What is this I hear about you?

One of the speakers at Winterfest talked about the parable of the dishonest manager in Luke 16 starting in verse one. This was the question posed by the master to his servant. "What is this I hear about you?" The point was made that God is extremely interested in knowing how our lives are going, about our struggles, our victories, our failures. The point was also made that just as the master already knew the answer, God of course already knows the answer as well. God still wants to hear it from us firsthand. I wonder if God just wants to see how honest we will be with Him and in the end with our own selves about our struggles. I look at the honesty of Job in his sufferings, the honesty of Jesus on the cross. God defended Job's integrity to Satan and Job's words to his friends. No need to defend Jesus' words.

The next question highlighted in the parable was the question the servant asked himself.

What shall I do now?

The theme of Winterfest this year was "The Prize" and how society encourages us to think about the present and worry about the past, while the message of Christ contained in Philippians 3.13-14 emphasizes the need to forget about the past and strain toward the future we have been promised through Christ.