Scott's Weekly Greeting, March 2, 2021

Author: Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
March 02, 2021

Scott's Weekly Greeting, March 2, 2021 ...

If I asked you to create your own personal tablets containing your own ten commandments, what would they be? Go ahead and do it. I will meet you back here in a few minutes ...................
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Okay ... what did you come up with? Were your commandments directed outward, toward others?

Thou shalt not touch the stuff on my desk.
Thou shalt not drive five miles per hour BELOW the speed limit in front of me.
Thou shalt not order breakfast sandwiches at the coffee shop drive-thru.
Thou shalt not take out your change purse and use exact change at the supermarket checkout.
And so on.

Or, were they directed inward, admonitions to direct your daily living? I know that when I first did this little exercise, my commandments were directed toward others. They were little corrections to remove any inconveniences from my life.

The reality is that we have a tendency to think of ourselves as the center of the universe at times. Everything revolves around us, and our annoyances and problems are somebody else's fault! Rarely do we consider that we might be someone else's problem. How could we be? We are the center of the universe!

The "real" Ten Commandments were given to us by God to guide the living of our days. In them, God made it clear that it is NOT a "me first" world. God said, "You shall have no others gods before me." (Exodus 20:3) The gods of pride, arrogance, selfishness, self-centeredness, avarice, etc ... shall not stand before God. Yet, all too often, these false gods do try to nudge God out of the forefront.

What gods try to push their way into places of prominence in our lives?
What can we do to shift our focus?

That is the challenge of our Lenten walk ... and beyond.

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