Entries from March 2008 ↓

A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege of being the best man for Grant Fonda as he was wed to Carley Elwood. It was really neat to be a part of this day of celebration. These two have stood as such an example in their purity before the Lord and their commitment to be above reproach in all things. They both love Jesus Christ more than they love each other and that is only a work of the Spirit of God. It was a blessing to be a part of the wedding.

“The great people of the earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer: nor those who can explain prayer: but I mean those people who take time and pray. They have not time. It must be taken from something else. This something else is very important–very important and pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer.”

S. D. Gordon

My heart is heavy tonight. This morning we received the call from Teresa Weinberg that Grant went into cardiac arrest and was on the way to the hospital. We spent the whole day with the Weinbergs at the hospital, waiting to what the Lord would do with him. I encourage you to go to the blog that they started to document the goodness of the Lord throughout this journey. Chuck tells more details about how it all happened and gives all the credit to where credit is due. Oh how we are praying for you, Weinbergs! May God do what seems best to Him!

It was truly incredible to see the church body show up and rally around our friends. Close to a hundred people visited the hospital and stayed for a while throughout the day. It was so cool to see the body of Christ come together to support those who are suffering. Although some of the people came just because they heard someone was in need, I realized that about 99% of the people there were there because the Weinberg family had ministered to them in some way. These people had felt the love of Christ from the Weinbergs and showing up today was in a way saying, “Thank you for touching my life. I count you as my beloved friends and you are in our prayers.” The relationship with each person is a little different, but the common element is a unified love for Jesus Christ. The body looks out for each other and the parts of the body all point to and look to the Head - and that’s what happened today.

It is fairly common to think about the brevity of life when someone you love is in the balance between life and death. I thought of it in terms of the passage that I have been studying lately, Hebrews 12:1-2. We are all running a race, but some of us have long races to run and others of us have shorter ones. The thing is that we have no clue how long ours will be. I could be running my final strides right now or I could be still at the beginning. But the point is that because we don’t know where in the race we are at, we must endeavor to run faithfully during every stage. Every day is just one more stride in which we look fixedly on Christ, cast off our sin, and hold steadfastly to the truth. Too much is at stake for us to fail to do this at any point in our race, any day of our life. And although this can seem overwhelming at times, we just have to take each day at a time and ask, “Am I running faithfully today? Am I looking to Jesus today?”

I am also reminded that events like this - events that stop the normal flow of life - are opportunities to cultivate humility. In our pride, we think that we deserve another day, or that pain or death is unfair, or that these kind of things shouldn’t happen. But in reality, we deserve hell and we are not in control of one molecule of matter or one second of time - our sovereign God has all in the palm of his hand. And that is the best place for us all to be because He loves us infinitely and only does what is best for us, even if that “best” doesn’t make sense to us.

How Good is God?: The Weinberg’s blog

Check it out. You’ll be glad you did.

At 6:00am on Tuesday mornings, I make the drive down to Grace Community in order to join the shepherds and under-shepherds of the Crossroads ministry. They are reading through Trusting God by Jerry Bridges and this last week discussed the chapter on God’s Sovereignty and Our Responsibility. Several men pointed out different things from the chapter, but they kept coming back to the issue of dealing with the unknown circumstances of life.

Then Andy Snider very simply stated that we are not called to try and figure out God’s plan for our life. We should not be thinking, “Now what is God doing here?” or “What is He trying to do in me?” This is an issue because Scripture does not tell us that we can know God’s plan, but it does reassure us that if we are faithful then He will provide and sustain. We must wait for the Lord and trust Him that no matter what happens, He is in control and will work out the present circumstances for our good and His glory.

This principle can really free us from worry that can come from trying to figure out God’s plan. We don’t know what He is doing, we can’t know, and our obedience and faithfulness to Him doesn’t depend on us knowing.

“Wait for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27:14

I find great encouragement in this verse and a great paradox. I am called to wait on the Lord and that makes sense; I can do that. I need to wait for Him to accomplish His purposes in His timing and in His way. Anytime I try to do something on my own power on my time schedule, then I am sinfully trusting in myself. I simply need to wait.

But the paradox in this verse is the connection between courage and waiting. While I wait on the Lord, I am seemingly not doing anything. I am keeping my purposes and desires at bay, waiting for the Lord to act. So, why are we commanded to be strong and take courage in order to do nothing? Well, I think this confusion may come from a misconception in what the Psalmist means by waiting. The waiting he speaks of does not mean that we sit around and do nothing, but we actively trust and pray concerning the situation. We are doing something, but we are putting our energy and time not into accomplishing what we want, but into seeking the Lord’s will and committing the issue to Him. So when I am waiting on the Lord, my heart must take courage and believe that He will sustain me in that waiting period because He always fulfills His promises.