Sunday morning

With the sudden blast of crackers continuing on for more than a few minutes while the speaker in church paused to deliver his message on damaged emotions, the beauty of the manner in which the congregation remained unmoved - despite the adjacent walls bearing images of cheering squads clad in Sri Lankan flags, struck me in my heart.

The 25 year old civil war that had torn the little island of Sri Lanka apart for decades was nearing its victorious end and that accounted for the victory chants that were filling the air across the road.

Still, no matter what happened outside of the confines of the church, the people remained unmoved, attentively listening to the preacher this Sunday morning, as he outlined the killing of 2 year old James Bulger in 1993, by ten year olds Venables and Robert Thompson who he explained, seemed to be reaping what others had sowed into their lives. He spoke of this little boy who told his dad that although he was seated on the outside, he was actually standing in the inside.

He reminded the congregation that Freddie Mercury of Queen fame, sang “Inside my heart is breaking, my make up may be flaking but my smile still stays on” (Show Must Go On) and went on to say that no one knows the “inside you” as well as God and you do.

Drawing the attention of the people to Ephesians 3:16-19, he explained that the inner man should be strengthened with power. Knowing the measures of the love of Christ would strengthen the inner man and fill him with the fulness of God, for the extent of the God-life in us is always limited to the stature of the inner man and its confidence in the love of Jesus Christ for us.

Sometimes he said, our inner man can only be seen by the reflections of those closest to us and the three things that could damage our emotions would be what siginificant people say to us, the state of affairs that go on around us and thirdly, what significant people do to us.

He said that just as when a cellphone jack is damaged its charge is hampered, (despite a good power supply and a perfect phone) so damaged emotions do hamper a person’s functioning.

He said we need to break the chains and set ourselves free unlike the grown adult elephant who never attempts to break its chain - believing as a baby, that it cannot.

He told the people that 3 changes occur within us when we are saved.

1 Status change from sinner to saint
2 Ownership change from belonging to satan to being owned by Jesus Christ
3 Potential change – from that of victim, to victor.

Sanctification after salvation being the process through which our inner person is given the opportunuty to grow to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, we could move from being bad, nervous, weak, fearful and difficult, to being good, confident, strong, happy, faithful and easy to get on with.

And most importantly, we always needed to remember that someone ALWAYS reaps what someone else has sown.

Eyes are the channels through which love is expressed. Teachers contribute a lot, to the sense of well-being in an impressionable child’s young life. Slowly, scenes flashed before me of moments that reminded of my own role in being a part of a child’s life, in which I was able to encourage them, embrace them and show them love, giving them confidence and belief in themselves. I knew that this was my vocation and my gifts lay in planting nothing but good seeds in their lives, so they would know that they were loved and accepted for who they really were, the self same way that Jesus acceps us, for who WE are.

It was only after the preacher had ended his sermon and the strains of Hillsong’s “Still” had finished being sung that I was able to recover my phone from my bag and discover the news, that the army had indeed rescued the last of the civilians and also killed many more high ranking terrorists.

Still, it was the power of that message, that occupied a place of priority in my life as I realized how true it was, that damaged emotions are often the surmountable pieces of baggage that we carry with us as we journey through life.

As I made my way out of the church, I made a conscious decision, to watch what I sow and surrender all that I reap, to the Lord Jesus Christ who was more real than life itself.