Who can resist a good sale, especially when it is something we use? There it was a forty-pound bag of birdseed chock-full of sunflower seeds and other goodies. Best of all it was half what I usually pay. I was one happy camper until our birds deserted us. They don’t like it. I wonder if the seed was very old and stale and thus on sale. My bargain didn’t turn out to be such a good deal. I went and got the good stuff and am trying to woo them back. The squirrels will enjoy the stale stuff.
This brings me to church attendance. If one never hears a fresh idea, if Sabbath School or Sunday School lessons are just a repeat of things we have heard all our lives, if sermons seem to be a rehash of last year’s fare, it is difficult to shovel the driveway and slip down the hill on a cold winter morning. Now that I have said that, allow me to say that despite our appetite for fresh mental stimulation, the tried and true story of the cross still refreshes no matter how often it is told. I need, we need the constant reassurance that God loves us despite our ridiculous failures. “Tell Me The Old Old Story” is a pretty good hymn with a great message.
However, let’s go back to our need for something new. At the close of Hebrews 5 Paul speaks of learning on the milk of the Word but eventually needing meat. People like birds will go where they are being fed that which is nourishing and palatable. Sometimes we even need to hear things we don’t particularly like but “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 14, 2011
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org