Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Seasons Bring New Things

Isaiah 43:19 - Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

God is always doing a new thing. Our newly elected lead pastor, Rory Grooters, told us about the various seasons in our lives, in our jobs, our families, church, in nature...God is at work.

One thing begins, it ends and a new thing begins again. I thought about our church and the seasons I've experienced there. I tried to think back as far as I could to the beginning of our church based on the history I have learned about. We've had over 100 years of seasons in our church, mostly growth. But it doesn't start 100 years ago. It started over 6,000 years ago...years we can count...with creation and a God who is in control of the seasons in everything.

Without His creation none of us would exist. Bear with me as I put everything I heard Sunday into what I hope is some meaningful context.

Nothing surprises God. God's hand has been at work all along. About ten years ago the pastor I first knew in our church felt a call to move on which precipitated the need for a new pastor. One season ended both for our church and for our pastor and his family while an old and new season began for the pastor we were to receive. The new season for our church started well but ended with two divisions. Only God knows the reason why. They did not come as a surprise to Him. A once strong, 1500 member church a couple years ago has now dwindled to about 300. Seasons.

I am convinced that these divisions and the changes that took place over the past four years were necessary. As I talked with our interim pastor briefly yesterday he told me what I had believed all along...no one was at fault and we should not judge. In 1Corinthians 4:3-5 Paul told us that we should not judge ourselves or others or anything for that matter. God knows and when the Lord returns we will have a clear understanding why things happen as they do. 

With our church I have believed for a long time that God has been shaking and sifting us to get us to a very vulnerable place where the only thing we can do is stand as a congregation in faith and wait to see what He is going to do. That "word" came to me after several people I knew left after the first division. This was a word that came to us Sunday night as well. Like Gideon who had an army of thousands, God chose to pare it down to 300, sent Gideon out to fight his enemy with the only thing to do but trust that God would be their deliverer. It's always about God and what He can do. 

Seasons. New things. God takes the seasons in all circumstances to work out and work in. Shifting, shaking, raising up and bringing down are all part of the cycles. I believe we just need this so we don't become complacent. He is always wanting us to grow...and He is wanting us to rely on Him and glory in what He can do. It's all about Him.

Pastor Rory's second last sermon at his church two years ago was about Jumping Off Cliffs With God. He spoke about the faith it takes to just do as you know God is asking, without knowing what lies ahead, without clear vision, having faith only in Him. Pastor Rory pointed out seasons in his own life that he had gone through to get where he was. At the end of the sermon he told his congregation that God wanted him to jump off yet another cliff with Him, that he was to move on. He had struggled for five months with tears and sleepless nights because he loved this church family and had grown with them. Now God was asking him to leave for things unknown.

I say all that because while all that was happening in his life our church was undergoing our own struggles. God was preparing both our church and Pastor Rory for that new thing. Some will understand this because we know from experience how God sometimes chooses to work. Some might say it is nothing more than coincidence. With God there are no coincidences...He knows the beginning from the end and He's always working behind the scenes.

Pastor Rory described three things the Lord had revealed to him over the past two years about where he was headed. They all painted a picture both figuratively and literally about our church...as our struggles really began two years ago. These things made no sense to Pastor but he stepped out in faith and followed God's lead. It led him to our church. God is good!

The Lord is in the business of doing new things in our lives. They might seem torturous, frightening or exciting. We don't always understand why we are where we are at any particular moment. I for one can say that in the midst of something, a season change perhaps, it's easy to lose focus on God--for awhile. But He never let's you wander that desert too long without speaking a word of encouragement to get you back on track. In those quiet times He's strengthening so in the next desert experience you might recall how He didn't leave you stranded, how He came through for you...so the day might come when you will not lose focus but just praise God and trust Him knowing it's just another cliff to jump off of with Him.

I will end with a quote from Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest today! 
The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own...We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God’s purpose— we are taken into God’s purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God’s goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague...The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan.


Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

1 comment:

  1. "Not our own." Some of the best sermons are written in three words!

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