Comforted in Confusion

A family who used to come regularly to church seems to have drifted away recently. I went to visit them the other week. The lights were on in their home but no one answered the door. I felt sad and said to my Deacon Luis Lopez, “Do we have leprosy or something?” These people were good friends and I felt bad that they might be avoiding us for some unknown reason.

Then the week after that I was going to visit them again, but I did yard work that day and just before I was going to shower, the water in our town was shut off! Luis told me, “Pastor we can visit later, if they didn’t let you in before, it will be worse if you smell bad!” Well, you can tell Luis and I are friends, but we did cancel visitation that day.

This Sunday I was preaching and in walked the entire family of four and they brought a friend with them! I stopped my sermon for a moment and said, “I am so glad you all came today.” I still don’t know why they were out for a few weeks, but decided just to show them I was happy to see them and asked if we were still friends. Their smiles and assurances comforted me in my confusion.

I may not understand why people do the things they do, but I am happy that at the end of the day, some wandering sheep have found their way back home.
Pastor Steve Prelgovisk

(The following devotional was a blessing to me today)
“Between Sundays”

Most Christians are not engaged in professional ministry. They don’t preach or sing or work for an evangelistic agency. Their time between Sundays is spent doing jobs that don’t seem to have value for the spread of the gospel. Therefore, some believers may view themselves as second-class disciples.

That may have been the way some members of the church in Colosse regarded themselves. Paul addressed an erroneous viewpoint of secular work when he wrote, “Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, . . . in sincerity of heart, fearing God” (Col. 3:22).

You see, if God’s purposes in this world are to be fulfilled, we need a structured society with all its indispensable activities. The people we work for are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether they know it or not, our employers are carrying out God’s good purposes. As long as the assigned task is not sinful or unethical, when we serve those who rule over us we are serving the Lord.

So let’s view our daily work—whatever it is—as an extension of God’s work in the world. As we do so, we’ll find there is no better place to spread the good news of salvation than right where God has placed us. —

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee! —Herbert

For the Christian, work is ministry.

Vernon C. Grounds
http://www.rbc.org/odb/odb.shtml September 3, 2006