Offer in the Ordinary Times

In the month of June people busy themselves with summer activities and the long, warm days that are accompanied with soft rain showers. The beginning of the summer is the beginning of the Ordinary Times. It's a good time to establish yourself as someone who wants to share in the goodness and bounty of both the warmth of friends and the long lasting summer days. 

Perhaps the most famous verse about the change of seasons is in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Used to comfort and remind us, verses 1-8 from Chapter 3 is the complete list of the 'Times' to which we must console our spirits so to remain content and comforted during life's seasonal changes.

Ecclesiastes 3: 4-7
A time to cry and a time to laugh. time to grieve and a time to dance. 5. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. 6. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. 7. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak....

Ordinary Times is the months to relax but it is also the time to continually prepare with a full year to the time of Pentecost with the gift giving from the Lord.

The oldest adage..."Give and you will receive". The bible has a few verse resources that share with us a little understanding of ways to give: Burnt offering, grain offering, the purification offering, reparation offering, the ordination offering, and the communion sacrifice.
...burnt offering (by fire)...grain offering (multi-grain or cereal)...purification offering (water or washing, baptism)...reparation offering (making amends)
...communion offering (to make peace)
Think of ways to share with others around you. Picnics, BBQs, hot dogs roasts...create a memory with someone. Feed the birds and squirrels though scripture says their needs a met, you can share in that bounty by offering a handful from your heart. Ask to renew your baptism, ask a friend to share that with you. Remember an old friend who you lost through bitterness and jealousy...don't let that contention make your friends. Offer yourself a new chance to mature by adding back the older friends you once had, and, in doing so, you'll add good memories from your lost past. During the 'Ordinary Times' find and mend little things. It will make mending the bigger ones seem so must more smaller.

From an American religious founder Dr. John Wesley, the few words are from his sermon, "Plain Account".
First. We not only allow, but earnestly contend, that there is no perfection in this life, which implies any dispensation from attending all the ordinances of God, or from doing good unto all men while we have time, though especially unto the household of faith.' We believe, that not only the babes in Christ, who have newly found redemption in his blood, but those also who are `grown up into perfect men,' are indispensably obliged, as often as they have opportunity, `to eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of Him.... 
- Dr. John Wesley

The beginning of 'Ordinary Times' should be our breathe of fresh air. It is through You Oh Lord that all goodness of the sole does flow. Find for us little ways to mend, and we will try to patch the hole. Offerings and kind words are nothing without the love of the Lord to shelter our good deeds. In this we pray to renew the heart. We walk another year to You Oh Lord, so let this be as with the 'Ordinary Times'. Amen
.... So that, if a man only abstains from doing evil in order to avoid punishment, Non pasces in cruce corvos, [Thou shalt not be hanged.], saith the Pagan; there, "thou hast thy reward." But even he will not allow such a harmless man as this to be so much as a good heathen. If, then, any man, from the same motive, viz., to avoid punishment, to avoid the loss of his friends, or his gain, or his reputation, should not only abstain from doing evil, but also do ever so much good; yea, and use all the means of grace; yet we could not with any propriety say, this man is even almost a Christian. If he has no better principle in his heart, he is only a hypocrite altogether.
- Dr. John Wesley

KAPB Outreach

KAPB Outreach