Exploring the Iceberg

How do we grow closer to and more like Jesus? How are we experiencing the regeneration of the Holy Spirit in our lives today? It starts and ends with God’s agape love for us and for the world. God, in Christ Jesus, has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. Through the love of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we have been saved, justified, and called children of God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Amen? Amen.

In obedience to God’s command and following the example of our Lord Jesus, we practice the habit of quiet time with God, drinking deep from the well of God’s love so that we can love God and others well. Human relationships require open communication, especially about our mutual expectations and “the stories we are telling ourselves:” about the thoughts and motives of others. We may have Jesus in our hearts, we learned last week, but we also have grandpa in our bones! That is, our family histories—the good, the bad, and the ugly—all play into and play out in our current relating with God and others.

Everything Under the Sun

And that gets us to this week’s lesson that challenges us to “explore the iceberg,” to look inside us and see what lies under the surface, in our hearts and wills. Emotions. Motives. Yes, we are going to talk about our feelings. Let’s start in Ecclesiastes 3:1-11, written over 2500 years ago.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

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