Encouragement for Our Church

For the past six months our beloved church has been going through a trial that can be likened to your parents divorcing or learning your sister has cancer. The family still exists, but everything turns upside down and while you know things will never be, nor should it be, the same again you yearn for a new "normal" to just start already!

It's been a long six months. I know for me I have flitted between emotions - anger to forgiveness, why's to what now's, excitement to disappointment, disillusionment to rejoicing. Can you relate?

This week, our interim pastor called the church to another week of fasting and praying. After some prayer I decided to fast from my usual morning routine, which consists of the alarm sounding at six in the morning and me hitting the snooze button a dozen times. I set the alarm clock half an hour earlier with all intentions of bouncing out of bed and praying and reading God's Word, my Bible.

I spent a good bit of time on the anxious side wondering if I would get up in time and if I would get enough sleep to function the next day. I woke up at midnight when Brad came to bed and later his loud snoring roused me from bed and I stomped off to sleep on the couch. A dream and a nightmare later, I woke up before the alarm sounded at 5:30am and I have all of four and a half hours of sleep to my name.

But I did pray for us and I did spend time in God's Word.

Church, we are walking in a trial of scorching heat, one that seems to leap up and lick at places we didn't expect.

Do not give up hope! Kings Harbor Church is not forsaken, but rather disciplined in love by the God that prefers our sanctification over our comfort. Yes, this is a time of refining, a re-defining perhaps.

In this (speaking of the imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance that awaits us) you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes through it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:6-7

This morning, church, as I pray for us, I rejoice that God is allowing this time of refining and sanctifying. I'm feeling raw, just like you are. I'm feeling a bit singed around the edges. But we know we have not been abandoned! We know that God is with us, just as He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the burning fiery furnace of Daniel 3. And may our bonds of captivity burn off as we walk through this fire together, just as their bonds were the only items burned off by the raging fire of Babylon's great furnace.

When we come out the other end of the fire with bonds broken, we'll be more freed up to dance and to point and to shout out that Jesus is here for all to see! May God be glorified in our church, our homes, the workplace, and in all of the South Bay!

Peace be multiplied to you! It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. How great are His signs, how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion endures from generation to generation. Daniel 4: 1b-3