{"id":3371,"date":"2024-02-07T07:53:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T12:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3371"},"modified":"2024-02-07T07:53:50","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T12:53:50","slug":"rekindling-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/07\/rekindling-the-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Rekindling the Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em> click here<\/a>
 
On Super Bowl Sunday 1999, a start-up company rolled the dice on a 30-second commercial.
                                                                                                                                       
Monster.com, an internet site dedicated to connecting job-seekers with new jobs, hadn\u2019t yet run a single advertisement.  Those 30 seconds cost a whopping $1.6 million (which nevertheless sounds like a bargain compared to this Sunday\u2019s half-minute price tag of $7 million). 
 
They hit pay dirt.  Monster\u2019s simple, black-and-white debut commercial<\/a> is widely regarded as one of the 10 best Super Bowl ads of all time.
 
It features the confident faces of children describing their vocational dreams:
 
\u201cWhen I grow up, I want to file all day.\u201d 
\u201cI want to climb my way up to middle management.\u201d
\u201cBe replaced on a whim.\u201d
\u201cI want to be a Yes Man.\u201d
\u201cYes Woman.\u201d 
\u201cYes sir, coming sir, anything for a raise, sir.\u201d
\u201cWhen I grow up, I want to be underappreciated.\u201d
\u201cPaid less for doing the same job.\u201d
 
Why was this ad so effective?
 
It closed with this poignant question: What did you want to be?  <\/em>Monster.com recognized that none of us grew up dreaming of mediocrity.  We yearned to be astronauts, Olympic gymnasts, fighter pilots, quarterbacks, surgeons, or scientists.
 
Winding up somewhere in the middle of the pack is not the difference-making life we imagined. 
 
But all too often we have settled for the Next Best Thing.  Or something far less.
                                                                                                                                         
It\u2019s equally disheartening that God\u2019s master plan to heal this shattered world \u2013 the life-transforming Good News of Jesus \u2013 has also been reduced to something small and uninspiring.
 
For far too many people, the message of the church sounds like this: Just be a nice person.
    <\/em>  
Fortunately, that\u2019s not what Mary thought her child\u2019s birth would be all about.
 
Mary\u2019s Song (traditionally called the Magnificat<\/em>), which appears in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, is a poetic tour de force.  She proclaims that the arrival of her son will initiate the Great Reversal in human society. It\u2019s recited in what linguists call the \u201chistoric present\u201d \u2013 meaning that Jesus\u2019 accomplishments, which are all in the future, are reported as if they have already happened. 
 
\u201cHis mercy flows in wave after wave
    on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
    scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
    pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
    he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It\u2019s exactly what he promised,
    beginning with Abraham and right up to now\u201d
(Luke 1:49-55, The Message<\/em>)
 
Mary dreams the dream, in other words, of a world turned upside-down.  It\u2019s not a small dream.  It will take all of her courage and all of God\u2019s power to make it happen through this child who is coming into the world. 
 
But she refuses to settle for anything less.  And neither should we.
 
What did you want to be, when you first met Christ?<\/em>
 
Did you used to picture being part of something larger than yourself, something that would require the fullest expression of your gifts and your boldest ever steps beyond your comfort zone?
 
It\u2019s not too late.
 
Ask God to light that fire again.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here On Super Bowl Sunday 1999, a start-up company rolled the dice on a 30-second commercial.                                                                                                                                       Monster.com, an internet site dedicated to connecting job-seekers with new jobs, hadn\u2019t yet run a single advertisement.  Those 30 seconds cost a whopping $1.6 million (which nevertheless sounds like a bargain compared to this Sunday\u2019s half-minute price tag… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[686,687],"class_list":["post-3371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-discouragement","tag-motivation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3374,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371\/revisions\/3374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}