What would you do if you suddenly lost all your income? If you were let go from your job, your business failed, or all your retirement income dried up? Not a pleasant thought, right? Yet these are all possibilities, and unfortunately many of us have walked down these roads before. The logical first thing to do is to panic, right? Maybe shed a few tears. Fear and adrenaline start flowing through our veins. We have this survivalist, fight or flight syndrome that then kicks in. We may go through a period of intense stress- how are we going to pay our bills? Are we going to lose all our stuff? What are we going to eat, drink, wear, or stay at? There are other unpleasant emotions as well- guilt or shame for not seeing this coming and preventing it from happening in the first place. We can feel like failures. Defensiveness and anger for possibly an unfair situation we’ve been put in. We worry, self-medicate, and try to get back to work as soon as possible.
We then shake the dust off our old resumes and polish them up, updating them with all our recent experience. We start searching for jobs, networking, applying to positions, trying to get interviews, and hoping and praying for God to answer with a great situation, before our available resources run dry. This is a super stressful time, with lots of highs and lows- and with a whole lot of prayer. Have you been there before? I believe most of us have. Maybe you’re there even now.
But it’s not all bad! We often find strength and resilience that we didn’t know we had. We move with urgency, diligence, and deliberation to secure our financial future. There are a lot of questions that get clarified in these situations. Who are we? What is our identity? What are our goals in life? What are our hopes and dreams for the future?
We’re going to explore these questions this weekend, as we look at the parable of a man who was fired and worked to secure his future. This was an evil and dishonest man, that Jesus holds up for us as a positive example today. This is one of the most difficult parables to teach on, so pray for me! But there are some very powerful lessons we can learn and apply today. 9 of them, to be exact.
I invite you to join with us this weekend as we look at the clever manager from Luke 16:1-15. Our socially distanced service is Saturday evening at 5, and our Sunday morning service is at 10:15, where you can join us online if you can’t make it in person. We also have excellent Sunday School classes at 9 for all ages.
Have a great weekend and I look forward to pursuing Christ, Community, and the Great Commission Together with you soon!
-Pastor Nathan Rice