George A. Nye
Published: 2003-02
Total Pages: 216
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The "Relationships" column has run in the Medford Mail Tribune each Wednesday for fourteen years. It started when I received an advertisement in the mail offering to sell the church a series of daily thoughts which we could run in the local newspaper. That gave form to an idea I had been reflecting upon for some time. I did not want to merely advertise the presence of Eastwood Baptist Church; I wanted to give a gift to the community in the name of Eastwood. The result was the weekly "Relationships" column. We could not anticipate how popular it would become. Some people attended the church as a result. Occasionally I would be called to the home of someone who was dying, and had no pastor, but claimed me, through faithful reading of that column. Over the years, that column has hung on many refrigerator doors, has been collected in scrapbooks, and has been mailed around the country to friends and relatives of regular readers. The column was named "Relationships" because that word seems to best describe the Christian Faith. When Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment, He gave it in terms of three relationships: God, others, and self -- relating us upward, outward, and inward. What He said was, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your of your soul and with all of your mind and with all of your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Mark 12:30-31 NIV). Occasionally readers have written notes of appreciation, or called on the phone to tell how helpful a thought, or a new twist on an old concept or story, has been. I am appreciative of those who have taken time, through the years, to express their thoughts. Some of those individual columns have been included as devotional meditations in two books on worship that have been published. Now, I have compiled one hundred and one out of more than seven hundred of those devotional thoughts in this book, in the hope that you will find these spiritual observations helpful as a daily devotional and guide for further reflection.