Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Savor the Seasoning with Bethany Rogness
Have you ever wondered how life's trials can shape and strengthen us? Join me as I recount my transformative journey from graduating Bethel University to working at Feed My Starving Children, with profound experiences like getting married, having three children, and moving to Austria as a missionary. Discover how our return to the U.S. and becoming homeowners through Habitat for Humanity taught me the power of faith and prayer in navigating life's transitions and new beginnings.
Imagine the legacy of love and hospitality symbolized by a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. In "Seasoning the Heart," I draw parallels between the restoration of a skillet and the spiritual growth of our hearts. Reflecting on the life of Peter and key biblical passages, we explore how life's challenges and God's anointing prepare us to pass down a legacy of love and faith. This segment underscores the importance of embracing our spiritual journey and the lessons we leave behind for future generations.
From miraculous catches of fish to walking on water, Peter's journey with Jesus offers profound lessons on faith and resilience. "Faith in the Storm" dives into these pivotal moments, illustrating the interplay between faith and doubt. We also examine the significance of self-care and spiritual renewal, using Jesus' retreats to pray as a model. In "Seasoning Through Life's Ups and Downs," the focus shifts to the compassionate relationship between Jesus and Peter, encouraging us to recognize our weaknesses and trust in God's unwavering support. Through heartfelt reflection and prayer, find strength and comfort in your faith, especially during life's toughest times.
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Thank you. I will say I speak for a living, so I am well equipped to large podiums for a small lady, so I'm very used to them. Well, good morning. How are you all? Great, it's so good to be here with all of you. Oh, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:Like she mentioned, I'm from Feed my Starving Children. I've worked with Feed my Starving Children since 2013, when I was in college children. I've worked with Feed my Serving Children since 2013, when I was in college, mainly on the front ends. So if you came in impact, I was one of the speakers who engaged with you in the beginning and then I also was in the packing room with you. So oftentimes nowadays when I speak, I feel like I'm missing something, without a hairnet on. It's a little awkward. To get to know me a little bit more, we're going to talk about my 20s, the decade of my 20s, in about 20 seconds. All right, it'll probably be more like 60 seconds, but we'll go through most of them and just give you a brief understanding of where did I come from and how did I end up here. So in the early 20s, I graduated from Bethel University with a degree in communication studies. It's also where I met my husband, tyler, who has been my husband for about 10 years. We're cusping into the 10th year soon and he's an introvert, so if you find him be nice to him, he's here somewhere. And then a few years later, we had our first son, noah. He's our oldest one in the red there. He's now eight.
Speaker 1:After Noah was born, about a year and a half later, we left our jobs, feed my Starving Children, medtronic and we moved overseas to Austria for a short time period to serve at a castle that had turned into a missionary conference center. So fun fact, I got to live in a castle. Pretty cool. After that piece of our life, we kind of zigzagged our way around my husband's from Oregon, we landed there for a little bit and then we moved back here. I really miss Feed my Starving Children. Medtronic opened a space back up for Tyler and we kind of resettled back where we were In enters Finley number two he's now five, going to be entering kindergarten and then we were blessed with the opportunity in 2020 to become homeowners.
Speaker 1:Whoa, that was pretty cool, pretty shocking and really exciting for us, and it was just a beautiful God story of how he just opened that up and it was through a Habitat for Humanity opportunity that we became homeowners in Vadnais Heights. Our kids now go to school in White Bear Lake. Go Bears. I don't know if you know this, but bears eat elk. So I may have been born here, but I am aligned with my children now. And then, after we became homeowners, mr Spunky Kellen there came into the picture. He's now two Now.
Speaker 1:Fun story about this picture I love when my kids take pictures I say cheek to cheek, get cheek to cheek. So they squish their cheeks together to take a picture. Our two-year-old hasn't quite understood the concept of cheek to cheek yet, so this is his cheek to cheek. So this is my 20s wrapped up. I got married, graduated college, became a homeowner, had three children and in my 29th year of life I landed what was my quote-unquote dream job. So for it to summarize my 20s, it felt a lot like this Climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a lot of our 20s. You break away from your family, you start figuring out who am I as a person, what am I doing, and then you start chipping away at the progress of life. So in my year of 29, I declared it as my year of becoming 30. I felt like I had earned my 30s by that point. I'd done all of these adulting things in my 20s that I thought I feel like I should be 30 already. So I'm just going to tell myself that 29 is actually becoming 30. And part of my year of becoming 30 was really looking at what is this next decade of my life going to look like? In my mind, I thought the next decade of my life was going to look a little bit more like this. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Yeah, Anyone who has gone through your 30s already probably know and based off of my sermon that is coming and the scripture that we just read that this isn't really exactly how the 30s have come about.
Speaker 1:So, before we get into my 30s, let's pray, and we're going to unpack my 30s, but we're also going to unpack God's Word together. God, I just thank you so much and I just love that I get to share my heart and I also get to share your Word with people, and it's just such an honor to do that, and so I just pray over the words that I have, and I just pray over this time that you would open our hearts and our minds to what it is that you're doing, to work and move in us, to shape us and craft in us a way to become more like you, lord, and it's in your name we pray, amen. All right, so let's continue. This was my 20s. This was not my 30s. Now let's talk about my 30s. I've been in my 30s now for a grand total of 389 days. This is where you tell me it looks good on you, beth. Thank you, I've earned it. Well, all right.
Speaker 1:So in my 30s started my dream job at Feed my Starving Children. I'm a public speaking trainer. I think this is gonna be awesome. So I'm coming up, yes, hitting our highlight. What fun fact.
Speaker 1:If you've been in a job for 10 years and then you switch to something new, it's really hard, really hard. A lot of anxiety, a lot of panic, a lot of like what am I doing with my life? I've finally reached my dream and life still has challenges. What's going on with that? So, processing through a lot of those pieces, but you know, we start turning it around, coming back up a bit. Thank God for community, for support for processing, for husbands who just let you talk and talk and talk, and talk and talk for a while. Bless the Lord for them. So really good process Get invited to speak at the partner conference. It was a highlight for me, a big opportunity to really start using these gifts and talents.
Speaker 1:But if you've ever experienced being a vessel and pouring out, if you use your talents and your gifts because you tell the Lord, hey, I want to work for you, he actually means that and he puts you to work and it's really hard. And then you start thinking how am I going to do this and be a mom of three kids and a really great wife and then meet the expectations of the job that I have? Really difficult thing. So I hit into a slump. Later we find out that our nanny has cancer and just had her first or second baby and hit another slump because life doesn't stop. And then you go to work and you start talking about war in Ukraine or you talk about other challenges, because when you work in non-profit and it's in starvation, you are constantly exposed to the pain points of life.
Speaker 1:But we keep moving, progressing farther and forward. And here we are now. It's not level, but we're getting there. And what are you left with? But we're getting there. And what are you left with? Life? This is life Filled with these ups and downs and twists and turns, steps backwards and forwards, and this is life. This is what it is Now in Ecclesiastes.
Speaker 1:I think there's wisdom in what he did. It was a contrast of seven things, and scholars oftentimes unpack the number seven within scripture to mean and understand wholeness. God made the earth in six days and then he rested on the seventh. It was complete, it was good. So when we look at Ecclesiastes, it's seven times two. There was 14 things that they were looking at. Now, I don't know about you, but if Solomon was really wise, I would have liked it if he would have cut off half of those.
Speaker 1:I'm not really interested in the mourning and the death and the wars and the breaking of things. I'd rather have the joy and the laughter. I'd rather have the pieces of life that are filled with the peace, the putting back together, the mending of things. I called this sermon the seasoning of savoring. I called it something Savor, the seasoning. Thank you, it was there somewhere.
Speaker 1:And what I was thinking about as I've been wrestling through, honestly, my entire life. I've worked really hard to keep myself at this flat line and avoid any tensional challenges in life as much as I possibly could, because that's the goal for me. That was what I wanted to avoid the discomforts and, to be honest, our culture really aids to that. If you don't have the things that make you comfortable, click a button on your phone. We'll get it to you in two hours. And if you can't buy it, well then just cancel out the things that make you uncomfortable. Maybe if we just ignore the things that we don't like, then things will get better.
Speaker 1:So we either are left with consuming and keep buying and doing more and building, and it's really hard on our hearts and it's hard on our wallets, and it's also hard on the earth to continue to consume for the sake of trying to have the meaning of life. And it's also really hard when we're trying to live at the sustained level all the time, because anytime you go up you tend to fear oh no, when am I going to come back down? And then, anytime you go down, you just cancel those things out, whether they're people or places or experiences. You just kind of block it all out of your life. But true life, and what God's word tells us is it's all of it, it's the full scope. And if we're going to go through the process that I think the Lord has actually intended for us. We have to accept that this is the definition of life. But Solomon in his wisdom, he also tells us that our hearts yearn for eternity. In that passage he gets done with all those things and he talks about our hearts desiring something more. And so don't miss that. It's okay, it's okay to not like these things, it's okay that they're not fun, it's okay that they're hard and it's okay to say I'm not okay, I'm not okay, I'm not okay with this, my family's not okay, we're not okay. That doesn't lessen your faith. It's accepting the definition of life and we can't avoid that. But what beautiful thing comes when we choose to move towards a direction of this acceptance of life? Is we actually get to pivot to a savor and sanctify mentality rather than a consume and cancel mentality. And when we savor and sanctify, what I mean by this is it's a lot like looking at our hearts as if it were a cast iron skillet.
Speaker 1:How many of you have a cast iron skillet at home in your kitchen? Raise those hands high If you don't get one. I love to cook. I love cooking. One of my favorite things in the world is filling my. I have a nine foot long table in my house. It's a small house. I have a nine foot long table and I love filling it with people and really good food, and the piece that I use most often is this cast iron skillet made in 2018.
Speaker 1:Anyone, have one older than me, I'll get there. How old is it? 70s. What a dream. My dream is that this cast iron skillet will get passed down again and again and again and again, so that someday someone says my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, bethany, had this cast iron skillet and it's gone through our family for generations to come. And I want that. But what I want more than that is I want it to be attached to an understanding that, yeah, she loved to cook and she always had a space at the table for people and she had this way of when you were eating with her. Things were good, to feast in the presence of our enemies, to feast in a world with the sorrows and to share in that bounty. That is life. Now, if our hearts are like a cast iron skillet, I'll tell you, if I want my dream to come true, then I need to make sure that I take care of this and how you take care of a cast iron skillet? Is you season it Now?
Speaker 1:Seasoning a skillet, first things first. If it's like mine, which hasn't been taken care of very well, I'll be honest you might want to restore it to its raw state and the first thing you do is you're going to put it in a fire and let it burn for a while really hot, and what it's going to do is it's going to just take everything off, strip it of its original seasoning, strip it of anything that's stuck to it the crispies, the gunk, kind of like our hearts. Sometimes this world is rough and we get sticky things that stick to us sin and brokenness and they get wounded, and sometimes it needs that burn to get rid of some of that. But then what you do is you have a raw piece that if you don't seal it back up, it's going to rust, so you have to protect it. You have to put armor around it, and in order to put the armor around it, you go through a seasoning process, and that seasoning process it's something like this You're to put armor around it and in order to put the armor around it, you go through a seasoning process, and that seasoning process it's something like this You're going to heat it, you're going to seal it or anoint it with some oil, and then you're going to cool it. And then you're going to repeat You're going to heat it, you're going to anoint it and you're going to cool it. You have to do this again and again. It takes hours to do one layer. Five to seven hours for a single layer, and you need to do it at least seven times if you're going to get a sturdy enough seasoning on this skillet.
Speaker 1:Our hearts are a lot like this and I think that when we think about what is the purpose and what does Jesus want to do in our life, I think it's a lot like that. I think it's a lot like that. This whole thing is a process and in this process we are going to go through seasons of heating and cooling and in the middle there's going to be some anointing. And when we're able to lean into that process, because we've accepted this definition, then we look at this season and this season really no different, because we know that whether we're in the heat, or maybe we're in the cooling or anointing, that in all of those spaces, if we have a rooted understanding of God's character as a good dad who loves to give good gifts to his kids, then in all of these spaces he's going to make it new and he's going to continue to grow and tend and cultivate us.
Speaker 1:Now, my favorite way to give you an example of what do I mean by this and how is this in action is by talking through the life of Peter. I love Peter because I think I'm a lot like him. He's a bit spunky and he's a little resistant at times. He has some sort of attitude to him and he's very deeply passionate. He's a passionate, passionate man but he doesn't always hit the target where his passion goes. So let's talk about a few highlights in Peter's life to unpack this idea of how does Jesus season our hearts, starting with Luke, chapter 5, verses 4 through 8,.
Speaker 1:This is where he was first called to be a disciple. Jesus gets done preaching and he had to step back into his boat because there were so many people. So he's at this point in Peter's boat and he tells him go out a little ways and let down the net for a catch. And I love Peter's response. It says Simon answered Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything, but because you say so, I'll let down the net and we all know what happens next. The nets get overwhelmingly full. They start to break. The sons of Zebedee come over with their boat. They start pouring in fish into these boats so much so that they start to break. The sons of Zebedee come over with their boat. They start pouring in fish into these boats so much so that they start to sink and then they bring it back to shore. This was a catch of their lifetime. This was like we're not talking about a substantial bonus in your paycheck, this was like jackpot times, jackpot times, jackpot of income. And then he calls them to leave this and say I will make you fishers of men, right.
Speaker 1:But what I like about this particular passage, when we're talking about seasoning, is Peter. He wasn't exactly perfect, but he was willing, reluctantly. Anyone else had a time in your life where God has been in a position with you where maybe you've worked really hard, and then he asks you to pivot or he asks you to continue on and you're like but we did this all night and we didn't get any fish and you want me to do this again. All right, lord, if you say so, I'm gonna do it. I love that. Peter is not necessarily full-blown. He's got his mustard seed faith seasoned with a smattering of doubt.
Speaker 1:Let's move on to Matthew, chapter 14, verses 22 through 36. This comes right after the feeding of the 5,000, and Jesus says to the disciples go on without me, I'm going to take some time before I meet up with you. So the disciples get into a boat and Jesus goes off to pray. I think it's important to pause and call out in this moment if you are a vessel that is pouring out for the Lord, which, this year more than ever for me, I've really understood this concept. It makes sense to me now why Jesus is constantly withdrawing to pray.
Speaker 1:You have to fill your cup, and if you don't feel like you're in a need to fill your cup, then maybe you should ask am I pouring out? If you are not asking, am I pouring out? Or you're in a comfortable enough space where you're not, in that space where you need time with the Lord, I would ask are you pouring out? And if you are pouring out, I think the best thing you can do is make sure that cup is getting filled up and I, you are pouring out. I think the best thing you can do is make sure that cup is getting filled up, and I don't know what that looks like for you. I still am not really sure what that looks like for me. It shifts and it changes with the seasons.
Speaker 1:Right now, what mine looks like is my kids go to bed half of the week and I come downstairs and I just lay on the couch and I close my eyes and all I can think of is like Lord, show me what happened today, because I can't remember. Everything is going so fast. Show me what happened today and show me places where I missed you. Show me places where I misaligned with you. Show me who you are and help me come back to you. I was made for union with you and I don't know how to do that in this quick of a pace. Sometimes it looks like a bike ride, sometimes it looks like spending time with friends, but find that space with Jesus and make sure you're filling your cup. So Jesus is doing that. That's like my little mini-series. Set that aside.
Speaker 1:Jesus is doing that, and it says in one of the Gospels that he sees the disciples struggling a long way off. Pretty cool, jesus sees us in our struggles and struggling a long way off Pretty cool, Jesus sees us in our struggles and they're rowing. They're stuck in the middle there rowing and rowing. Jesus walks out to them and his response is all these disciples look and he's walking. They say, oh, it's a ghost. How many of you have been in such a torrential downpour of life? There are so many things going wrong or there's so much suffering and pain or just chaos, that it's hard to discern what the voices are or who it is that's in your life. Is this coming from the Lord? Is this not? And it's really hard during these seasons to navigate that. And God in his grace, through Jesus, in that he says fear not, it is I. He reminds them, this is me. Remember the guy who just did this miracle that you were in awe of? Don't forget. Don't forget who I am. That reminder happens.
Speaker 1:And then what does Peter do? This was what I call his faith the size of a coconut seed moment. He says Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you. Man, that looks pretty cool. I want to do what you're doing. You're on that. I'm going to do it. Just tell me to come to you. What does Jesus say? He says come.
Speaker 1:So Peter gets out of the boat, he steps out, he starts walking, he's doing pretty good for a while until his ankles start getting wet, maybe his calves start getting wet, and he starts looking out at the swells around him. This is the definition of anxiety. How often do we spend time looking at the swells of life that are out here and you say I'm on the shores of my life and I'm looking down a little bit too far? And one of the favorite things that I was told is don't look at the swells out there and fear the way that they are going to crush you, but trust that God, when they come to you, will make them proportionate to your strength, the swells of life that are out there. You need to focus first on Christ and what he is doing and you have to put your faith in the rootedness that he is going to bring it into proportion. Put your faith in the rootedness that he is going to bring it into proportion so that by the time it comes to the shore of your life, it is going to be something you can handle with him. That doesn't mean it's going to stay at your ankles all the time, does it Not? By definition of life? No, sometimes you might be neck deep in water. But the truth is that he will remain faithful, and he did that with Peter.
Speaker 1:Peter began to sink and it wasn't this moment of like. Well, a moment later, jesus reached down and grabbed him. No, it says immediately. Jesus reached out his hand. He grabbed Peter and he says to him you of little faith, why do you doubt? But the thing to call out here is he immediately reached out, he met him in that moment, but he did not remove the storm, not yet. He walked with him in the storm until they get back into the boat. I think that's important to hold space for is Jesus doesn't exist to take away your storms. He exists to be in them, with you. And when we sit in the storm with him and have faith, what he will end up doing is Peter gets back into the boat and then Jesus reminds him. He seasons Peter's heart with a reminder by demonstrating a miracle, by calming the winds and the waves. I believe he did that for Peter to say remember who I am, what authority I hold, what control I have. This is my creation, you are my creation. I have got this. Just look at me.
Speaker 1:The next part of Peter's life is my least favorite part of what he has going on, which is Luke, chapter 22, verses 54 through 62. I hate this part of Peter's interactions, the denial of Jesus three times. Jesus knows it's going to happen. He tells him it's going to happen and Peter says surely not I, I think I hate this the most because I think it's. My biggest fear in my Christian faith is that there will be something really big that happens. That just knocks me deep, something that I wasn't expecting. Much like Peter, he was really thinking that things were going to change and then the Savior didn't change things in the way that he expected. And out of his fear, when people start calling out hey, you were with him, woman, I don't know him, no, really, I think you were one of his man. I don't know what you're talking about. I am so terrified that there are going to be parts of life that will lend to me doing the same thing. But this isn't where Peter's story ends. He doesn't end in one of these moments of life and his rejection and denial, but it ends actually in a much more beautiful place before Jesus gets taken back up In John, chapter 21, verses 1 through 19,.
Speaker 1:There's a beautiful opportunity that happens here. First, peter is like talking to the disciples. He says, man, I'm going to go fish. Savior dies, not really know what to do now. And so what does he do? He goes back to fishing. My husband loves to fish. He thinks it's probably one of the most peaceful things on earth. The boundary waters in fishing is where he wants to be all the time. So I can understand where Simon was at. His world gets rocked. And what does he want to do? He wants to go fish. Just go back to what was familiar and consistent for him. So he's out fishing with his friends.
Speaker 1:And what does Jesus do? In kindness, he says, hey, have you caught anything from the shore? And they say, no, why don't you try and cast your net on the other side? It's a reminder of way back in the beginning, with Peter and Jesus and that first miracle where it all began. And out of his kindness, he's bringing Peter back into that remembering. He's building him back up, he's seasoning him, he's strengthening his armor. He replicates that miracle. And they go back to shore. And what do they do? They eat together, they savor, do they do? They eat together? They savor amidst life. They feast together.
Speaker 1:And after they've done that, jesus goes to Peter and he asks him do you love me? Three times, and my favorite response from Peter is his third one, and in grief he says Lord, you know my heart, you know everything. Why are you asking me this? There's no question within my heart that I love you, and Jesus knew that. And the hope for me, and the comfort that I find in this, is that there may be moments in my life, in my frail, weak humanity, that I'm going to have moments where I break and I don't succeed in the coconut-sized faith that I want to have all the time to get up up up in my faith. But Jesus used all of it and he didn't cast him out, he didn't throw him away, but he used those opportunities to season him and to remind him in kindness and compassion and consistency.
Speaker 1:And so my question for you as we close out today is where are the areas in your life that the Lord is seasoning you? Are you in a position of life where you are pouring out and that you are needing to be filled back up in the Lord? If not, where can you pour? And then the last thing is if you're down here in life, if there are things happening that are hard and painful. Please don't miss the fact that what I am saying is not this quick, blanket statement of now to him, who is able to do immeasurably more than you could ever ask or imagine according to his power. That's work within you and just blanket and glaze over the pain. I'm saying it exists, acknowledge it and hold space for it, and know that he is going to hold your hand in the storm as you process it, because this world is dark and it batters us and it beats us down, and it's worthy to exhale and hold space for it. And it's okay to not be okay in that I'm going to pray and then I'm going to let the team take it over.
Speaker 1:So, father God, I just thank you. I thank you that you are constant. I thank you that we don't have to try and make a life that is constant and level. We don't have to expend our energy in trying to craft that, because you are that in our lives. We already have it within you and so, as our life swells and expands, as we celebrate and we sorrow, would you teach us to look through the lens of savoring? Teach us to understand that you are working good in all of these spaces, father, and I just thank you so much for your patience and your grace as we learn along the way. Would you just encourage my brothers and sisters in the process of faith, in the process of becoming more holy? It's in your name we pray, amen.
