I haven’t been updating this blog much lately.  I’ve been busy with issues at work, work at church, and a few other miscellaneous side projects.

Something happened at work today that made me want to write about it.  Kind of like finding a $100 bill in your pants.  I was in our operations area at work and one of the end users came in asking for a report.  He’s a very quiet guy.  Never says much, least of all to me.  The operator on duty told him the report would be ready “soon.”  So feeling a little mischevious I started to sing “Soon and very soon…”  and then stopped waiting for the reaction.  Everyone looked at me with a puzzled amused look.  But the quiet guy that came in for the report answers with “We are going to see the King!”  And with the biggest smile I’d ever seen on his face.

He then remarked, “I hope He comes before we all get laid off.”

“Amen.” I answered.

I sense an new ministry opportunity. 🙂

I don’t normally ask for prayer but I’ll make an exception this time because no one normally reads my blog.  I am 7 days away from having to take my plane over to Nevada to be painted.  However, I’ve come down with a bad cold.  Please pray that God would heal me in time to make the original paint date.

Days until paint: 7

I have to thank God that He has seen fit to bring me help in the form of two additional deacons.  I’ve started showing them the ropes the past two Sundays.   They both live some distance from the church so that may be a challenge for them.  Another challenge will be transitioning from Sunday socializing to Sunday work.  They are each gifted differently in this area so they will have differing levels of challenge.  Both bring unique gifts to the diaconate which will only make our diaconate better.

I’m looking forward to the day when they are both up to speed on all the duties of deacons in our church so that I can shed some of the load and concentrate on the areas in which I’m gifted and try to develop those areas where I’m not so gifted.

God always answers prayer.  It is not always the answer we want.  I try to remember that our God is far more merciful and gratious and loving than I can conceive in my feeble, mortal brain.  I have faith that God does what He does for the most merciful and compassionate reasons.  But, they aren’t always apparent to me.  Why does He take one and leave another?  Only He knows.

Praise God.

A good friend and a giant in our church is very sick.  He desparately needs your prayer.  His condition is nothing that God can’t fix.  Please pray to our sovereign God to restore my friend.  His name is Eric Davis.

God be praised…

He is faithful and true.

Sleep well my friend, once you awaken you will never know I was here.  You will not remember the Psalms I read to you.  You will not know the prayers I said in the dim twilight of the room.  But what you will know is the abundant love, mercy, and grace of our sovereign God.  Be still and rest, God has you in His hands.  You will awaken soon enough.

Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust-there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and  let him be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

Lamentations 3:28-33

Our church needs prayer again. We have an otherwise healthy man in the hospital struggling for every breath with no discernible cause for his condition. We have a child diagnosed with diabetes, the second child diagnosed in this otherwise healthy family. We have a woman who is on forced bed rest so that she will not go into early labor. We have a young man with a pacemaker. Several people with chronic back problems that prevent them from leading normal lives much of the time. Others are sick with colds, fevers, and boils. All this in a church numbering no more than 120; over half of whom are children. It just feels like an attack.

But the same God who healed a woman in our church with a rare form of cancer, can breathe for the breathless. The same God who blessed a woman with a child to immediately replace the child He called away from her can preserve 100,000 children with diabetes. The same God who regenerated my heart can heal the heart that doesn’t beat on it’s own. The same God whose back buckled under the weight of the cross, can make straight the backs of the afflicted who believe in Him.

I know God is sovereign and everything is unfolding according to His plans. I will trust and persevere in faith. But in the mean time, please pray for our church.

In the past few weeks we have had a child diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes, the second daughter in that family with such a diagnosis, we have had a child attacked by a dog while on a camping trip, we have had a young man experience minor burns in a propane stove explosion, we have had a young man involved in a motorcycle accident. And our church continues to wrestle with the issues for which I was asking prayer in the previous posting. This just feels like a spiritual attack. Please continue to pray for Christ’s church and that God would glorify Himself through all this.