I thought to post some of my observations from/of the weekend (which I presume begins Friday evening and ends Sunday evening). But I need to finish writing CLE Bible 902 Lesson 1.
And yet, how shall I write about Abram with “Mark’s Weekend Thinking” a-buzz in my head? (To my friends: none of this “Mark’s weak end, thinking” business, OK? 🙄 Thank you.)
So I figured out that I should write down some snippets and memory joggers to serve as a guide (for later) and as a mind declogger (for now).
Wow! I dredged up and skimmed off far more than I realized was there. 😯 I have way too much to write about. So I won’t.
Except to post my snippets and memory joggers. Alphabetically.
- a bent toward blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong time
- a big brother’s interest in youngest sibling
- a knack for not speaking the right thing at the right time
- ambiguity is a poor way to communicate
- anger — hidden, “hidden” — stomped, stomping
- blindness to personal pride seems inversely proportional to discernment about another’s pride
- bragging about busyness
- can unstable parents breed stability
- case weakened by exaggeration and misrepresentation
- choosing the measure by which I will be judged
- clashing witness — inconsistency and/or hypocrisy and/or immaturity
- contempt, bitterness, scorn, wrong rejoicing
- creatures accepting decisions of the Creator
- critical thinkers free of a critical spirit
- disconnected from another’s reality…while imagining to be in touch and empathetic
- dismissing the message because of the messenger
- distinguishing among rebellion, stubbornness, and conviction
- do I really want what I deserve?
- economic classes and social cliques — the in and the out, the up and the down, the you and the me
- embellishments, snipers, gossip, evil reports, uncharitable speaking, evil surmising, flapping tongues, unrestrained truth
- entertaining evil thoughts which don’t reflect the true state of my heart
- expiration date for dual citizenship
- few have employer-provided health care benefits
- finding fault vs discerning error
- going overboard in lifting up others; flattery
- highlighting differences
- how to be faithful to God
- how can anyone disprove a “rebel” accusation
- husbands who love their wives less than themselves
- I deserve more and worse
- I didn’t say what I should have
- I don’t go to church to hear you fill in time (or fill up yourself — puff, puff)
- I’m (relatively) bald(ing)
- I’m measuring you by how you measure another
- led by a child in a good way
- loving (or not) certain people
- my priorities
- nor should I go to church to use my time to promote myself
- note to teachers and preachers: aim for the heart, not the funny bone
- others following me to follow Jesus — in doing the former will they succeed in doing the latter
- oxymorons of mutual exclusivity: professed sojourners with real estate
- percentages in the comparison of needs — $2,500 hospital bill with $200 in the bank — $30,000 health care bill with $10,000 in the bank — whose is the greater need
- personalizing my message — showing how the shoe fits me
- responding to it all at the moment
- seeing beauty in and deriving pleasure from that which others take as indicators of impending destruction, death, and despair
- (self-consuming, self-exalting, self-promoting) self-pity
- simplicity vs shallowness
- slippage and carelessness
- some labels are impossible to affix accurately
- some can “do no wrong” while others can “do no good” — and sometimes they’re the same
- surely die and surely live — both in Ezekiel 33
- the guilty judging and condemning
- the word and ministry of reconciliation
- unspoken understandings and unrecorded agreements difficult to explain, to pass along, and to enforce
- wanting my giving to be seen — and my non-giving graciously understood
- what rules apply when
- what’s the rush in reading God’s Word so speedily
- who will build, encourage, lift, praise — carefully, sincerely, without flattery, without an agenda, without putting others down
- who deserves what
- who will lead and take the initiative and show the way and take the arrows
- Who was Jesus to you last week? Let not the public answer clash with the reality seen by God and experienced by others.
- wives who get ahead of their husbands
Now to finish Lesson 1 so I can get going on Lesson 2 (“The Promise through Abraham’s Seed”)… Without bemoaning how I’ve squandered my earlier-than-I-wanted rise… 🙁
Oh, and by the way, do you wish I’d write about any of those more extensively?