Jesus and Me ... and the Cats

Psalm 42 Jeremiah 29:1-14 Message Waterloo, Iowa, is the reason I have a GPS. I usually find myself someplace other than my intended destination, staring at a cornfield. That's not where I wanted to be. Babylon wasn't where the Israelites wanted to be, either. As we heard in Psalm 137, they lamented, “How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?” How could they be happy? They felt lost, confused, unsure of their future and disoriented in their new situation. We hear those feelings in Psalm 42. The writer longs for the assurance of God, but like the rest of his people, he is perplexed and bewildered with why God is taking so long to get there. Historians say that there is evidence that the the Israelites took things into their own hands and staged an unsuccessful uprising sometime in the first two years they were in Babylon. They were not adjusting well to their new circumstances in a foreign land. The truth is, that life is a

Psalm 102: 1-13 and 103:1-5, 15-18 Going to amusement parks is just not my thing. So, it's of no great surprise that my driving passion was NOT to ride the biggest, baddest, fastest, most terrifying roller coaster in the Midwest, the “Blue Streak” at Cedar Point Amusement Park outside of Sandusky, Ohio. Yet, there I was. You may not know this, but if you sit in the front car, and if the drops are steep enough and the speed is fast enough, momentarily weightlessness can be achieved. Having no confidence in the bar that locked across my lap, I was sure that I was going to fly out of the car.  My screams confirmed that I believed this was the day I was going to meet Jesus face to face. Life is like a roller coaster. There are the ups and downs: the “Mondays” when nothing goes right, when really good days are followed by bad days. There are also the times filled with soul-wrenching losses, suffering and disappointments when we're holding on with all our m

Acts 1:1-11 There are some things life has taught me to expect: ·         No matter which side of a fish sandwich I take my first bite from, tartar sauce will ooze out of the sandwich on the opposite side. ·         If I wear white to work, the copier will need toner. ·         When I’m late for a meeting across town, I will hit every red light between here and there. ·         What I’m looking for is always in the last place I look, even when I try looking there first. ·         And when I lift my face to heaven and ask, “Why me, Lord,” the answer will be, “Why not? The day Jesus moved out of our earthly neighborhood and back into the heavenly palace, I don’t know what the apostles were expecting to happen next.  Jesus told his followers to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the power the Father had promised.  During his forty days with them, he had given them this mission, to be his witnesses, to go, teach, baptize and make disciples of the world an