Vacation Bible School
here at FPC starts tomorrow morning, and I’m just one of many folks of varying
ages who are very excited. Just look at
the wonderful, inspirational decorations and staging we have in place for this
year’s theme! And what is the theme you
may be asking yourself? Fly! It’s all about having a faith that soars …
soars with trust in God wherever we go and whatever we do. Everyday absolutely everyone can fly this way because
everything is possible with God.
One part of the program
we are offering encourages students, helpers and leaders to all keep a faithful
eye out for evidence of this biblical truth.
The importance of having daily “God Sightings” is explained well in the planning
guide. Here’s some of what it says –
“God hasn’t retired,
you know. God’s as busy as ever. But until you see that with your own eyes,
it’s tough to have a vibrant faith. God can
seem distant and impersonal. God is active in our everyday lives … we
just have to look. We have to make it a
habit to keep an eye out for the daily overwhelming evidence that God is doing
great things all around us. There are
everyday clues that God is present, passionate, and powerful.”
Trusting that these
clues are fully present in our lives will be emphasized through all the Bible
lessons, fun activities, and energizing music we’re about to offer all
week. As usual, VBS encapsulates in
one week what every Christian of every age should be faithfully focused on
year-round. Building up belief that God has not stopped
being intimately active in our lives and in the teeming life of the world is
vitally important to everyone having a vibrant faith. Especially since we all have times when we
feel like God has retired, is real but remote.
We all have days and life experiences when we lose sight of God’s
intimate, active, good and loving presence.
Fortunately, you don’t
have to be participating in this week’s VBS in order to have someplace to go
and be reminded that God is not indifferently, distantly sitting around. You
can also turn to Psalm 85 each day.
The voice in Psalm 85 strongly
believes God’s saving grace and living love is always in motion. It
sings with all the faithfully frenetic energy of the fun VBS songs that will
fill this room all week. It sings of
trusting in God – most especially during times of desperate uncertainty, when
our hearts and minds can’t seem to settle into God’s holy peace.
This trust being
preached in Psalm is not simply wishful thinking, nor is it blind belief. This
trust is based on a firm conviction that God has been, still is, and always
will be unwavering in holding to holy promises.
It is based on what this voice has heard of and personally experienced
in the past. It hinges on historic
witness, inspiring confidence to hold fast to the truth that God will not ever
choose to be hands-off with regard to human plights. A
colleague in ministry states it this way, “During times of testing or seasons
of emptiness, the psalmist calls on the people of God to remember all that God
has done.”[i]
To make it clear that
our God is not some other-worldly, static Somebody, but can be personally known
in everyone’s here and now, the Psalmist uses very lively language to point us
to God’s activity and thus to God’s holy and wholly reliable character. This voice sings that God will speak words of peace to those who
turn to listen for it with their hearts.
This voice sings that God’s steadfast love and faithfulness not only
meets us where we are, this happens while offering us a kiss of righteousness
and peace. And this voice sings of God
always energetically in motion … springing up from the ground, looking down
from the sky, giving what is good.
Need a God
sighting? Look for evidence of God’s
faithfulness springing up around you, or God’s righteousness radiating down on
you like sunshine, or God’s goodness rising up like the abundance of corn crops
this time of year.
Do you have moments when
your heart holds fast to previous experiences of God’s amazing grace in your
life? Do such faithful recollections help
you trust that God is helping you through today, especially if today is
presenting a troubling experience?
Building trust in God
based on past and present holy promises is something Aunt Gladys taught one
particular family member. This family
member happens to be a pastor in McBain, Michigan who also has written for Christianity
Today magazine.[ii]
Aunt Gladys had a
little apple orchard at her home. And
one year she had a noticeably huge and previously unseen harvest of those
apples. The pastor asked if there was a
particular reason as to why the branches were so heavy under the weight of
abundance. Aunt Gladys had a quick
answer, of course. She explained that there
has been a late frost the previous spring. This froze all the buds. And that, Aunt Gladys preached, is when the
miracle of the apple tree happens. When
frozen over, it stores up its energy in thousands of small nodules called scions (pronounced see-ons). The energy pulsates through the network of
scions until one day BAM! it’s all unleashed and the evidence of this is an
exploding riot of buds. Aunt Glady’s God
sighting is really a God Scion!
The inspired the pastor to faithfully reflect on the miracle of the apple tree. He got to thinking about the harsh frosts that can cover us in life. His list included cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, trauma, grief, depression. Such frosts can cause our spiritual lives to freeze. But then he remembered something vitally important to our faith journeys. He remembered that at the “core of the Christian faith” we live with the incredible promise that God’s power is always pulsating “under the gnarly bark of this world.” During certain seasons when we “feel our hearts waiting, longing, and even aching for those frozen places to burst into new life,” we are like nodules of living hope, trusting that one day all the “stored up glory will be unleashed in a joyful riot of splendor.”
The more we turn in trust to God’s ever present, pulsating presence, the more evidence we see of sacred scions within and all around us, the more we experience Christ’s peace. This is the deep peace our Lord promised when he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27). Concerning this, someone once wrote a good reminder that outwardly, Jesus life “was one of the most troubled lives that ever lived: tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there.”[iii]
Like the voice of the Psalmist, sometimes we really need someone to speak or sing and remind us about this deep calm, about trusting that God’s good, free flowing fidelity to holy promises is always with us.
I was reminded of one such voice this past week while Anna was away at Camp Johnsonburg. Her being there got me thinking even more than usual about all my experiences with the camp over the years. One particular experience popped-up in my mind, a time when I felt frozen with fear. It was during my first ever summer staff training, when we each had to attempt the high ropes course deep in the woods. I climbed up and across confidently and comfortably enough. But then it was time to come down. That’s when I realized the way down was by sliding off a tiny platform located most the way up a tree and letting a zip line carry me.
I admit I was terrified. I didn’t trust a thing sitting there. Not myself. Not the ropes. Not, at first, even God. Twenty-three years later, I’m still
extremely grateful to the fellow staffer whose faithful talk guided me safely
through this experience. By listening
to him, I sensed God was with me … whispering words of deep trust and
peace. Before I knew it, faithfulness had
sprung up from the ground and I had grasped just enough of it to slip and zip.
You know what really happened on that
day? Yes, I went flying through the woods,
but more importantly, and praise God, I went flying in faith! Amen.
[i]
Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the
Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16)
(Kindle Locations 8057-8058). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii]
www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2011/November/611211
[iii]
http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/1997/december/52.html
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