{"id":467,"date":"2013-12-05T23:43:18","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T04:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=467"},"modified":"2014-01-02T13:30:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T18:30:57","slug":"467","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=467","title":{"rendered":"Building a Foundation that Lasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the First Week of Advent<\/span><\/h2>\n

Is 26: 1-6; Mt 7: 21, 24-27<\/span><\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The other day, my wife and I began watching a movie.\u00a0 It was supposed to be a light romantic comedy about a biracial couple.\u00a0 The girl brought the boyfriend home to meet her family.\u00a0 The Father was immediately upset over the racial difference.\u00a0 He looks for anything he can find to validate his prejudice and finds it easily, as this young man is no athlete.\u00a0 So, he taunts the young man about not being a \u201creal man\u201d.\u00a0 The young man lies to the father and claims he is into NASCAR to get him off his back.\u00a0 In the next scene, the girlfriend chastises him for lying as she unpacks a teddy in her bedroom- the room they are assigned to stay in for the night.\u00a0 So, in the first 5 minutes of the film, we have prejudice, taunting, lying, and living together outside of marriage all imbedded into the story line.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We just turned the TV off in disgust.\u00a0 We were simply surfing the free preview of premium movie channels.\u00a0 This choice looked to us to be the best of the 10 or so channels.\u00a0 The other films that were playing were movies about drug dealers and murderers, or were horror movies.\u00a0 This, however, is what our society has to offer on a daily basis on the premium movie channels.\u00a0 And yet, much of our society lives their lives glued to this type of media on a daily basis, !00 or so mindless channels of secular values that capture more and more of our time.\u00a0 This is the sand that Jesus warns us not to build our lives on.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now Isaiah tells us this morning to: \u201cTrust in the Lord forever for the Lord is an eternal Rock\u201d.\u00a0 An eternal rock!\u00a0 That sounds like the foundation that Jesus recommends in the Gospel.\u00a0 The Lord as the foundation for what we do in our lives rather than the shifting morals and values of secular society as reflected in the media that is front and center in our lives today.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But just how do we do that?\u00a0 How do we build our lives around the Lord as our foundation?\u00a0 How do we avoid our foundations being clogged with the sands of the time.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The first thing that comes to mind is Isaiah\u2019s advice to keep the faith.\u00a0 Our faith is important because it says that we really do believe- believe that there is a higher purpose to life than what this world has to offer.\u00a0 And that God shared his Son with us to earn us a place in his heavenly Kingdom if- if we do his will.\u00a0 That is what Jesus was talking about in the Gospel- doing the will of the Father.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Second, we can\u2019t have the Lord as our foundation if we do not know him.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty hard to follow the will of someone you do not know.\u00a0 Knowing the Lord means prayer and some reflection.\u00a0 And Advent is the perfect time of year for all of us to reflect and get to know the Lord better.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s tough, because there is so much going on.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a necessary step that we all need to take to know the Lord.\u00a0 Maybe we could all turn the TV off- and specifically, those movies that are an affront to our Christian Values, and instead, spend the time getting to know the Lord.\u00a0 I recommend the perpetual adoration chapel.\u00a0 Make it your \u201cAdvent Resolution\u201d to spend an hour a week between now and Christmas getting to know the Lord.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Lord is coming- that\u2019s what Advent is all about.\u00a0 These readings today are about his second coming at the end of our lives. \u00a0Will he find you doing his will?\u00a0 Or will you be glued to your I-phone, I-pad, TV or X-box absorbed in the culture of the day.\u00a0 The choice is yours- Sand or Rock.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the First Week of Advent Is 26: 1-6; Mt 7: 21, 24-27 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00a0 The other day, my wife and I began watching a movie.\u00a0 It was supposed to be a light romantic comedy about a biracial couple.\u00a0 The girl brought the boyfriend home to meet her family.\u00a0 The Father was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[262],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}