Author: oridnarythoughts

The Widow’s Mite

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“And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, “Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of the abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.”

Mark 12:42-44 KJV

Every year, our denomination has a conference in which pastors receive their appointments for the next year’s work. Prior to that conference, it is traditionally, a time when congregations have services to recognize and appreciate their pastor. It is a mixture of joy for the work accomplished and of anxiety because we don’t know if it will be the last time we have this opportunity to share in this particular fellowship. Part of the services usually include a period of time where the congregants can bring their expressions of gratitude in whatever way they choose. Some will give little speeches, others will drop a card in a basket with a hug and a personal greeting and still others will send their gifts, because they aren’t able to bring them personally. We have been blessed to serve this particular congregation for six years now. Every year, my husband and I receive all that is given and once we settle in for the evening, we go through every card, read every greeting and make note of every offering envelope and say our thank you’s for every one of them. We know our people and even if they don’t put their names on the cards or the offering envelopes, we can still identify all of them, by their handwriting or the way that they write our names.

This year it was suggested during the planning process that every member should be told a minimum to give. I quickly rejected that idea explaining that this was a free will gift and I didn’t want anyone to be marginalized if they felt they couldn’t meet the minimum. I generally don’t like any offering to be mandated, I think it goes against God’s will.

This year, as we carefully went through each gift, card and envelope we did our typical thank you over each one of them. And then I came across an envelope from one of the members that I know has had a particularly difficult year physically, emotionally and relationally. The mere fact that she pressed her way back to an afternoon service dedicated to my work was thanks enough for me. I would not have been even a little disturbed if her name was not on one of those envelopes. Yet there it was, simply scrawled out and we opened the envelope. She had put five one dollar bills, some crumpled and worn, lovingly into that envelope. My husband said thank you and I looked at him and I said this one gave her widow’s mite.

The text above comes at some point of the Passion week as recorded by the Gospel writer, Mark. Jesus had been going in and out of the temple, teaching and making observations, denouncing the leadership and generally giving the last push of ministry before the cross. Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury and observing how people gave into the offerings, noting that those who were rich were giving a lot. But his attention was drawn to a woman who gave her last. Despite whatever corruption and misdeeds the Scribes and Pharisees were up to, this woman wanted to demonstrate her trust and worship in God by giving into the offering, not some, but all that she had. She was not ashamed of her two little copper coins as she tossed them into the treasury. By doing so, she was saying that she trusted God to restore it back to her and then some. It was not just an offering, it was a sacrifice. Unlike us today, when we think we are making a sacrifice by declaring it to be our Widow’s Mite, she simply put her sacrifice there and walked away with no fanfare. By Jesus noticing it and bringing attention to it, the unspoken message is that God will honor her sacrificial gift more than the artificial and superficial show that the rich gave.

I am super appreciative of all the love and support we were given during our Appreciation Service. I smile when I think about some of the gifts that were given that clearly had thought put to them. I will treasure every card and memory from this day, but the one who gave her all has touched my heart in a deep place and I believe, that God will restore her abundantly for the sacrificial gift she gave.

Something About Sunflowers

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“And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ” Matthew 6:28 (NRSVue)

For me, there is something about sunflowers and August that just seems to be synonymous. I am well aware that the accepted birth month flower for August is the gladiola, but ever since I saw a field of sunflowers in bloom in the late summer sun, I adopted them as my birth month flower. They begin as spindly stalks of green plants and slowly the seed pods form and the petals surround it. But as they come into full bloom, it seems hardly possible for the plant to support such a massive and seemingly heavy bloom, and yet it does. Not only does the stalk support the flower, it is flexible enough to let the flower follow the sunlight from dawn to dusk. The other thing that amazes me about these fields is that while the flowers contain seeds that birds and humans eat, I have never witnessed a field attacked by a flock of birds. It’s like they know that it is better to wait until the harvesting happens and people spread seeds out for them to feed on. Besides my amazement with how these field of flowers grow is just how they make me smile when I pass by one as I travel along the roadside. I can’t really explain why I have that reaction, but they just give me a happy feeling and an encouragement that no matter what, there is always hope. They also remind me of how Jesus taught us to not worry.

With all that is happening in the world today, the day-to-day concerns of health and well-being, the strains we experience in relationships and the moments when ends don’t meet, it is easy to fall into a pattern of worry and anxiety. Jesus understood these concerns and addressed them in such a beautiful way in the Sermon on the Mount. Like much of the discourse, Jesus flips over the worldly way in which we view and handle everyday situations. Taking care of business consumes much of our energy, as we try to figure out how to put food on the table, a roof over our heads and clothes on our back. He is not saying we shouldn’t do our part in providing for ourselves and our families. He is saying that we should not let it become so overwhelming that we lose sight of the fact that none of these provisions would happen without God providing us with the means to provide for ourselves. He does this by directing our attention to nature as an example. Birds move about from place to place to eat and rarely do we see a bird starving to death. He notes that fields are dressed with beautiful blooms that are more colorful and delightful than the finest of king’s clothing. Then He drives it home by drawing a comparison we can all grasp. If God can take care of the birds and fields He created, He can certainly take care of us, His children, created in His image.

My suggestion to you, is the next time you are feeling a bit overwhelmed, anxious or worried, take a drive in the country or a walk through a park to be reminded that God will take care of you (1Peter 5:7). There is something about sunflowers (or any other flower) that will lift your spirits. Give it a try.

Red Alert

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“If, however, you warn the righteous not to sin and they do not sin they shall surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved your life.” Ez. 3:21 (NRSVue)

It was raining outside and we knew that we were under a tornado watch. That was not unusual where we live, but in all of our twenty plus years at this location, we never actually had to take cover. We had talked about what we would do, which room we would take cover in (we don’t have a basement) and what we would collect to take in that space with us, but never actually had to take the actions. Well, on this particular morning, while I was logged onto a Zoom meeting, and my husband was watching the news, the phone went off and the alert popped up on my screen. His phone had done the same thing. We met each other in the middle of the house with our phones in hand to tell each other we needed to take cover. We scooped up the family dog, went to our designated space and waited. We watched the local news on my phone and then faintly, we could hear the rumble in the distance. Apparently, it passed by us either to one side or the other or it had lifted up. We were not sure, but we were grateful for the passing and for the warning.

Early on in discerning the ministry calling on my life, the Spirit would bring me to the calling of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Paul and others. I always understood that the calling was unique and multi-faceted. I have since worked through years of education, practice and administration of the various ministry gifts God has given me since those first days of prayer and discernment. I have served in my denomination as a leader, teacher and pastor for over twenty years now. Lately, God has been taking me through some of those same Scriptures as a “refresher” course of sorts. The Spirit has been clearly speaking to me about how this ministry is to evolve and grow and the steps that I need to take in the process. It can be daunting at times.

Ezekiel had a unique calling – to prophesy and warn the believers that were in captivity with him to repent and return to God. God would frequently tell him to act out the messages he was to give in very visual and sometimes challenging ways. In the text above, the Lord was designating one of his roles as a prophet was to be a watchman, a spiritual watchman. He gave him a clear analogy of how the watchman of Ezekiel’s day was assigned to sit on the walls of a city and look for impending dangers and warn the inhabitants below when trouble was coming their way, usually in the form of an enemy attack. In Ezekiel’s case, the watching was a spiritual one, warning the people of the dangers of their sin. What has always pricked me in this text, now and when I first received it, is how God holds Ezekiel accountable for the reactions of those he warns based on whether or not the recipients heeded the warnings Ezekiel would give. In other words, if he saw the sin and said nothing and they died in that sin, Ezekiel would bear the blood of their death. If he warned of sin and they heeded and repented, Ezekiel would bear the blessing of their heeding. It is a text that I hold near to my heart as a reminder of the weight and responsibility of ministry calling, so for the Spirit to lead me back to this text once again, signals to me that God is up to something and I need to pay attention!

The morning the tornado warning came across my phone, there was not an ounce of panic within me. I had a plan and the warning was the signal to activate the plan. I had no idea what was happening outside my designated space with no windows, except for what I saw coming across my phone and the noise I heard overhead. I heeded the warning and it ended well for my husband, my dog and me. Likewise, God has a plan for my life and I recognize it. He has sent out the warning. It is my responsibility to respond and take action. If I am faithful; it will ultimately end up well for others and for me. My only course of action is to heed the Red Alert.

Ancestral Ensigns (Banners)

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The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “The Israelites shall camp each in their respective regiments, under ensigns by their ancestral houses” Numbers 2:1-2a NRSVue

My Dad died nearly eight years ago and left behind a mountain of pictures, family letters, documents and memorabilia, that when it came time to divide up the estate, landed in my hands to take care of. It sat in boxes in my garage for several years before I divided the items up and put them in proper storage crates. Then one day my daughter came by and began to ask questions about my grandmothers and their personalities. My maternal grandmother was fairly easy to determine since I spent a good bit of time with her in my childhood, but my paternal grandmother was more of an enigma, since there were clear issues between my parents and her. This prompted me to open up the storage boxes and begin to read some old letters that revealed secrets and things I never knew about my parents and my grandmother. I began to see her in a new light that I really could rally around and champion her position in the family like never before. After spending hours reading and organizing these letters, I realized that there was a whole ancestral tree I never knew and the best way to get to know it was to tackle those mounds of pictures and documents I set aside years ago. The other thing I realized was that ancestry is to be shared. So it has now become a project of not just sorting and organizing, but figuring out which of the various family members will benefit from receiving some of these items.

Numbers is one of those books in the Bible that quite frankly, we choose not to read or skim over it quickly. All the names, lists of numbers etc. are not the exciting stories we look to for a source of spiritual inspiration. We might read some of the follow-up accounts of the activities of the Israelites in their wandering like the spies scouting the Promised Land or the revolt of Korah, but for the most part, we ignore this book. I felt this way about Numbers for a long time, until I received it as part of Bible Study subscription service and was reminded that even though the names many not mean anything to me, nor the numbers have any great impact on me, the long lists inform me that there were real people struggling to make it to the Promised Land and God saw fit to include their names in the book. Isn’t that sort of our reality also?

Most of us are just going through our days, and if we are Christians, we are striving to live to make heaven our home one day. We most likely will never see our names in lights or on TV for the great ministries we do in our common lives, but God sees us and God has us written down in His eternal book (Rev. 20:11-15). Furthermore, according to Revelation, the day will come that everyone’s name will be reviewed in the book of life and the book of deeds and our eternal destination will be determined by what is written there. Many will rely on the faith of their ancestors to get them to heaven and some will follow their ancestry straight to hell. That is what is clear to me when I read the Bible.

However, as I have been digging through the mountain of things from my father’s family, I am discovering that my ancestry has helped to shape me. I am finding a strong spiritual connection in my ancestors that helps me better understand the Christian background that I come from, even if it was hidden for years. Christian; this is what I view as my ancestral ensign or banner, not one of names but of faith. I cannot rely on that ancestry for my own salvation and eternity, I have to have my own path for that. I can also see now that what God instructed Moses to do, was not so much for Moses’ benefit but for us to see that God is involved in even the most minute details of our lives and that everyone is important to God. And my going through the mountain of papers and pictures and memorabilia is not so much for my benefit but for the generations to come. This is why I have put myself to the task of sorting, organizing and sharing what I find.

I Can See Clearly Now (another lesson from the pool)

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“And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.” Mark 8:23-25 (ESV)

I jumped back into the pool again to get my laps in for the day. As I was swimming along, I realized that the bottom of the pool was so much clearer to see than when I swam in it a couple of years ago. I also noticed that even through the fog of my goggles, I could see the clock on the wall even better than the last time I remembered swimming. Then it hit me, I had not been swimming in this particular pool since before I had cataract surgery almost two years ago. After that surgery, I put down my glasses for near-sightedness and began only using reading glasses. It took some time for everyone to adjust to seeing me without glasses and it took some time for me to adjust to it as well. In the moment when I realized I could see clearly in the pool, I was reminded of the narrative in Mark above.

Jesus had the ability to heal the sick and give sight to the blind in any way that he wanted to. In another incident, he told a blind man to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam (John 9:7). But here, Jesus decided to use his own spit. The surprising part of this text is that it would appear to not have worked on the first try. I don’t think that is the case. With the narrative in John, the name of the pool meant “sent” and the man went and came back seeing. But here the man has a gradual return of his sight. At first, everything was blurry and then he could see clearly. What I think Jesus is showing us is that sometimes, and maybe depending on our level of faith, God has to gradually move us to the place he needs us to be. He meets us where we are on this journey called faith. Either way, the end result was a clearer vision physically and also a clear vision spiritually. Whether we are the type of person who believes on the word go or whether we are someone who needs to gradually believe, this shows me the patience, love and grace of God at work in bringing us into a full and clear vision of who God is. It also teaches me, that I should exhibit the same patience, love and grace with my fellow mankind.

Physically, the cataract surgery was one eye at a time. That meant the first eye was seeing a day after the surgery but I had to wait a full week before the other eye could be worked on. In between, the world through my eyes was a bit out of focus and I was a bit out of balance. But after the second surgery, I was stunned by just how clear everything looked. I had almost forgotten the transformation, until I got back in the pool to swim. As I contemplated that while swimming, I thought about how, lately, my life journey has opened my eyes to certain characteristics I have and experiences that shaped my life and it has given me a renewed clarity for purpose and direction in my life. I can see clearly now that God has been at work in my life through it all with patience, love and grace. I can see clearly now.

Treading Water

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“fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed for I am your God, I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous hand.” Isaiah 41:10 ESV

Photo by Oliver Sju00f6stru00f6m on Pexels.com

At long last, I have been released to do at least the exercise of swimming. I have been anticipating the time when I could get back into the pool and swim laps again. The first few were felt in my upper arms but after that, I was perfectly at home with the strokes and the familiar feeling of gliding through the water and feeling the buoyancy of my body was exhilarating once again. After completing my laps and my allotted time in the lane, I swam over to the free swim part of the pool and decided to try treading water for five minutes straight. I saw it as a way to add on to the exercise my body has been craving. To anyone looking at it from the pool deck, it is probably one of the most benign motions of water activity. But to anyone who has done it, the task can be challenging as the goal is to keep the head above water while the body basically remains in one place in the water. When it was all said and done, and I had the opportunity to see what my watch registered regarding my activity. I discovered that my heart rate was higher in those last five minutes of treading water than in the forty minutes I spent swimming laps.

Treading water is merely an analogy of what it means to be stuck in the proverbial ruts of life. The act of treading water is simply kicking our legs while pushing water in a downward motion with our arms and hands. It keeps us afloat but we make very little progressive movement. Sometimes that is the way life can be. We spend a lot of energy being busy but going nowhere and it is frustrating. To some degree, I’ve been feeling that way about certain aspects of my life.

Israel was stuck in the rut of sin and disobedience that led them on a circular path of hardships, oppression and captivity. As a nation, they would go through periods of repentance and blessings and without fail they would slip back into old habits of sin and disregard for God. In this particular text, God was speaking through Isaiah to encourage the nation that their current troubles would not last forever. God always had a plan for them and he has a plan for us. Later in chapter 43:17, God would tell them that they needed to let go of the past and see that He was doing a new thing. It is an amazing word when we consider that the new thing was a new paradigm for salvation and hope that was not reliant on temporary animal sacrifice but a permanent and eternal plan through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This new paradigm would not happen for hundreds of years.

As I was in the pool treading water (on purpose), I reflected on how good it felt to be back in the pool again, questioning myself about what took me so long and how did I get so far away from an activity that I enjoy so much and that is so good for me. I recognized that time and life has brought on some changes that I have been trying to navigate in ways that may have worked ten or even five years ago, but they don’t work now. For me to move forward, I have to make adjustments that are more suited to those life changes and align with God’s perfect plan for my life. Treading water may get my heart rate up (which is a good thing) but it does little to promote forward progress and can be quite challenging. Swimming on the other hand, gives me a sense of accomplishment. The ease and fluidity of its forward motion easily translates into my life, the goals ,dreams and the plans I believe God has for my life. And while I realize God has been holding me up all along, it’s time to stop treading water and swim.

Re-directed Pathways

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“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths”. Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

It was another Tuesday morning and the scale was not my friend, again. It felt like years of hard work was slipping through my fingers, and now bound by a foot that cannot get this body out to exercise like I had in the past, and over a year of being on a weight plateau, things were moving in the wrong direction. Determined to get to the heart of the matter, I dressed and prepared myself for the anticipated appointment with an endocrinologist to review some wonky numbers that just maybe were the culprit to my dilemma. After a careful review of my lab work, and some open ended questions to find out why I was in her office, she explained to me that while she could put me on medication, it was not the best solution. I was all for that! She gave me a mini-lecture on how the mind works and how it can impact so many other anatomical systems in our bodies, then she gave me simple things to do, that will probably kick my metabolism back into gear again. Much of what she was telling me, I basically knew or confirmed the things that I believed were true. I assured her that my goal was not to medicate the problem and thus mask it; but I wanted answers and an understanding of what was at the heart of the matter. Then she gave me one of the most freeing pieces of advise that no doctor had dared to say before, she gave me a weight number that would be good for me as my top-end number. She also expressed that should I follow her advise, in six months, not only would I see it on the scale but also in my lab work.

This was a lesson to myself that sometimes I can make the best laid plans for myself, based on whatever data I have collected and decided would be the path I should take. Perhaps you see the problem with the last sentence. It is the frequency of the first person pronouns. My weight loss journey was prompted upon medical advise. Since the doctor is a solid Christian man, I believed God was directing my path and it worked. Somewhere along the way, as I encountered injuries and disruptions to my plan, my body began to revolt and try to get me back to my top most weight. This time, the same Christian doctor seemed reluctant to make the referral, but I insisted. Just like the Spirit had informed me about my stress fracture, I felt the Spirit was driving me to see this doctor. At first, I didn’t hear from the specialist’s office. When I called to see what was up with my appointment, I was told someone would get back to me. When the referral clerk called, she said that there were no regular openings until September but there was a cancellation and I snatched it up. When I finally met the doctor, I realized that it was all guided by God’s hand to re-direct my path and my thinking. In that moment, I came to terms with my own body, mind and soul and recognized that all of my efforts were in vain. He is guiding me to a new more sustainable path to wellness that is uniquely fitted to my stature, age and genetics.

I realized that while I was put on this path originally by God, somewhere along the way, I filtered in my own thoughts and actions to fit God’s plan into my ideals. The last two years have been filled with a series of physical issues, that individually are minor and collectively are annoying. Instead of taking the time to really pray and contemplate why I was having all these things happening, I kept pressing to get over one issue after the other so that “I could get back into my routines”. I was not taking into account that my lifestyle was changing due to retirement or that I am getting older. The stress fracture was the catalyst to make me slow down and really turn to God. He is still working on me. In this moment and season where I am forced to move at a slower pace, I acknowledge that He is at work in this process. I am already experiencing moments where the Spirit is directing my paths. While I don’t know the exact destination this is all leading me to, I am trusting and believing that God is working it all out and making it straight and clear to me.

The truth is that this is just one moment of revelation. Over time, as is the case with these human minds, I may override God with my own thoughts of what to do and how to do things. I am writing this as much to myself, to remind myself of this moment so that perhaps, if or when I get off the path again, I won’t be so stubborn or slow to remember God and to let Him direct my ways. Though, I want to believe I’ve learned my lesson once and for all.

Stress Fracture

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“Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones You have broken rejoice.” Psalm 51:8

I woke up one morning and as I began to move about the house, I noticed that the top of my foot was in pain, making it difficult to walk on it or bear any weight on it. It puzzled me because I had not done anything so overly active in the days beforehand nor had I fallen or twisted my foot in any way. As I hobbled through the house, I clearly understood the Spirit to say, “stress fracture”. I immediately began my research and discovered I had all the classic signs and that while it may have just started to bother me, it could very well have been the result of an overactive day a month before. I put in hours on my feet, up and down concrete steps and carrying more weight on my body than I had in a long time. It’s not certain that was the reason why, but the end result was a stress fracture on the fourth metatarsal bone which requires my wearing this lovely shoe for several weeks.

I can’t help but think about the diagnosis and see a word play of sorts that reflected physically what I was probably going through mentally and emotionally. It is not that I have had to deal with any major trauma, but there have been multiple situations over the past few months that were on my mind quite a bit. Problems and situations needed resolutions and I was trying to find the best ones available. A relationship has been tenuous. Health and wellness have not been going as I would like them to go. Creativity has been at a bit of standstill and personal goals aren’t being met. All of these separately are really quite manageable but together they are a nagging in my gut and mind. Like I usually do, I internalize stress. I might seem cool, calm and collected but inside, my mind is like scrambled eggs, I don’t sleep regularly and I will mindlessly graze on snacks that do me no good. So how fitting and proper it would be for me to develop a “stress” fracture literally in a part of my body that forces me to slow down and wait for the healing process to be completed.

David’s Psalm is his response to being called on the mat for committing his most memorable sin, conspiracy to murder his lover’s husband. When the trusted prophet, Nathan, revealed to David that God was well aware of what he had done, David did the proper thing; he came clean with Nathan and he repented to God and begged for forgiveness. What I love about Psalm 51 is how David owns up to his mistakes, humbles himself before God and then vows to live in a manner that reflects his gratefulness and willingness to serve God. Now David’s bones were not literally broken, but it is a description of the brokenness of his relationship with God. In it, he is not blaming God for the brokenness but he is asking God to heal him. Further down, he makes his vows to teach, lead, and help others to come to know God the way he knows him. David seems to understand that overcoming his situation will ultimately lead him to a stronger relationship with God. That’s what adversity can do for the believer, if we allow it.

Stress is a form of sin. There I said it. How so? Because stress occurs when we take on problems and situations and try to manage them all by ourselves without the consultation of God or the guidance of His word (Prov. 3:5-6; Matt. 11:28; 1 Pet. 5:7) thus putting ourselves above God. It is so easy to go there. Even though I was praying about the small things that were compiling in my mind, I recognize that I wasn’t necessarily listening for God’s response and truly leaning and depending on Him for the answers or to trust Him even when I didn’t see or hear the answers. Even in the first few weeks of my healing process, I was trying to walk around the house without my boot, under the pretense that “I’m not really putting weight on it.” The second x-ray and doctor’s visit, made it clear to me that I was only prolonging the process by doing that. Do I like wearing this beauty shoe? No. Do I like that it’s preventing me from summer activities I would like to be doing? No.

BUT, I do appreciate that it is making me evaluate and look carefully at my health, wellness, habits and practices. It is making me slow down, re-examine myself once again and it is strengthening my connection with God. I appreciate the way God can use something like a stress fracture to open my eyes to the truth about stress. At the end of it all, I do believe that the bone that has been broken will rejoice.

Star gazing

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“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” Psalm 8:3-4 (KJV)

This past weekend, we have been told that a solar storm could potentially allow us in South Carolina to see a rare appearance of the Northern Lights. It is one of those phenomenon, that if I actually had a bucket list, I would have on mine – to go somewhere to view them in their fullest glory. So naturally, I was intrigued and hopeful that we would see them. I apparently had missed the information on Friday night and on Saturday night, I made frequent trips outside in the hopes I would see them. It got to the point that I dreamed that people were telling me to come outside and see the beautiful lights in shades of purple and green, but to no avail. At the end of Sunday evening, Mother’s Day, after a wonderful and happy day, I looked at my husband who said we had another chance to see them and I said, “That would be the last Mother’s Day gift for the day if I could see them. ” Later in the night, he went outside and came back in and said maybe tonight was the night. We set up two chairs in an open space of the driveway and observed the sky. We did not see the amazing green and purple lights, that appeared in the media. Instead, we saw faint cloud-looking formations that were the palest shades of aqua and turquoise with an occasional shimmer of pink.

We also saw an abundance of stars, shooting stars, and other lit objects going across the sky. Some were clearly airplanes, and others were too high and moving too quickly for us to determine what they were. Most of all, as we gazed up in the air, we were taken aback at the expanse of God’s creation, the multitude of stars and other celestial objects in the sky and the ever so faint formations that we determined were the best view of Northern Lights we would see. As we gazed up, we remembered the promise of to Abraham that his seed would be like the number of stars in the sky and that we are counted in that number. We had just studied Abraham earlier that day in our Church School. We remembered that in the expanse of time and space, God still took time to create us. We gazed, and in our own way, we expressed our own gratefulness and worship of the God who created everything and still took time to consider us. And as the formations stopped happening, and the night was getting late, we joked about how two old people spent the evening, sitting in chairs and star gazing. It was perhaps the sweetest way to end the day.

Schedule Changes

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Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phyrgia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia to help us.” Acts 16:6-9 (NIV)

There we were in a ministers training session, when one of the ordination candidates was nearly broken down in tears when she attempted to explain that the meeting schedule was interfering with her seminary and life schedule. Had she known the meetings would coincide like this, she would not have taken the seminary classes. The response from one of the instructors, though it was meant to be an encouragement, came off in a harsh and cold tone as he explained he had to go through the same process as her, adding the name of a prestigious seminary. The truth was, all of us, as instructors knew the struggle because we had lived it, but it in the moment, the comment was adding salt to her wounds. I spoke with her later one on one, trying to encourage her by giving her some time management skills advice. However, even with the best of time management, when God decides to do a schedule change, there is not a whole lot we can do, except go with the flow.

As an example of this point, this particular article idea has been sitting in my brain queue for a few weeks. My plan has been and continues to be that I am posting here more regularly than I have in the past few years. But God made a schedule change, that meant devoting my time to another creative project to support the work of a prayer room. Perhaps I could have opted out of the other project so that I could meet my scheduling priorities, but somehow I knew that the other project was God-sent. I am glad that I went with the flow because I did that work in record time and the end result was pleasing to my eyes and to the organizers of the prayer room. What could have been viewed as a schedule disruption turned into a blessing and a lesson I am still sorting through.

The text above is another example of God’s schedule changing prerogatives. The ministry of spreading the Gospel was going well. Paul had picked up his protégé, Timothy, for the second missionary journey and was attempting to revisit some of the areas in which he had already established churches. The problem was every time Paul was trying to literally go right on his road map, God kept blocking his paths until one night when he sent Paul into Macedonia, literally a left turn on his road map. The journey was productive but it also had a lot of hardships. Ultimately, the Gospel was spread farther west than even Paul had imagined it could be. The full extent of the impact of that left turn may not have occurred to Paul until his return home and he had a chance to analyze it, but he had to know that going with the flow produced more than fighting the schedule change.

I am just now settling back down from my schedule change and I am still analyzing the disruption. I am sure that the lessons learned and the connections made are far greater than if I had fought the process and stuck to my guns just to meet a self-imposed deadline or goal. What I tried to impart to the ministry candidate was that we have to have a plan to keep track of the many things we have to accomplish as ministers, but we also have to be flexible for the move of the Holy Spirit. God’s schedule changes always have a purpose, whether it is to bless someone else or to teach us a lesson or both, our best bet is always to follow God’s plan above our own.