What are you looking for?

“Imagine you are going on a journey across the continent.…All you know is that the journey will be long and arduous…Some things you are sure you will need, other things you think you might need, and still other things are packed because you cannot bear to leave them behind. At the start of the journey, you are not certain which is which.…The baggage you load for the journey includes many values…Some are clearly shared by everyone in the group. Others are not. Some are so important to an individual, that, unless everyone shares that value, they cannot be part of the group… Only the journey itself can test which values are most important to all.” [© 2009 Thomas G. Bandy – www.ThrivingChurch.com - tgbandy@aol.com Based on the book Moving Off the Map (Abingdon Press)]

When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" John 1:38

Both of these two quotations, written over 2000 years apart, are really asking us the same question: What do we need in order to become the people we want to be? I can just hear it now…someone is saying, “But that isn’t an easy question!” No it’s not, because if it was it would have been answered long ago, once and for all. The answer for each one of us is different, and is something that we need to work out for ourselves.

It is a little like decluttering the attic. After throwing out the ‘junk’ the first time, the next time you wonder why you ever saved that old book, and the following time there will be still more to go. Decluttering, at least in my house, is a process only completed after many tries.

To come to some understanding of what we are looking for, it is necessary to ask ourselves what values [as mentioned in the first story] are so important to us, that we cannot be part of a group that doesn't share that value. Sometimes personal experience will help us decide. We may have had an AHA moment, when we noticed something doesn't fit with us. Or it may require prolonged thinking, on our part

One way to declutter the mind, is to try and come up with 3 values that are non-negotiable for you at this time, and then to revisit these from time to time. While this sounds easy on the surface, it isn’t - or at least it wasn’t in my case. It was hard to find 3 values that were really non-negotiable. Many that I had thought were proved not to be so on further reflection, only values, that while they are dear to my heart, I could be part of a group that doesn’t hold them.

My ‘AHA’ moment came after attending West Hill United Church for a number of Sundays There the minister, Gretna Vosper declared herself an atheist. This didn’t bother me. The music was mainly familiar hymn tunes with new words. Wonderful! The people were welcoming, and remembered me from visit to visit. Amazing! In effect, this had everything I wanted in a church, yet I wasn’t comfortable. I wasn’t comfortable because there were no readings from the scriptures, or even mention of God or Jesus in all the times I was there. Apparently basing my spiritual values on a higher power is one of my non-negotiables.

If you haven’t given this some thought for a time, perhaps it is time to once again ask yourself what is is you really value, so the you too can answer that question Jesus asked his disciples so long ago, “What are you looking for?”

One of the famous quotes by Henry James, a American-born, British writer is: “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”

I think just maybe he simplified it a little..lol.. Do you know what three things are important to you?

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