Author: kevingdrendel

I am sixtiesh, an English Literature major in college and an attorney by profession. Faith informs my life, and this blog is about my faith journey.

In My Place

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Pilots Working in an Aeroplane During a Commercial FlightFew things really bring the story of Christ and what he did for us into sharp focus. We know it intellectually, but it does not really register with the clarity and presence that such a cosmic event should. We get distracted with the mundane elements of life and the fleeting excitements that pull our attention away from God’s ultimate act of love.

I am as guilty as anyone. I find myself registering somewhere in the depths of my soul, somewhere in the back of my mind, that this amazing, unbelievable act of love was (is) as real as anything in my life, actually the most real and profoundly significant reality in my life, and yet I do not live as if that were really true. The fact that it registers so dully with my senses most of the time is something I recognize, but seem powerless (or lacking in will) to summon to the surface of my daily consciousness.

There are times when that eternal Act becomes more present than others. For some people, experiences have etched the reality of that Act more deeply into the consciousness, and it usually comes through pain, tragedy or great mercy and near avoidance of pain and tragedy. I think it can happen on both sides of that divide.

This link is to one of those events, an event that we know all too well. This is a view from a pilot who sat in the cockpit of one of the planes that never reached its intended destination on 9/11.

In My Seat – A Pilot’s Story from Sept. 10th-11th

The Maintenance Man and a Mandolin

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Senior man playing mandolinOn my way into the office this morning I heard a story on the radio. A man with a strong southern drawl called in. (It is a nationally syndicated show – no southern drawl here in northern Illinois).

He said he did maintenance work, and a lady he knew asked him to do some work on her home. He did the work, and when he finished, he told her the cost was $60 even. She asked if she could pay him by the end of the week, and he agreed.

She called him a few days later and apologized. She said she just did not have the money to pay him and asked if he would take her husband’s mandolin instead of cash. She was obviously sincere so he took it.

He did not know how to play the mandolin so he took it to someone he knew and offered to sell it. The other gentleman got very excited and said he would definitely like to buy it. The maintenance man said, “Just give me a fair offer”; and the other man said, “I’ll buy for it $2000!”

The maintenance man decided to go back to visit the woman who gave the mandolin it to him to tell her that he sold it. He hoped she would not be upset because it had been her husband’s.

When he arrived at her house, he told her that he sold it. She only asked, “Were you able to get your $60 for it?” With that, the man handed her an envelope. When she opened, her eyes welled up with tears, and she began to sob.

When she composed herself, she explained that her husband had passed away, and the reason she did not have the money to pay him for the work he did was because she still owed money on her husband’s funeral which she had been paying a little bit at a time.

She asked him to wait right there at her front door while she went inside. She returned with the latest invoice from the funeral home. It was $1940. Exactly what was in the envelope!

An Overview of the Genesis Story

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Sometimes we get lost in the forest and miss the trees. Below is a take on Genesis from 30,000 feet as told by some creative folks at www.http://jointhebibleproject.com/  I enjoyed and the fresh look at age old stories put together in an overview. Below is my breakdown. At the end of this article is a link to the entertaining video.

God & the World

God made the world and declared it is good

God made man in God’s image: Adam is the Hebrew word for humanity; and Eve is the Hebrew word for life. Representative of God’s character in the world God made.

God sends them out into the world to be creative, as God was, but he gives them a moral choice about how they do it.

The moral choice is what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is all about

God tells them not to eat of it or they will die.

Up to that point God provided and defined what is good (His creation)

God has the knowledge of good and evil and made it attainable for humans (the choice)

The tree represents that choice: will humans accept God’s definition of what is good, or will they define what is good for themselves.

This sets the stage for sin – the desire and act of defining and controlling what is good for me and my tribe, even at the expense of you and your tribe

People are not good at defining good and evil without God – Genesis 3-11

Downward spiral

Adam & Eve can no longer trust each other – they were naked and felt fine about it before, but now they feel shameful after eating the forbidden fruit and hide from God and each other

Cain becomes jealous of Abel and kills him

Lemak accumulates wives, property and sings songs of being more violent than Cain and is proud of it

Things get so bad that God proceeds to wipe out humanity except for Noah and his family

We think of God as angry, but he is sad and grief stricken; to save the world He washes it clean with the flood

But even Noah takes a turn – he plants a vineyard, gets wasted and things get sketchy

Babel ends this portion of Genesis – God knows that men, if unified, will seize the opportunity to seek to become like God and that will be bad

God scatters them so they can not wreak anymore havoc

When humans seize autonomy from God and define good and evil themselves it results in corruption, tragedy and death

Abraham & His Family

Begins God’s mission to rescue and restore humanity

Before the video link, I want to make a few comments. First, it seems elemental to me that God creative Adam and Eve to be creative beings like God (in the image of God), but the link between that and the tree of knowledge of good and evil I find interesting. God gave them a choice to accept what God provided them and defined as good or to eat of the tree and define what is good for themselves. I have not heard things put exactly that way before.

Building on that, the choices that humanity makes are awful. Cain kills Abel. The strong become boastful of violence and domination over others. Even after the flood “cleanses” the world for a fresh start, Noah, himself, stumbles into weirdness. And when humankind repopulates, they become unified in an endeavor to reach the heavens for themselves, which will only allow them to cause more trouble and damage than they would otherwise be able to do; so God divides them by language and scatters them. In doing that, He creates some checks and balances that minimize the trouble they can cause.

The beginning of Genesis is the story of the moral choice that humanity made, to seize control of defining good and evil for themselves, and rejecting God’s definition. It does not go well. We do not do well with the choices we make.

While the video ends here, the next portion of Genesis is summarized as the beginning of God’s rescue mission to save and restore humanity through Abraham and his family. We will have to wait for the summary of the rest of Genesis.

I am certain that the overview can be done in different ways and emphasize different aspects of the Big Picture. I think this overview is compelling. The fundamental choice that we all make is whether we will “do it my way” or submit ourselves to God’s way. Will define good and bad for ourselves or accept how God has defined it?

Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOUV7mWDI34

What is your take? Is this a good overview?

Creepy Little Lies

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

This is good. We all wrestle with different things. Patterns of thought we have fed keep coming back. We often don’t see them for what they are – LIES! We need to be vigilant and expose them for the lies they are. Gossip comes in this way, and we think it is ok; but it is not! We struggle most with the lies about ourselves or what others think of us. We need to be ready to zap them like the creepy bugs they are and let God fill us with “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Phil. 4:8)

Annie B's avatarEyes Wide Open

head-196541_640

It really is true: We must be vigilant and ever-ready to lock up those wayward, yet powerful thoughts that try to infiltrate our minds and hearts.

Every. Single. Day.

We also must remember that we can’t do it in our own power. We have to be on-guard and armed with the power of the Holy and Mighty One; the Loving and Redeeming, Sovereign One.

The Only One ~ the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Why would you share such a thing today? Your blog is just always so deeep. People don’t want to read all of these deep and intense thoughts. You need to lighten up. How are you going to glorify Jesus with all this kind of stuff? Why can’t you be light and fun all the time? What’s the point of it all anyway?”

I had a good day today as compared to all the others over this past week…

View original post 1,105 more words

It is Well with My Soul: The Story

kevingdrendel13 Comments

It is Well with My SoulSometimes songs we know have so much more meaning and power when we know the story behind the song.

The song, It is Well with My Soul, is known by most people who have attended protestant church services.

Listen to the traditional hymn once before reading on.

It is Well with My soul

The song title belies the turmoil that led to the writing of it. Following is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say. Continue reading “It is Well with My Soul: The Story” →