S.O.A.P. for 02/22/2009 Moving On

S: Mark 6:10-11
Also He said to them, "In whatever place you enter a house, stay there til you depart from that place. And whoever will not receive you nor hear you, then you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

O: The disciples were instructed to shake the dust off as a vivid sign that they wished to remain separate from the people who had rejected Jesus and His message. Jesus was making it clear that the listeners were responsible for what they did with the Gospel. Ths disciples were not to blame if the Gospel was rejected, as long as it was faithfully and carefully presented. We are not responsible when others reject Christ's message of salvation.

A: I don't believe that He was being metaphorical. Kind of like in the baggage series, when we placed our notes incide the backpacks and hung them on the cross. As humans, it seems as though we need "physical actions" to help us with mental things. I truly believe that we should practice more active "physical" symbolism in order to take things to heart. I hope that when/if someone rejects what I have to share that I will remember to shake the dust off and hot dwell on the rejection. Dwelling and internalizing can make the hurt feelings last longer and ultimately affect my walk and my willingness to keep trying with others. But keeping the hurt from getting to deep and setting it's hooks will allow me to take a deep breath and "drive on".

P: Lord God,
I thank You for all the lessons. Even though they may seem so small, without those small lessons, we may be forcing ourselves to have to handle 'big ones". Help me to learn and see all the small lessons in handling life so that I don't keep passing them off as "symbolism" or "it doesn't apply to the world now". If I miss them, I may somehow end up missing the easy stuff and having to conquer mountains. I pray for eyes that see even the smalles of lessons that may hold more magnitude and value in just living than when I have to go through a tragedy to learn something. Maybe the tragedy was the last attempt to get me to learn something that was shown to me long ago that would have been easier to handle. Thank You for never stopping the lessons and thank You for giving us morsels to chew on along the way. I pray that I may see the truth in those morsels and not pass them off. If they were meant to be passed off, they woudln't have found their way into the Bible. I thank You for teaching us ways to handle rejection in simple ways that allow us to move on. May I never cease to "move on".

In Jesus Name.
Amen