So.Not.Disappointed!

Romans 1:20 - For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse...

I had the privilege of waking up at 4:05 this morning. I love the quiet of early mornings. As I sat in my favorite little room with my coffee and spending time with God, I began to see the skies brighten up. Then came the first chirps...the cardinals. 

This particular morning I heard the song of the wood thrush in the woods that surround our house. I so look forward to hearing their pretty song in the morning and at dusk from spring to late summer. It's so soothing to the ears and spirit, really! 

So I determined to get out for my walk earlier than usual to see the sun come up and reflect on the lake in a nearby park. I.was.so.not.disappointed. 

I felt all morning like I had just emerged from a very tight cocoon. The sights and sounds of nature were tantalizing. It was as if I'd never seen them before. And after my walk, back home in my little room, I was captured by the flurry of birds at my feeders. We have two cardinals, fitly joined together as a couple, who are always the first at the feeders in the morning. They do not disappoint. 

It truly is the first day of return for nearly all the migrating birds for our area. Grosbeak, orioles and indigo bunting arrived. A hummingbird showed up the other day. Still waiting for my favorites, the wrens. 

But you know what all this means to me? In my admiration and excitement I am worshiping Him; I am not worshiping what God has created. I am thanking Him for bringing these to our little part of the world. This is the start of His new season, a new birth, new life in all we see around us. And even more so, all that we see is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what is in store for those who love God. It's not the first time I've posted this but...as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1Corinthians 2:9) Perhaps it's a gentle reminder.

He gives us all we need to know of Him. We can look around and see all He has done for us here and now. How can it get much better, we wonder. If we have experienced in ourselves a new season, new birth and life, we will someday know. We see things now through our human senses but as believers in Christ, born of the Spirit, we will some day see all things differently. 

I'm simple-minded! In other words, it's the simplicity of not needing to know what heaven someday will look like. If it's better than what we perceive today, whatever it is will be beautiful because our Lord will be there and He will be the object of our adoration. 

There is only one true God. If we do not recognize this we will be missing out on so very much some day. Do we indulge or over-distract ourselves that we do not take note of the things of God? Do we let the cares of the world shadow the simple beauty of who God is? Do we close our ears, minds and hearts off to the things of God? If we do, we are in serious trouble. 

We can slip from time to time and, thankfully, He will draw us back and pick us up again out of the pit we have fallen...or jumped...into. He loves us this much. He wishes none to perish. 

So.not.disappointed. He gives new chances. He revitalizes senses and souls. He reminds us of His glorious nature...through nature and His Word. Nothing can compare to this knowledge. Nothing. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard.... It's time to take notice.

Jeremiah 5:21-22 - Hear this now, O foolish people, without understanding, who have eyes and see not, and who have ears and hear not: "Do you not fear Me?" says the LORD. "Will you not tremble at My presence, who have placed the sand as the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass beyond it?"...

The Best is Yet to Come

Habakkuk 2:3 - For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. 

The words in this title have been the words for our church for about 20 years. Each year we feel like we're getting a little closer to this becoming a reality. God is in control and His timing is perfect. He's never too early, never too late. Sometimes we seek to do our own will rather than God's attempting to do what we think He would want. That's when He has to intervene and sift and shake. Acting on our own may not be the right season. How many people in the Old Testament have shown this to be true!? Acts 1:7 confirms this: And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.

However, we are seeing one time and season closing and another beginning. We "passed the baton" to our new pastor yesterday morning. It was a bittersweet moment as we said goodbye, for a time anyway, to our interim pastor, Paul Hanson, and his delightful wife, Monica. For the very short eight months he graced us with his presence, teachings and sermons, he has been a blessing. He fit into our congregation immediately, as our associate pastor described. Despite the fact he's retired there were many who would have loved having him join our congregation as lead pastor. But that is not God's plan.

Not a thing has happened in our church that wasn't leading us in this direction. Nothing. There may be some who might grumble and complain for years to come about some of the difficult times we have seen as a church body, one that has decreased in size monumentally in just a few years. There has been a reason for all this and I will not be one to question why God allowed this to happen. I only look forward with anticipation to what the Lord has up His sleeve.

Pastor Rory Grooters "knew" years ago God would use him somewhere. He'd prayed about it and the Lord showed him glimpses, had impressed upon his spirit a church in pain, but the time was not quite right. Now we know, by the conviction and emotion in Pastor Rory's words, that somewhere is Victory International Fellowship. We don't know how or when the change will happen, but it will. Yes, we're fired up because new days are here and as the pastor well before my time some 20 years ago suggested: the best is yet to come. 

Pastor Paul reminisced about his short time with us. It didn't take him long at all to fit in with us and become part of the family instantaneously. He said he no sooner was here than he and his wife felt the love from our church! A new family emerged. He encouraged Pastor Rory saying it won't take him long either. Pastor Paul is sad to go, but knows we will be in good hands.

Pastor Rory said that while he was interviewing with us, he injured one of his legs very badly and was wearing a large bandage on the open wound. He described how without that bandage the wound would never have stopped bleeding. He suggested that Pastor Paul was like that bandage to our church. We'd been wounded and someone had to come in to stop the bleeding so we could begin to heal. And that fit the very personage of Pastor Paul. 

We have a God who has gotten us to where we are for an unknown, specific reason. Though we've felt discouragement, we are encouraged. We've been bruised, yet we are in the midst of healing. We desire a pastor who hears directly from God, who only wants what God wants for us, who follows the very heart of God and directs us to seek God in the same way. It's only this way, in this direction, that we might attain those best days.

How can we as a congregation best represent Jesus and show Him to others, be a reflection of His wonderful character and nature? This is what it's all about. It's not so much about what we will get, but how we can give. Maybe we've been wounded too long and in the search for healing missed that point. Perhaps we've been looking for something for ourselves rather than sharing what we know. We need to show a world there is more to life than what they have. 

I pray that we will all become an influence through God, our Creator, the words of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. That we would know where our strengths lie, where our help comes from, where there is fullness of life. That we would be emboldened to do things we have not yet even imagined we could. That we would see those best days filled with service to our Lord.

The best isn't just for our church, though. It's for those whose lives are touched by a loving Father. It's for those whose hope is in the Lord. The Best comes to all who seek Him. His timing is perfect and if there is a wound in your life that needs healing, He can do that. You can put that season to rest and begin anew. He is taking all you have experienced in this life and developing a plan. No matter what time of life you are in, He knows what you need and what He can do for you. He is there for all, to fulfill the plan He has. Receive Jesus, receive the Best.

We are seeing first hand what Romans 8:28 tells us: And we know that all things work together for good, for them that love God and are called according to his purpose. We wish Pastor Paul and Monica the best as they continue in obeying God in His specific all upon their lives. And let me end with a prayer for our church: 

1Thessalonians 3:12-13 - And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all...so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.

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.