Sunday, March 13, 2011

Grandiosity - plain and simple....or is that an oxymoron?

Each Sunday I come away from our little church in Van Wyck with much better stuff than I took in.  I always take in worry, disappointment, bitterness, stubbornness and sin.  And I usually don't even realize that I'm carrying these things on my back until I get inside and they start slowly melting away.  A little bit of it melts away during the Prayer of Confession; a little more during the music and children's service.  Then it starts melting furiously like a snow cone on the beach during the sermon, and it's just a drip by the final prayer.

We have a wonderful pastor at our church, Randy McSpadden.  He's smart, witty and most importantly, he preaches the Word of God.  Today's sermon title was Face to Face with Sin and the scripture was Romans 5: 12-19.  As it was being read I thought to myself - this is a very boring scripture reading - how wrong I was.  It was very repetitive, but Randy pointed out that Paul was trying to drive a point across to these people who had always had their Old Testament scripture that they followed - the rules and regulations.  The scriptures were their instruction sheet!  You know, for the people of those times to be told they should stop following all the rules that had been handed down to them for so many generations, would be like someone telling us to throw all our beliefs away and start believing something else.  I wonder how we would all react to that?  He was trying to get them to understand a simple message - that although Adam brought death, Christ brought Life!  How wonderful is that??
 
This message made me realize how little things that I don't see as sins, really are.  Randy gave an example of grandiosity and how it applies to him sometimes.  I looked up the definition of grandiosity.  I know what it means, but wanted to get someone else's take on it - like Wikipedia - I always love their definitions.  Their definitions are a little more out of the ordinary.  Wikipedia's definition of grandiosity is:  "impressing, or imposing.  Kind of like in your face, so you have no choice but to like it, unless it's something you don't like in the first place."  Plain and simple, I felt a little tug in my heart that that's what I've been doing with my writing.  I've been excited about finally getting to write after so many years of putting it off - what with having children and a full time job to keep me busy and now I am imposing it on others.  Am I grandiose?  Probably.  

If I've been putting my writing "in your face", please forgive me.  I'm going to continue to write my blogs, but I will be try to be more subdued.  This is going to be hard since I tend to think and dream grandiose things, lol.  I sometimes wonder if this is a trait that all writers have - if not, would they write?

Not all scripture readings are exciting and full of eventful happenings, but they are God-inspired and each verse is something that we need to know.  It's wonderful to have a church where scripture comes to life from the mouth of the minister.  Amen.



2 comments:

  1. I don't know, Glenda . . . I don't think of you as being grandiose with your writing. Sure, you talk about it as an interest/love of yours, and you express that it's a dream of yours to write a book. And now that you're retired, you can make that dream into reality. By sharing that with us, you're sharing part of yourself with us, your readers. That's to be admired, I think.

    I think that if you have something to say and it's meaningful and intended to help or inspire others, then it should be viewed as a gift to others, rather than something you're doing to "impress others." What if all your favorite authors weren't a bit "grandiose"? Think of all you'd be missing out on. Plus, if your writing is good enough to actually impress someone, than your message will be even stronger, you know? People will "hear" you better.

    Of course, this could just be a load of garbage, seeing as how I'm burdened with a MUCH stronger affliction of grandiosity that you. (I make no secret that not only do I want to write, but I want people to read it AND pay me for it.)

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  2. Wow - thanks so much Tara. Your blogs are so well done and funny. I can't wait to read each one you post. And you are so right about authors - if they didn't exhibit a bit of grandiosity, their books would not be an intersting read.

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