I've been observing the change of colors of the trees in the backyard where I'm living turn from gold to red. He has created a world with seasons. There are also seasons of our life. Most of us are in what I like to call the third half of our life. First half was childhood through college, maybe the first few years of working career. Then we go thru a transition we change jobs, maybe we get married, maybe we have children and our lives become much more complicated. Then, our work life is over and we enter retirement into this third chapter. Doesn't always make sense. We suffer when we enter these ages and we ask for God to take care of us and many of us think I can take care of this or I can suffer through this. What we really need to say is that we need each other and so just as Jesus mother goes to him and asks him to do this, we go to each other can you help me. I need your help. I'm going through a change which I can no longer manage. Sometimes we love the change. Many of you work hard, then retire, and are so relieved - you're free of the burden of work. In every one of those changes we're making decisions based on what is important to us. And we're making decisions about things that are not important to us. That's the hard part. Saying no to things which seemed so attractive to us, yet they are not. I think it's because we do not understand how God relates to us and I don't think we understand actually what it means for God to have created us. And I'm not casting judgement here because this is the nature of the world we live in. We do not understand all that there is to know about God. And God's life in us and God's relationship to us. I want you to think about time and the changes that you have gone through in your own life, and the changes you are...

This is an interesting conversation (the story of the Samaritan woman at the well: John 4:4-42 (NSRV)). She is confused because he is breaking some social taboos. He is a Jew talking to a Samaritan woman. But, we're about to find something more about her. "Where do you get the living water? The well is deep and you have nothing to draw the water out with." She is confused. She's thinking in very practical terms. This is place where we see that Jesus is the Son of God because He has a supernatural understanding of who this woman is that He has just met. He sees in her - knows her story. He tells her she has had 5 husbands and the man she is with now is not her husband. The woman then changes the subject. Now Jesus has made it personal.

Water was further understood in the Old Testament as a source of deliverance, even as the Israelites left Egypt, and Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea. Perhaps most importantly, as the Israelites wandered in the parched Sinai Desert for 40 years, they became fascinated with waters that are flowing, pure and fresh—that is, “living waters.” “Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank.” (2) They came to think of God as the fountain of living waters.

Another piece of good news about the wrath of God, at least as seen by the prophets, the wrath of God is aroused by human evil and oppression and can also be averted (avoided) by repentance. “Now, therefore, amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you.” Jeremiah 26:13 “Come let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up.” Hosea 6:1. God’s wrath always has a reason and God’s love is never far behind. God’s wrath is fierce. God’s wrath is just, but God’s wrath can also be ducked by a decision to change our ways.

Every Sunday we confess our sin. I’m not a person who goes around feeling guilty a lot. I don’t cuss very much. I don’t commit adultery. I don’t kill. I don’t cheat. I’m generally kind and gentle and responsible. But here’s what I do. My love for God grows cold; my affection for Jesus Christ goes dry; my attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit grows dull. I don’t reject God; I forget him. I don’t snub God; I ignore him. Like a stupid sheep I just nibble my way into other pastures. I just wander away. And what does Jesus do? Jesus leaves the 99 other sheep and comes after me. Then he carries me home and puts on a party for me. That’s grace. And he doesn’t just do it for me; he does it for you too.

There was something my grandfather tried to teach me - there's a place for every thing and for every thing there is a place. It seems like that's the way God created the heavens and the earth. He has a place for each animal and each one of these [from Psalm 104] verses 34 of the 35 in Psalm 104 is God providing for individual needs. Then you come to verse 35. "But, may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more." Everything was so positive, then all of a sudden 'Lord get rid of those sinners.'