Some Do, Some Don't

It jumped out at me this week as I was reading. After Peter's Pentecost sermon . . .

Acts 2:37 - "Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" "

But then after Stephen's very similar sermon . . .

Acts 7:54 - "Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him."

Just like today. Some hear the message, repent, and are baptized, as after Peter's sermon, and some hear the message, become enraged, and reject both the Word and the messenger who brings it. But the result is not up to us; that is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is for us to simply preach the Word. Always. Sometimes it will bring us the joy of baptism and new life, and sometimes it will bring stones hurled at us - both physical and verbal. When it does, may we be like Stephen, who was like Christ, and pray: Father, forgive them.

Circuit Meeting, Day 2

Got home yesterday. A rather enjoyable drive with some good discussion. I am quite tired. I don't think I slept very well in the hotel. The pillows were too big. Nice, but too big. I like flatter pillows to sleep on. So it's good to get back to my own bed and my own pillows!

The conclusion of my presentation on prayer went well. A few bumps I need to work out before I present again this summer, but overall pretty good. The ladies of the congregation were quite gracious and served up some good food!

This morning, I found out some good school news - my last exam reading list was finally approved and my registration for the Fall finally went through. This last was important so I could have library privileges over the summer. So now I just need to get the appropriate signatures on the reading list and prepare over the summer. I have been struggling with balancing this with family and church for quite a while now, so it will be good to finally get it done and buckle down with my writing.

A busy day today, so now I'm off to prepare for the Psalms Bible Study which meets at noon.

Circuit Meeting, Day 1

I arrived in Emporia Monday around dinner time. We went out to a Carolina BBQ place - all you can eat buffet style. They did have a lot of food - and lots of it fried! I tried a little bit of a lot of different things. The fried chicken was good, as were the fried flounder and hush puppies, but I was not brave enough to try to fried chicken gizzards! :-) Dessert-wise, the apple and peach cobblers were quite good, while the banana pudding was absolutely terrible! Completely tasteless. After dinner we hung out a while and talked, but I turned in kind of early - a long day.

Tuesday was the second half of our LERT training - Lutheran Early Response Team. This is to qualify us to help in times of disaster and to help us get the folks in our congregation ready to help as well. So after this day, we got our picture taken and will be receiving badges that will enable us to have access to our local Emergency Operations Centers and they know we won't be untrained but well-meaning volunteers that will just get in the way, but folks who know what they're doing. We're not first responders - they come in right away. We can come in the second wave to help with recovery and spiritual care.

After that I began my presentation on prayer. I am thinking about this as I will be teaching a sectional at Higher Things on prayer this summer. So we discussed things for about 75 minutes in the afternoon, and today we'll go through some Scriptures and think a bit more - maybe, hopefully, in ways that open some eyes and thinking. We had Private Absolution and the Divine Service last night and then some "fellowship" (let the reader understand) afterward.

All in all, not a bad conference thus far. Good, as always, to see the brothers again. The Holiday Inn we are staying at is nice. For breakfast yesterday, however, the scrambled eggs were the worst I have ever tasted! They tasted like fish! I am usually pretty tolerant and can eat most things, but I took one bite of those and couldn't eat any more. Just horrible. The cinnamon rolls, though, awesome!

Home tonight.