews 13:1-3)
“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.” I love the way this is worded. Not just love one another, but keep on loving one another. Keep it up. Don’t stop. Don’t go do it once and think you have accomplished something, but live in a continual state of loving one another. This is a critical support to our message to the world. Jesus said that the world will know that we are His disciples because of our love for each other. Our ongoing love should define Christianity.
John Fischer The Catch 