Re: Sunday June 25th

I told an embarassing story on myself this last Sunday. In the "Give and Take" teaching time, I was talking about doing the "natural" ministry or ministry in the area of our giftedness. I used my story as an example of what not to do. I was loaned a bike by a friend. She said it was a great bike, a man's bike- really expensive. You see Tina gave me some $$ to buy a bike as my father's day present- a really sweet gift. So I was trying our friends bike to see what I liked/needed. As I road on the streets of Palouse and struggled up the hills, I kept thinking this is a stupid bike! "She said it was a man's bike," I thought to myself, "but this is like a junior bike or something." You see I kept bumping my knees against the handles- there was no room to pedal. The brakes were in a weird place and it just felt strange. But it had been a long time since I had been on a bike, so I chalked it up to all the "technological changes" in the biking industry. Well, when I got home and dismounted the bike, I noticed something was very wrong. I had been riding the bike with the front end completely backwards. It looked like this picture below:

It should have looked like this:

I rode that bike all messed up! I scraped up my knee because in order to pedal I was rubbing against the handle bars. I waved at a bunch of people on my way home- and got several strange looks- it must have been a sight. When someone is forcing something and doing something "un-natural" it is pretty obvious, not always humorous, but in this case it was humorous.
Anyways- the point was- that God created each of us- saved each of us, and also gifted each of us. We need to go with that flow of truth and not against it. We need to accept the love of the Creator, the salvation of our Savior, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit- going against them, avoiding them and not believing in them and living into them is just going against our destiny.
The sermon was the story of Jesus calming the sea and storm, Mark 4:35-41, you can check it out here
Basically we need to believe that God is in our "boat" of life- and God will be with us always- believe it friends- God is with you in the storms of life.
Peace be with you....