brunch sundays are my favorite sundays.
we have 3 people getting baptized and some food to enjoy together.
hope to see you @ 10.15, between the 9 + 10.45a services.
obey while on your way
most of life isn't the big moment. it isn't graduation day, or the first day of school, or the prom.
it’s not your birthday, not your wedding day, not your anniversary, not the beginning of something, not the end of something. most of life is the stuff in the middle.
most of life is the in-between.
it’s the day you were bored in physics class.
it isn't the day when your kid made you so angry. or made you so happy.
and since most days are just in-between, it turns out that most of life is just in-between.
In the first chapter of the book of acts, we read that the disciples of Jesus were in an in-between phase. it was a transitional period for them.
Jesus had been crucified, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, leaving the disciples standing on a mountain. (do you picture him floating up into the sky like a balloon? i do.)
the disciples were in the in-between. and you know how that can be a very challenging place. it can be frustrating. scary. uncertain. boring.
but the in-between can also be a really great place if we are doing what God has for us to do while we’re in the in-between
before Jesus left, he said to his disciples, “hey, it’s been good, but now i’m going to heaven to prepare a place for you. but i'm going to send the Holy Spirit to guide you. so i want you to go to the upper room and don’t leave there until the Holy Spirit comes.
fortunately for the disciples, whenever you are in-between, you don't have to be able to figure out all the steps to take. you just need to be able to take the next step.
so often, when we get stuck is when we try to figure out the entire path in front of us.
what i have noticed—and maybe you have too—is that God doesn't usually give us the whole map right up front. usually he gives us only the next step.
he almost never says, “all right, here's everything that’s going to happen and here’s everything you need to do to get from here to there.”
he usually just gives us the next thing. he gives us the next chance to obey him.
i have also noticed it’s easy to become paralyzed when we can't see all the steps ahead of us. and then what happens is we don't take any of the steps. and that's why we don't get what God has for us during the in-between.
so i’ve learned that usually the best thing we can do is take the next step that we know to do. the step that is right in front of us.
Jesus told the disciples, “go to the upper room and wait for me there.” and, surprisingly, that’s exactly what they did.
so often we are tempted to start to compromising when we don’t see all the steps laid out clearly ahead of us.
for example, you might be a single person who's thinking, “well, because i don't know who my person is going to be, and i don't know how long the wait is going to be, it doesn't really matter if i compromise with this wrong person right now.”
no. no. no. God wants you to be obedient. blessed is your obedience in the here and now—even if you can't see how that obedience is going get you where you want to go.
i've known people who have continued to give their tithe off of a severance check, not knowing the next time they will have an income. why? because we do the right thing. even when it's the only thing we know to do, believing that God will bless it even if we can't see the whole path.
the disciples didn't know what was going to them happen next. they felt uncertain and insecure. one of their own had betrayed Jesus—so now they were 11 and not 12. and they knew that if it was important enough to the roman officials to kill Jesus Christ, it might be just as important to them to round up his closest guys and get rid of them too.
so the disciples were living in a moment of fear and extreme uncertainty. and yet they had the wisdom and the strength to do the only thing they knew to do—and that was to take the next step.
the disciples didn't know where that step would eventually take them.
they didn't know that they would be going to go to places all over the planet to share the good news. they didn’t know they were going to see incredible miracles happen. they didn’t know that every one of them was going to die for Jesus. they didn't know that 2000 years later people would still be talking about them.
the disciples didn't know any of that. but they did know one thing. Jesus said to go to the upper room and wait for the Holy Spirit.
so they went to the upper room and they waited for the Holy Spirit. And look what happened.
i wonder, dear friend, what is keeping you from doing the one thing that God has for you to do right now?
What God’s Teaching Me
with josiah turner
Last Sunday’s Sermon
“The Lord knows.” I found myself in conversations this week saying this sentence. Some might think it’s a simple platitude or a cliche. But, when I don’t completely understand and I’m trying to take the next step in front of me, this short but sweet sentence brings me great comfort.
God’s omniscience blows our human minds. It’s His ability to know every person in the universe; their deepest needs, their doubts, the number of hairs on their head and His involvement in their life. I think the sense of it is heightened in these moments of uncertainty when you’re trying to find palpable evidence of His hand at work.
Psalm 139:1-5 says, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”
These verses remind us he knows it all. He heard and knew me say the words I wasn’t proud of this week. And yet, he went before me and he goes with me and he is going behind me. There is nothing, I mean nothing that is in your life today that didn’t first pass through His permission. Yes, even that thing that hurts like hell, he allowed it.
We often question this type of thing because we hate pain. However, He is allowing ‘that thing’ to mold and shape you and allowing it to grow your faith. He also allows us to walk in joy rather than just happiness because he knows that there’s beauty there. He promises in His Word that he will never leave you or forsake you. So you better believe that you can trust his presence to be with you. And I believe that if goes before us and with us and behind us that we get to experience his character all the way through.
His Love + Faithfulness - Psalm 36:5 says, “Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.”
His Goodness - Nahum 1:7 says, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.”
His Power - 2 Peter 1:3 says, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”
His Mercy - Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
His Grace - Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
I pray that so much fear is stripped away for you today when you remember the Lord knows.
reading highlights
i have been reading a bunch lately .. i found these sections insightful, i hope they might be for you too.
Early feedback is usually better than late criticism.
Delaying the conversation or stringing someone along with indirect feedback won't make them feel better once the real issue is finally addressed.
Nobody likes getting bad news, but everyone appreciates clarity. - james clear
—
I think people think it’s more sophisticated to look at the past and then dissect it or reconstruct it through our present tense understanding of how the world thinks. But that’s not more sophisticated. It’s just easier for the person doing it. It allows you to basically keep the way you think, and selectively apply it to this distant period where literally everything else about the world was different. - chuck klosterman
—
In knowledge work, when you agree to a new commitment, be it a minor task or a large project, it brings with it a certain amount of ongoing administrative overhead: back-and-forth email threads needed to gather information, for example, or meetings scheduled to synchronize with your collaborators. This overhead tax activates as soon as you take on a new responsibility. As your to-do list grows, so does the total amount of overhead tax you’re paying. Because the number of hours in the day is fixed, these administrative chores will take more and more time away from your core work, slowing down the rate at which these tasks are accomplished.
At moderate workloads, this effect might be frustrating: a general sense that completing your work is taking longer than it should. As your workload increases, however, the overhead tax you’re paying will eventually pass a tipping point, beyond which logistical efforts will devour so much of your schedule that you cannot complete old tasks fast enough to keep up with the new. This feedback loop can quickly spiral out of control, pushing your workload higher and higher until you find yourself losing your entire day to overhead activities: meeting after meeting conducted against a background hum of unceasing email and chat. Eventually the only solution becomes to push actual work into ad hoc sessions added after hours–in the evenings and early mornings, or over the weekend–in a desperate attempt to avoid a full collapse of all useful output. You’re as busy as you’ve ever been, and yet hardly get anything done. - cal newport
this is good news,
luke + kristen