Blessing the spoons and dustbins

We have been surprised a number of times in the various churches in Nairobi that we have been to in recent months, notably the first time we saw we saw gifts to the church being blessed. Traditionally Kenyans eat with spoons, so when a member of the congregation gave a large number of spoons to the church, these spoons were blessed by the pastor for the members’ future use.

I admit that initially this struck me as strange, but, on reflection, I think they are on to something. Very clearly the attitude was that all gifts, even spoons, are gifts from the Lord, and are to be used in ways that bless the Lord through the members of the church. Nothing is to be taken for granted or used carelessly, it is all His provision and to be used accordingly!

Coming from a materialistic culture, it has made me realise how much I take for granted that most things can just be bought, used and, sooner or later, thrown away.

So this week we blessed some new dustbins that a member had given to the church to help keep the compound clean…

So, the next time we go shopping - whether for food, household goods, clothes, cash from the hole in the wall, or whatever - how about we come back home and dedicate their use to God’s glory?

Boiling frogs

It is said that a frog will not jump out of a pot of water if the temperature of the water is raised so gradually that the frog doesn't notice. Despite nothing stopping the frog from jumping out, it will stay there and be boiled to death - so long as the change in water temperature is very, very gradual.

This doesn't just apply to frogs! People who exert power know they can make changes very slowly, confident that those affected will gradually acclimatise to the changing circumstances and not notice until it's too late. This often occurs in abusive relationships; politicians and managers also use it to gradually introduce unpopular measures.

But there are at least two ways in which this applies to us all.

First, as we grow up in our increasingly materialistic and consumerist society, we gradually adjust to living more and more depersonalised lives in an increasingly polluted world, with run-away global warming and a rapid depletion of species. While we mutter about the degradation of life, we make no serious change of course, and it's not difficult to foresee a 'boiled frog incident' of global proportions coming.

Secondly, we also grow accustomed to the devil's pervasive lies which promote deceit as truth, greed as good, selfishness as self esteem, sex as love and desires as rights - and we just go with the flow. We call it 'progress' or 'modernisation' and see nothing particularly dangerous about such ideas!

Despite nothing stopping us from going back to the Author of Life - who is ever ready to rescue us, through Jesus, from a very unpleasant end - we gradually acclimatise to increasingly deadly ideas and ways of life without ever noticing - until its too late, and we are boiled to death.

In fact, I understand that experiments with frogs have shown that the 'boiled frog' story is a myth* - frogs do jump out when the water temperature gets uncomfortably hot.

So, it turns out that it doesn't work with frogs. But it does work with many humans.

* see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog