Okay God, You Can Stop Hiding Now!

Where are you, God? Have you ever blurted out those words? I know I have! I would suspect that many of you also had times in your life and in your faith-walk when you questioned God’s presence in your life. Sometimes it’s in those times of great adversity when we ask that question; other times it might be when you try to talk to your kids about God and they have a hundred questions you can’t even begin to answer. Maybe for some of us, there have been times that we just feel that God has abandoned us. Unlike Job, who never lost his faith, despite losing his wealth, his family and his position in life, we may find ourselves sitting on an ash-heap of unimaginable circumstances asking that very question: where are you, God?

A few years ago, I spent the summer as a chaplain intern at Methodist Hospital and the Minnesota Masonic Home. I remember having conversations with several people who were in hospice about their feelings of anger at God’s abandonment in the midst of their suffering. One woman in her sixties had pancreatic cancer and was given a month or two to live. She talked to me about the God questions that were troubling to her. She had always been a good person who went to Mass every day and helped people in the community. She always ate healthy and exercised daily. She asked questions like: I’m a good person, why did God let this happen to me? Where is God? What did I do that God let this happen to me? Her God image had been shattered. She slowly began to work through those God questions and confront her own faith in God. It was amazing to see her faith grow as she began to recognize all the times God had indeed been truly present in her life. Her faith had been restored as God began to show her all the times in her life that He had been with her. The more she was able to remember and see God in her life before the cancer, the more she was able to see God in the midst of her cancer.

Do you totally trust God in all aspects of your life? Sometimes we forget those times in our lives when God was so visible to us. This week, I’d challenge each of us to really look for those God moments, times when we knew without a shadow of a doubt that God’s hand was at work in our lives. Remember those moments, maybe even write them down. Then, ask the question “What are you up to now in my life, God?” And, if you are still and you listen, God will reveal Himself to you in ways you were not expecting.

Here’s a great song that came out a few years ago, called “What Faith Can Do.” It’s a song about the power of faith and how faith can literally change everything we are facing in our lives. Check it out.



Pax,
Pastor Carol

I’m Too Busy to Go to Church This Week!

Being godly men and women can be challenging for us.  What would it mean for us to be more like Jesus?  Let’s think about that for a minute.  If we were more like Jesus, perhaps our days would be a bit calmer because we would have our priorities in the proper order.  Often times we place “worship and church activities” next to all the other “activities" we have in our lives, like work, sports, dance, working out, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, grocery shopping and fixing the car.  Yet, God calls us to place worship and spending time with Him as the top priority and all other “activities” fall below that one.  How do we reconcile this misalignment in our lives?  It seems almost like an impossible task.

Some of you are probably saying to yourself right now, “You’ve got to be kidding!”  Others of you may be thinking, "I’ve already got too few hours in the day now and going to church every Sunday or coming to Wednesday Night Live each week is just too big of a commitment.  I’m so tired and Sunday is my only day to sleep in and relax." 

When God is at the top of your list, then God is involved in setting all of your priorities in your life and the priorities will no longer rule over you.  Now, I’m not saying that will be easy, because choices will have to be made, but with God’s help and through your relationship with Him, those priorities in your life and in your family’s life will begin to look different.  Remember Jesus was a busy guy, too!  Yet, despite all the needs of the people who followed Him and the people clamoring to talk to him, He found time to be alone.  He consulted His Father.  Jesus prayed and spent time with Him. 

I would suggest that if Jesus thought it was important to consult His Father and to spend time with Him that it should be equally important for you and me to spend time with God as well.  Our society is complex and so very fast paced.  We have to update Facebook, text, call, go to sports activities, go to jobs that are demanding and then try to fit church into that schedule.  Our lives are crazy some days! 

Perhaps, more than ever, it would be important for us to try to be more like Jesus and spend time with the Father.  This week I would challenge each of us to try to be more like Jesus and ask Him to help us to prioritize our busy lives.  Putting Jesus first may be tough, but why not give it a try for just one week to see how your life may change.  One week with Jesus could change your life forever!  Maybe you might even get some much needed breathing room. 

Here’s a song by Casting Crowns called “Jesus, Hold Me Now.”  May Jesus hold you tightly today! 

Pax,

Pastor Carol

Calling All Knees to the Ground!

Over the past few weeks, Pastor Steve has been focusing on Elijah.  Last weekend, we learned that Elijah found the prayer of faith to be an effective tool.  In fact, prayer was Elijah’s first response, not his last resort!  How about us?  Do we turn to God only when we are desperate and pushed against a wall or do we turn to God every day no matter what is happening in our lives?  

While we all love to have those mountain-top experiences in our lives and we rejoice when they come, most of our growth in our relationship with God comes when we are walking through a valley or facing an uphill climb.  As Pastor Steve reminded us, the greatest temptations come when we reach the summit and experience success.  All too often we think that we got there all on our own and that God had nothing to do with it.  It’s amazing what success and fame can have on some people.  Just look at the news!  

God has amazing plans for ALL of us, but for many of us, we don’t take the time to listen to God’s voice and to learn about His plans.  We become too busy.  We often misalign our priorities and then we wonder why we are so spiritually empty and we wonder where God is in our lives and in our family’s lives.  

Perhaps we need to give our lives back to God again and put God as the number-one priority.  You see, once we start consulting God about His plans for us and for our family’s lives, rather than asking God to bless the plans we make, amazing things happen.  What would happen if we walked in the will of God and focused on the plans God has for us?  For our family?  For our church?  

God’s waiting to hear from you today.  Maybe we should start a “knees to the ground” prayer focus over the summer.  What if we literally became a church on its knees?  What if God’s people prayed?  Pastor Steve challenged us to get on our knees every day in prayer.  Have your knees hit the ground yet?  If not, why not try it!  God is waiting for you.  He has amazing plans to share with you.  Are you listening?

Here’s a wonderful song called “When God’s People Pray.”  I hope it causes your knees to hit the ground today.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Pastor Carol

Not Another Drought, Lord!

Ever felt like your faith has dried up?  Ever felt like God has abandoned you?  Most of us probably could say “yes” to both questions with relative ease.  Some of us might be going through a “dry season” right now.  

Pastor Steve this past week in his sermon on Elijah shared with us that when the “brook dries up” in our lives, often it is a sign of God’s pleasure, not disappointment.  I don’t know about you, but when my “brook dries up” from time to time, I don’t look up and say, “Thank you, Lord. Just what I wanted, another dry spell.”  Yet, if I was to look back over my life, it was in those “dry spells” that I saw God moving in my life.  Often He moved me in another direction or pushed me to take another step in my faith.  It usually was something outside my comfort zone, something that I had to fully rely on God alone to accomplish.  And, it usually brought some feelings of fear, failure and even inadequacy to my mind.  

Before I went to seminary I was in the corporate world working as a marketing manager for about 14 years.  However, as I began to feel God’s calling to go to seminary and to become a pastor, my passion for my “career” in the corporate world began to dry up.  In fact, every morning I would get out of bed and my call to ministry was the first thing on my mind every single day, until I finally said, “Here I am, God. Send me, send me!”  I use to question God daily and ask Him why He was calling me to ministry.  You’ve got to be nuts God!!  I’m convinced that even today, God still uses the foolish to confound the wise!  As God continued to dry up the “career brook” in my life, I realized that God was moving me into a “new” brook – that of full-time ministry.  What an exciting and wonderful journey that has been and continues to be for me!  

When we are going through those times in our lives when the “brook dries up,” I think we often question God’s presence and plans for us the most.  Yet, it is in those very moments that we are actually on the verge of being used by God in a new way.  For most of us, we couldn’t even anticipate or expect those movements of God in our life.  Yet, when they happen, we are often shocked and amazed at the same time.  It is in those instances that we are often times being moved and positioned to do more for God’s Kingdom and for God’s children than ever before.  

What brooks are drying up in your life right now?  What “new brook” is God calling you to do or be in this world?  While droughts bring frustration, they also help us to see more clearly God’s leading in our lives and pushes us to ask God what His next step for our lives is going to be.  

Here’s a great song by Chris Tomlin called “Our God.”  The lyrics talk about our God being FOR US and WITH US – yes, that even includes those periods of “drought” when we question God’s presence and leading in our lives the most.  

Soli Deo Gloria!

Pastor Carol