Pastor Ash Dotson
Hey folks, Ash Dotson here with an invitation to join us at Oasis UMC in the Laredo Room, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. as we worship and journey together. In John 7:28-29, Jesus talks about us knowing God and reveals that he knows God because God sent him, so that leads to the question: Who sent you?
What is your answer to that all–encompassing question? Who sent you to the life you are living … who sent you to this planet, and for what purpose? I think the question is one most of us have yet to answer, or at least truly believe the answer we come to. I also think that the failure to answer that question leads us to simply wandering through life like a Roomba vacuum. We have no real direction so when we run into an obstacle, we make a turn, and we run in that direction for a while sucking it up until we reach the next obstacle, and on and on.
I think this is true, to some extent, of all phases of our lives– the way we handle relationships, the way we handle our careers, the way we raise our kids, and especially the way we look at our spiritual lives. Some of us handle different aspects of our lives better than others. Some of us have developed healthier egos than others as we mature. However, it seems that unless we have deeply explored and answered the question posed above, even those of us with healthier egos eventually get lost in the journey.
And when our egos begin to fail us … well, what else is there? When all the ways we know of living life, even though we may seem successful, don’t give us what we need or leave us feeling empty or angry, where do we turn? Many of us turn to traditional therapies and counseling. The problem is that traditional therapies and counseling teach us how to cope with our symptoms. They teach us how to redirect when we hear something or experience something that is a trigger of negative feelings or actions. Although very beneficial in our Roomba journey, coping with symptoms is not the same as true healing.
True healing can only come from answering the questions, who sent you and why? Am I connected to and a part of something greater than myself, greater than my family and relationships, greater than my career?
For that matter, do the answers to those questions provide for a totally different path than the one you are on? Will the true healing that comes from answering those questions and the exploration of the answers reveal to you who you really are? Will you come to realize that you are connected to everyone and everything else in creation? Will you come to realize that your thoughts and actions have an effect far greater than you can ever imagine? Will you come to know God as Jesus states above?
Yes!