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Weekly e-Devotion: September 3 Edition
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 Safety
Luke 14:33 (NIV)
In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Exodus 32:8 (NIV)
They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.'
I watched the program, “Hoarding,” the other day. In this episode one woman had been traumatized by 9/11 and found a sense of safety in things. She somehow felt that if she was surrounded by stuff, she would be safer; she would never experience a loss like those who lost loved ones on 9/11. The other story in this episode was about a man who had suffered a brain aneurysm with residual brain damage that caused him to collect stuff. And though the compulsion to collect, usually from dumpsters, was apparently a cranial misfiring, his insistence on keeping everything was his way of keeping control of his own life.
As a home health physical therapist I was in the home of many hoarders. They all looked the same: boxes piled up so high and so deep that only a person the size of the home owner could walk through the remaining paths, the tops of things covered in thick dust where nobody had been able to access or reach in years, no surface to sit on or place to set anything except on the top of a pile or stack. My assumption has been that the piles of stuff were the result of years of laziness, lack of cleaning skills, or the accumulation of stuff simply not yet thrown away. Rather than the urge to collect, I thought it was the failure to discard. Whatever the cause, in this episode it was a double-sided safety issue.
Sadly, the very collection of bright shiny objects that gave them a feeling of safety was the thing that was causing danger and isolation. The woman had collected so much that she had used up her entire retirement savings. She had no funds left with which to live and no friends or family left still willing to step foot in her house. She was forced to sell it all to save herself. Her safety net against a tragedy such as 9/11 had become her own private tragedy complete with countless losses she had been trying to protect herself from.
The man, during the course of the episode, was never able to part with his things, preferring to live in an unhealthy, unsafe and lonely tomb rather than relinquish control to those who wanted to help him. Yet he had been unable to find his bed to sleep in for years, could no longer enter one of the rooms, and he, too, was isolated because family and friends couldn’t or wouldn’t come to visit. To watch him climb over the mountains in his family room was like watching broken bones waiting to happen.
Both of these people had built for themselves false idols, sparkly shrines of stuff meant as a haven from the dangers of the world, but instead, their own private hell. A hell the Israelites invited with their golden calf when they felt abandoned. A hell paved with good intentions, but a place of loneliness and danger nonetheless. What they really needed was to know that, no matter where we find ourselves, the real road to safety is through the one true God.
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Easy Suggestions
to Help You Grow
Luke 14:31-33 (NIV)
[33] In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Jesus is everything important. God is the giver of all good things. Things aren’t bad, but remind yourself daily that things are just things, and only Jesus saves.
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Our pastors and other program directors are here to help nurture your faith journey anyway possible. Our staff can be reached by calling the church office at 602.866.9191. For a list of staff email addresses click here.
Regular e-Devotion contributing authors include Maria Levine and Bobbie Tomasek. If you would like ideas of how to incorporate your faith into daily life please contact Bobbie or visit the Faith Journeys page. If you are interested in being a guest writer for our e-Devotions or any other email subscriptions we offer, please contact Bobbie to get started.
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All Saints Lutheran Church
www.AllSaintsPhoenix.org
15649 North 7th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85022
602.866.9191
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September 5
Time After Pentecost-15
Click HERE to read
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1 (3)
Philemon 1:1-21
Luke 14:25-33 *
Sepember 12
Time After Pentecost-16
Click HERE to read
Exodus 32:7-14 *
Psalm 51:1-10
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
* e-Devotion Bible text(s)
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Dear Lord, Help me to see that you, and not things, are my savior. Amen.
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