May 2024 Revealing Light Newsletter

May 2024

What's in May's Newsletter?
  • "Questions"
  • "Elder's Corner: Why do you do what you do? (Part 2)"

Questions

Questions. We all have them. Either you’ve gotten something new and didn’t know how to use it, or had moments of feeling lost and confused, or you were taking the time to get to know someone. Often times, we discover that answers only lead to more questions. Do we need to be afraid of asking questions then? I don’t think so.  Questions are relational. Questions lead us into diving deeper, into knowing a person more, learning more about a specific topic. It’s like a spark that keeps us moving forward. Throughout the Bible, people asked God questions. Let those questions and that curiosity help you dive into knowing our God, like the curiosity that sparks us to get to know the people we love. Yet humbly understand when it comes to God, we have questions and a hard time wrapping our finite limited minds around our vastly complex infinite God; hence, leaving us unable to perfectly comprehend the vastness of our God who has created us and the world out of His love!
But, should that stop us from getting to know our God? If this is who we worship and love with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then it helps getting to know Him to the best of our ability - like getting to know and love the person closest to us in our life [even if we will never get to know them perfectly]!
Be willing to develop critical thinking skills that help us ask and navigate questions, while having the humility to say, “this may be one of those questions I cannot give a definitive answer to”. Those skills are good to develop and are important as we study and have conversations with each other. Even with questions, we can still be united in the truth of who God is by the ways He has revealed Himself through His Word, through Jesus Christ, and His Spirit with us.

- Daryl Struemph

Elder's Corner:
Why do you do what you do? (Part 2)

In my past participation in the elder’s corner, I shared the experience I had in Puerto Vallarta, a vacation spot in Mexico, which receives national and foreign tourists from all over the world. but mainly from Mexico, Canada and the United States. I also mentioned, that I usually walked early and see how people started their day, and I met a Canadian, “a tourist”, and I wrote that the thing that most surprised me, was that this tourist, had in one hand a broom, and in the other a dust pan. And not wanting to missed the opportunity, I approached him to ask him about it. I learned his name and origin, and especially my curiosity was to know what he would say about the broom and the pan. What was a Canadian tourist doing cleaning the streets of our country?
He answered me that his name was Rich, “the stupid one” who was from Canada and was retired and collected garbage in the mornings in Puerto Vallarta without being paid. His answers led me to continue questioning him even more, since I had never seen that attitude in a “tourist,” since most of tourist come to the place and their attitude is very different. That is, they come to rent a place to live and rest, eat, visit others. Some others, come to see if they make some money, or simply dedicate themselves to the opportunities that the place offers.
Then, I asked him to explain to me, if he could, the reason that led him to collect garbage in Mexico. without being remunerated, thanked, or recognized. Need to say that, although living in the US I have also witnessed how Mexicans and other nationalities are busy working in various jobs close to a lake there, but with a remuneration whether small or large.
Since in Mexico we say: no one dances it without huaraches, or without music. In other words “nobody do nothing for free”. His response surprised me a lot, when he told me, that he picked up garbage to “redeem myself.” He explain to me that, since he was young, he smoked a lot (or too much!) and that when he saw people picking up his cigarette he threw on the floor, he purposely, continue to throw it away “so they can keep picking them up.” He says of himself, that he was a stupid and conceited young man!
His explanation made me think, reflect, marvel, and make me communicate to my fellow countrymen and people, or to anybody would like to listen to me -- my wife is a witness that I told more than one person my experience. And a few days later, as I continued walking, I saw more than one of my countrymen, eat something and throw the packaging or personal items on the floor, in the middle of the street. Once, I saw a ‘drunk beggar’ who was eating a sliced mango in a plastic glass container and suddenly, he threw it, even with a some product inside, I reached for him and told him, “Hey listen, you dropped your glass with mango back over there.” ”Oh yeah!” he answered me, “I threw it on purpose! I do not like it anymore!” “Oh yes!” I told him, “and why do you throw it on the side walk or the street?” I asked him, and he couldn’t or [didn’t] want to answer me. Maybe because there are not many trash cans in that port. I saw that neither authorities nor businesses want to invest in deposits to put garbage [cans] on the streets where people consume and throw garbage away, because in the afternoon when everybody had ate, you can see an uninspiring
scene of the city, with piles of garbage everywhere and the few garbage cans that there are, are full and with animals of all sizes, swarming around, which is bad for health, the environment, the city, mainly in the ocean where the locals depend. And I thought that my perception or ignorance took me to several questions or applications.

Firstly and more important, spiritual, which is similar to what the apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 6. Paul asks the Romans, and also ask ourselves: Should we continue throwing garbage voluntarily, (being able to avoid it) because there is someone who gathers or cleans it? Or in biblical applications and words: should we continue to sin so that grace may abound? And unnecessary and enormous amounts of effort and
money will continue to waste for not wanting to discipline ourselves. And think about the negative results we produce, in our relationship with God, spiritual situation and spiritual health. Now referring to the world and environment, even if this proves to be counterproductive by littering, making a fool of ourselves (throwing litter) -- in the words of Pablo and the tourist -- and sending a clear message that we should [do this even] less since it is not my body, house, street, city or our country! I can say that this Canadian friend taught a very early morning lesson, during my stay in this port: “there can be this sense of shame or guilt for what we’ve done.” [But here’s a man who was trying to redeem himself, has lived in his shame and guilt, enslaved to it as it became his identity. But what happens when Jesus is involved? Do we stay there? Keep watch for part 3] And although not all of us are doing it, we are suppose to “preach by example” how to pick up trash and other unspeakable things that are done and thrown away in the streets of the world! There is a leader called Jesus and his followers who are preaching to us and saying: “don’t do it, I did it and it’s embarrassing.” Even though the word of God says that in the future, 3:1 “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. 6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.” [2 Tim 3:1-9]

God bless you!
- Enrique Muruato

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