I used to throw these away

Canadian money. I am sure every person in the United States has gotten change back and hidden in the coins is that Canadian penny or quarter. Of course you usually do not notice it until you try to pay with it and the store clerk won't take it...and you are then a few cents short. How frustrating. I especially despair when I get quarters for laundry and there smiling at me is Elizabeth the Second. Now I use those same smiling coins to pay for coffee in the morning, but every instinct in me still says to throw it away. I still have not gotten used to the switch. Oh, well this is going to be a summer full of new things, things to get used to, things to do. I am beginning my time at Stratford CRC, getting used to the new schedule, trying desperately to remember all the names that are thrown at me. If I have an Achilles, it is peoples names. This summer will force me to retrain myself to remember names. But doesn't that just in many ways define the Christian life? Like resisting the urge to throw away money, being a Christian forces us to resist urges, to retrain ourselves to do what is not natural. For the ways of God are not natural to us, they are in many ways against our nature. We are to be kind and compassionate when we want to be selfish, we are to turn the other cheek when we want to deck someone, and we are to show love in the face of world full of hatred. I have been preaching for a year now, and will preach more this summer, yet there are many times when I get to the application part of a sermon that I feel as though I am requesting the moon. I ask people to retrain themselves, to discipline themselves against their natural urges, I ask them to do the most difficult things I can imagine. There are times when I feel bad about it, and feel as though I have no right. But I realize that we can retrain ourselves because God whose Spirit dwells in us, is with us as we change, with us as we resist urges, as we strive against our natural reactions. I keep reminding myself of this fact as I write a sermon, because without the presence of Almighty God...well I dare not think about it.