Weekly Writer's Workshop: For God So Hugged The World

Here are the prompts for this week’s Writer’s Workshop:

1.  Write a post based on the word hugging. 
2. Write a post in exactly 13 sentences. 
3. How do you cope with days where you’re stuck in the house due to bad weather? 
4. What are your favorite food items to order online? 
5. If evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe were discovered, would it alter your core beliefs or sense of self? 
6. List your five most recent favorite things.

I am combining 2 prompts today, #1 and #5.  It's not exactly one from column A and one from column B, but it gets the job done.

For God So Hugged The World

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (NIV)

My older sister asked me once what  John 3:16 meant.  So, I told her what the verse said, and her reaction was, "That has nothing to do with football"

I saw my sister right after Christmas as I was at the wedding of my oldest niece, her daughter.  There was an hour or so between the end of the wedding and the reception.  So my family being who we are, took a side trip to a local library between gigs.  While we were there my daughter Lucy emerged triumphantly from the lobby to say that she had found a 1984 Thesaurus in the free stuff bin,  She spent the next few days of the trip regaling us with synonyms from the book.  I have asked her to read me the synonyms for hug. Here goes: embrace, hold, clasp, press to the bosom, hold close, clutch, squeeze, cuddle, snuggle, nestle, and (wait for it) cling together.

As I contemplated the meaning of John 3:16, especially what it meant for God to so love the world, I thought of hugs.  I thought of a child who seemingly gave up on physical expressions of love to their parents initiating a hug with me for no particular reason.  I thought of how hugs show one's love for another but also leave room for a reply. 

 I thought of Jesus in that sense as a hug from God.  To put it back in the context of John 3:16,  our sins had separated us from God.  We were on a path to perishing without a chance to have that relationship mended. God reached out to us, extending his Son as a way to eternal life.  We must reach back to God completing that hug by accepting Jesus as the only way to God.  

This brings me rather clumsily to prompt 5: If evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe were discovered, would it alter your core beliefs or sense of self? 

My short answer is no.  My core beliefs and my sense of self,  emanate from my understanding of biblical Christianity.  Larry Norman a pioneer of Jesus Music broached the subject in the bridge of his song U.F.O.

And if there's life on other planets 

Then I'm sure that He must know 

And He's been there once already 

And has died to save their souls.

Those lyrics have always resonated with me. I have never meant much of a subscriber to the notion of life on other planets.  I like the science-fiction element of extraterrestrial life but that's where it ends. However farfetched I might find it, if confronted with proof that there is life on other planets, I would lean in on Norman's thought process.  To extend my previous thoughts on John 3:16, I can imagine the Lord of the Universe loving other intelligent life so much that he would reach out and hug them through the person of his Son as well.  

Just like I don't jettison my faith when difficult times come my way, I plan to always trust in God no matter what other things may come to challenge my world view.  

A Snapshot of the pioneering christian rock musician Larry Norman taken following concert in Defiance, Ohio on October 20, 2001.

By Ekiledal - http://upload.wikimedia.org/, Public Domain, Link

Thanks to John Holton of The Sound of One Hand Typing for this week's prompts.  To participate more in this Week workshop click here.

I'm trying an experiment.

 It's been quite a while since I've posted here.  So I have set my timer for 15 minutes have put on Larry Norman radio from pandora on Alexa which is playing Rich Mullin's oddly enough.  I am going to just type for 15 minutes and see if I can produce a short message.

As the school. year started this year, for about 3 weeks I was working 3 jobs.  I have had a long term sub assignment as an art teacher at my favorite elementary school.  I also had been working along with my wife and daughter at a minor league baseball park selling concessions.  There was a section in the employee handbook that said I had to disclose to my supervisor if I wrote in a blog, but I think that was written 20 years ago when blogging was more common place.  The problem was  that my supervisors would change with almost every shift and the supervisors I did tell didn't know what a blog was.  I also continue to work 2 nights a week at the movie theatre.  I was very glad when the baseball season ended in early September and I could get back to the relative ease of working only 2 jobs.

The problem with getting back into blogging was 2 fold.  The first our family has 3 birthdays in a 3 week period in September which kept us all on our toes.  The 2nd is that once you get too busy to do something like blogging or reading which both came to an abrubt halt it's hard to get them back going again.  

I lost 30 pounds this Summer.  The trick will be not to find it again this winter.  I am counting calories consistently for the first time in my life and it seems to be working okay for me.  My wife and I are doing it together which is better than going it alone.

My timer just went off so I will continue this again hopefully soon with the opening sentence.  I always told myself that when I got under 250 pounds I would start running again.  

Music listened to during past 15 minutes: 

Larry Norman - UFO

Rich Mullins - If I Stand

Randy Stonehill - King of Hearts

Rescue Story - Zach Williams

Why Don't you look into Jesus - Larry Norman