Dear Church Family,
This Sunday I’m going to tell a parable about a mysterious silver ball that has a string you could pull every time you were in a difficult or uncomfortable position.  An accident, difficult time raising children, illness, broken relationships, etc.  Pulling the string would enable you to escape the current difficulty and you could leap forward to a new day and time when hopefully things were better.
What problems could you imagine would come with such a temptation?  What do you need to know that would give you a worldview in which you would not so easily seek to escape the difficulties of life?
One of my pet peeves is that people usually only share answers to prayer that have gone the way they wanted.  Isn’t “No” an answer?  What about “Wait?”
In our current situation…this week even…many have prayed for Tracy to not have surgery.  As I write, she is coming out of surgery.  What happened?  WE PRAYED!  This is my response that I posted on our Caringbridge page:

We really do believe that God answered our prayers. He heard every single one of us. People mistakenly treat God like Santa Claus and believe He only answers when we get what we want. God has a whole universe that He’s managing and a lot of moving parts. Our core belief is that He is sovereign and He is good. His ways and His thinking are so far beyond anything we can imagine. It all comes down to what He did for us by coming to earth as a baby and dying on a cross so that we can ultimately be reunited with Him. There’s a Bible verse that says, “ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

I hope this brings comfort to those of you who have felt that God is silent or even cruel.  Turn to His word and ultimately go to the cross and imagine looking up at Jesus dying for our sins and try to absorb the amount of love He has for you.

God Bless,

Allen