Simple Acts of Kindness Impact Lots of People
While reading my bible this morning, I came across the story of Tabitha in Acts 9:36-43. What struck me most about this passage was her simple acts of kindness that marked her life. Done without trumpet or pronouncement. Just done out of a kindness for another person.
Now for sure, LOTS of things are happening in this passage, like Tabitha being raised from the dead for example. Talk about a kind act!! But when you consider Tabitha on her own you get a real sense for her impact on people. She, “She was always doing kind things for others and helping the poor”. How do we know it impacted people? Because when she became ill and died these same people, “sent two men to beg him [Peter], ‘Please come as soon as possible!’” Why? To heal her, to raise her from the dead. To give them hope their friend, Tabitha, would be returned to them.
Those people wouldn’t have bothered if Tabitha had no impact on them.
And that got me to thinking about my Christmas Season and what simple, single act of kindness I could do that might make a small difference. I can’t change the whole world, but, I can each positively influence a little piece of it. And that is true for each of us. And that adds up to alot. Sometimes its hard to think of something to do though. A couple of ideas might help to prime our thoughts.
One is checkout the Random Acts of Kindness web site for some ideas. Another simple idea is Toys For Tots. Their drop offs end around Wednesday, 12/14 I think. A simple, new, unwrapped toy, is all they need.
Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/Soltice/Kwanzaa everyone 
Links:
http://toysfortots.org/donate/toys-city-county.asp?txtState=Massachusetts
http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+9%3A36-43&version=NLT
How focusing on simple life actions can positively impact your life
I love simple systems. Simple things or actions that on the outset seem not to really have any impact when in fact they have THE major impact. This article from Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton, and Dan Ariely shines light on this topic. Here’s an excerpt to wet your appetite to read:
Many studies have shown that few events in life have a lasting impact on subjective well-being because of people’s tendency to adapt quickly; worse, those events that do have a lasting impact tend to be negative. We suggest that while major events may not provide lasting increases in well-being, certain seemingly minor events – such as attending religious services or exercising – may do so by providing small but frequent boosts: if people engage in such behaviors with sufficient frequency, they may cumulatively experience enough boosts to attain higher well-being. In Study 1, we surveyed places of worship for 12 religions and found that people did receive positive boosts for attending service, and that these boosts appeared to be cumulative: the more they reported attending, the happier they were. In Study 2, we generalized these effects to other regular activities, demonstrating that people received boosts for exercise and yoga, and that these boosts too had a cumulative positive impact on well-being. We suggest that shifting focus from the impact of major life changes on well-being to the impact of seemingly minor repeated behaviors is crucial for understanding how best to improve well-being.
Here’s the full article, as published in The Journal of Economic Psychol0gy, “Getting off the hedonic treadmill, one step at a time: The impact of regular religious practice and exercise on well-being“
How a Conservative Church Emerged from Faith Rejected for Being Authentic
You don’t see many success stories like this: A person, rejected for their faith, decides their relationship with God is still authentic, and does something about it. That something being drawing closer to God and making a space for others similarly rejected. It’s a great story of pressing on with one’s faith. The story is at U.S.A. Today
Here’s a teaser to get you interested:
Like many of her parishioners, Andrews-Looper grew up in an evangelical church — in her case, Independent Fundamental Baptist — and found she was no longer welcome when she revealed she was a lesbian. She started a Bible study with a handful of other gay Christians in July 1996, which eventually led to starting Holy Trinity, affiliated with the United Church of Christ denomination.
Some take aways for those who don’t have time to read the article?
- Your faith is with God, not with an institution. If you are rejected from an institution and your faith gets “shipwrecked”, its time to evaluate where your trust is. In God or man?
- “Just because somebody comes out of the closet and tells their family or their pastor doesn’t mean they are no longer a spiritual person and they don’t love their church,”
- God honors small steps, just start taking them!
I’d highly recommend you click through to read it, with you favorite cup of coffee of course! Here’s the linkie love: At conservative church, once-shunned gays fuel growth
Is that Chocolate Cake from Your Heart? Ephesians 3:14-21
[Chief Barrista - Today I am kicking off a sort of "live notebook" of notes from reading in my Bible. I don't suppose these to be scholarly, or completely accurate, or even complete as I write them, but, they are from my actual notes of my bible reading]
I was reading in my Bible this morning Ephesians 3:14-21. This is a great passage and considered the “spiritual peak” of the letter. In fact, chapters 1-3 are couched in the form of a traditional Jewish blessing. And it’s no wonder, Paul is a Jew. But what struck me most about this passage was the last few verses:
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us
What struck me most about this was the “immeasurably more“. Imagine that. God will do MORE that we can ask or imagine. You could easily take this out of context, thinking it means “anything you ask” but I have found that the Bible has to be considered as a whole, which is sometimes very hard! So, if we keep that concept in mind, immeasurably more means exactly what it means, but, not in the sense of evil.
In considering how exciting this term means, I found it helpful to think about this: God will do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine and many times even I do not know what that is deep in my heart. God knows my heart though, in many cases better than I, and He will do immeasurably more for me than I could even dream of.
I struggled with this a bit more, and then, I thought about two examples that helped me. Have you ever craved something, like, a nice piece of chocolate cake? And then, upon eating it, realized, based on a sugar high then dip, or upset tummy, that you really shouldn’t have? That deep in your heart that was not what you needed! That was immeasurably less than what you needed!
Another example, I was on a vacation with my spouse. I knew something was deeply disturbing her. She had resisted telling me about it, unable to find words or emotions adequate to describe what was in her heart. So I prayed. I prayed that God would open her heart to herself. Astonishingly, within a few hours, she did find the words, haltingly at first, but, then, with clarity, she shared her fears and deep anxieties. While we did not resolve anything, we were able to have it out in the open. That helped us alot. And that was God doing immeasurably more than I could have hoped or imagined.
Is China Dropping the Hammer on Christian Churches?
I was alarmed to read this CNN newstory, “Amid Growing Pressure, Churches in China, ‘are at a critical moment’ pastor says“. Here’s a quick snippet or two from the article if you are rushed for time and can’t check it:
The choir was sitting up front ready to sing on cue. A cross hung behind the pastor. The service looked like a Christian service you would see pretty much anywhere else in the world. But this is Beijing, and the recent Sunday service was illegal.
I couldn’t stop glancing at the door and wonder – are the authorities on their way?
This must be the feeling the people in informal churches here have lived with for decades, I thought.
And one more from a Pastor there:
However, Pastor Ezra Jin, the leader of Zion Church, said these churches are now under tremendous pressure – in the midst of China’s crackdown on dissent here in the wake of the Arab Spring.
“We are at a critical moment,” he said. “What we need is communication.”
House churches, he said, cannot afford to stay silent – one of the reasons he granted CNN rare access to film in his banned church.
Jin is concerned that China’s underground churches could become targets of jittery authorities like one of Beijing’s biggest house churches, Shouwang. Over the past several months, Shouwang’s members have been routinely detained and its leaders put under house arrest.
The government defended its actions, saying the congregants were repeatedly gathering illegally in the streets.
And this headline from The Christian Examiner, “Chinese Authorities Arrest 19 More Christians in the 13-Week Standoff“
More than 160 people were arrested at the first outdoor meeting of Shouwang Church. The following shows the approximate arrests from the subsequent weeks: Week 2 (50 arrests), Week 3 (40), Week 4 (30), Week 5 (13), Week 6 (20), Week 7 (25), Week 8 (20), Week 9 (20), Week 10 (14), Week 11 (14) and Week 12 (15).
The reason they were meeting outside? The church was evicted, you can read about that in the article in The Baptist Press.
I think now is a great time for us to pray for these believers. They are simply worshipping God and being thrown in jail and worse for it. The Chinese Government on the other hand is reaping 10′s of billions of dollars in investment from U.S. firms. Sounds to me like someone Ed Chan from U.S. giant Wal-Mart or Joseph R. Hinrichs, chairman and chief executive of Ford China, should step up their business ethics beside their expansion plans and say something.
And please pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in China. Especially this guy, Shi Enhao. He refused to join the communist party “official” church and then he disappeared. Another man, Zhang Rongliang, whom I wrote about in 2006 (article, “You’re Stuff is Cheap, but many aren’t free in China“), disappeared as well, and I found out he was sentenced to seven years in prison for his beliefs.
