"I'm Dreaming . . ."

A fellow had gone through hard times in his life and made many poor choices. He found himself at a Catholic church just a few days before Christmas. He met the priest and said, “Father, I’ve been floating around long enough. Could I join your church and settle down?” The priest replied, “Why yes. But first let’s find out how much you know about the Bible and the Christian faith.” With Christmas coming soon the priest asked, “Where was Jesus born?” The man replied, “In Pittsburg.” The priest shook his head and the fellow tried again, “In Philadelphia?” Again the priest shook his head and not wishing to embarrass this broken man anymore and said slowly, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” Quickly the guy declared, “Oh yea. I knew it was somewhere in Pennsylvania.”

Christmas is such a marvelous time. Maybe this year the real significance of Christmas will be the focal point in more lives. That’s what we are hoping for as we present a service entitled, “I’m Dreaming . . .” This Sunday service is meant to touch the lives of the people who will come, both those that know Christ and know a lot about Christmas, and those that know very little but realize their need for help. Please pray with me that many will come, that the weather will cooperate and that God will use it to draw people to the true gift of Christmas.

It is a privilege being your pastor and sharing in such a meaningful time of the year with Christmas love and service to others. Thank you for partnering with me for the sake of Christ.

Hidden growth

I feel led to just share an interesting thought with you that is connected to the wonder of God’s creation. I don’t know if you have viewed Jupiter, Venus and the moon shining brightly in the sky these last few days. In a similar way I was reading about the Ring Nebula, which looks like a smoke ring in the constellation of Lyra. It is a star in the process of exploding. Light from its explosion first reached the earth in 1054 AD. It was a supernova at that time, but now it is not so bright, but still exploding. It actually expands at the rate of 70 million miles a day. It is interesting to look through binoculars at something expanding 70 million miles a day. It does not budge. Its appearance size does not increase. Photographs of the Ring Nebula taken 15 years ago seem identical to photographs of it taken yesterday.

This brings up a spiritual point. Sometimes significant happenings are not visible to the naked eye, especially in the spiritual realm. But that’s only true from our perspective. If we could see from heaven’s standpoint we would know all that God is doing and intending to do in our lives. We would see God working in hearts in ways we cannot know. We would see God orchestrating circumstances that we know nothing about. We would see a galaxy of details being set in place for the moment when God brings the answer to fulfillment. The bottom-line – you can trust God, he is at work.