Joel Osteen

A very good friend of mine, a very important person in my life now told me about Joel Osteen three days ago. I had never heard of the man. I opened a Youtube link and started watching. And I watched three minutes and in these three minutes I formulated some strong opinions about Joel Osteen. Negative ones. I saw this large congregation od thousands of people listening to this minister who looked like taken out from the cover of Success magazine, a business person rather than a pastor. And these thounsands of people gathered: I thought, these masses who need somebody to tell them what to do. I listened more: the preaching of success, with God involed in it. Yes, you can! God loves you! Blah, blah, blah... I thought. And I didn't like the seeing the Bible and all this talk about Jesus and how he's there to save me, and help me, and do everything for me if I only will admit that he is my Lord. Ohhhh, maybe in next life will I do that, I thought. And then I thought that for sure Joel Osteen doesn't preach for free and surely he must be earning quite a penny running this church business and I wanted to convince myslef that he cannot be genuine in his ceremons. All these thoughts appeared in the duration of three to five minutes. I found a documentary about the Lakewood church in whci h they criticize Osteen and his teachings and I thought I was ready to tell my good freind: yes, yes... all good with this Joel guy but this, but that and this is not good, that is not good. I was ready to be smart, smart in my own eyes.

Today something changed. First of all I remembered what I did when the time was really rough last year - I prayed. A lot actally. And maybe I didn't pray to Jesus but nevertheless I prayed to something bigger than me and sked for it's help. I used words god, I remember and I also recall that my prayers gave me relief. I pray to an unnamed god, Osteen prays to Jesus. Effectively we both do the same. I thought: actually I don't care who is his god because that's not important at all. The important message is what Osteen says.

When it comes to his looks - yes, he has a big Hollywood smile. What's wrong with that?  His suits are  probably exopensive but his shopping decisions are none of my business after all. His wife is blond and looks like a doll but that also should not bother me. And that he makes money out of his church, which I don't know if is true, well, a man has to live. None of my business. My only business is to decide if I'm taking what he says and what I'll do with it.


If someone is interested here is a link to a very good cermon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpka0r75HNo