The story of Job in
the Bible has always been a challenging one to fully understand. At Church at the Manor, we have moved into
the poetic books and it was a great exercise to have a group of our people to
act the story out together. We then had
a very lively discussion on one of the most common objections to why people
choose not to believe and that is this question. “If God is a loving God, why
does He allow human suffering and pain?
It was a great discussion question and I received some good feedback
with answers like:
God doesn’t make us
without free will and the ability to choose Him.
We live in a world
that is completely affected by the devastation of our sin nature and we were
born in sin and also with the effects of the ugliness of sin.
It is often in our
suffering and pain that we experience the most profound depths of God’s
presence.
The reality is that
this book actually never does address the why of human suffering; however the
one burning question that it forces you to answer is this.
As a believer, do you
trust your Father God?
Do you trust Him
when it feels like He isn’t there and when you don’t sense His presence? Do you trust Him when your prayers don’t get
answered? Do you trust Him when your
life doesn’t make sense, when you can’t explain the situation? Do you trust your Father God when there
doesn’t appear to be any benefits from doing so?
This is the real
burning question and the right answer is to say, yes, I trust You Father. I
think the best answer that I have for the life of Job is found in Psalm
23. I rediscovered this beautiful Psalm
after having been requested to share on it for a couple of funerals that I
performed this past month.
In Psalm 23 David
shares of the very fact that the Lord Is My Shepherd. He essentially is the one that I put my
complete trust in. Why? He ultimately leads me to still waters, green
pastures…yes but even though I walk through the valley of death, YOU ARE WITH
ME…emphasis mine! J David speaks of the LORD ( the personal,
covenant keeping God) and His presence, protection and power. He is a good Father and He is absolutely
worth placing our complete trust in.
In the N.T. Jesus expanded on the theme of the Shepherd
and shared how His sheep know His voice.
They listen and obey him. I can’t
emphasize enough about the importance of listening to His still small
voice. It is so important that we know
that the LORD still speaks today and prayer is meant to be a conversation. John 10:27 We need to get to the place where
we are still, where we fix our eyes on Jesus and allow His words to penetrate
our mind and heart. It is then that our
trust takes us to a greater place of rest, a place where my soul is quiet and
He restores my soul.
As Jenny shared
earlier in the month, often those green pastures that we might picture in Psalm
23 are not necessarily those lush
pastures that go on forever, they are just enough for what we need today. Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdzhbv2eGxk
Random Insights and
Celebrations!
Singing Psalms!
On Sunday we took to
the Psalms…80’s style. For those who
remember, how many of these Psalms can you sing?
Unto Thee O LORD
I Will Enter His Gates
With Thanksgiving in my heart
Make A joyful Noise
Unto The LORD
This is the Day
Jen reminded us that
the Psalms aren’t all just “thank You LORD, you are amazing but reminded us of
the laments as well, the very real, heartfelt honesty of the psalmists.
The Wedding!
On August 19th,
we hosted the wedding of Tiara and Bob at our new home and it was a beautiful
celebration. It was our first Manor
Church peeps wedding too and our core team came together and did such an
amazing job. Steve, Carolyn, Bob, Jenny,
Jen and Kristen, you all rock! We were
also so blessed by the generosity of Christine who gave us so many beautiful
flowers, especially hydrangeas! Can I
just add that my wife Sharon can now add “florist” to her resume as she put
together the incredible arrangements and did an amazing job on decorating!!
I Gave Up Coffee!
I decided to give up
drinking coffee…. for the time being. It
was definitely our morning ritual to have a good coffee with breakfast but
Sharon challenged me to drink a hot drink with apple cider vinegar and raw
honey instead. There are certainly a lot
of health benefits! http://www.healthyandnaturalworld.com/health-benefits-of-apple-cider-vinegar-and-honey/
It also has been great
to journey with Dan who is in the process of giving up smoking and talk about
all the challenges of working through withdrawal.
Captain Canada!
I had the opportunity to
revisit my former church in Milton and be Captain Canada for their High Power
Soccer Camp. It was an amazing day to
see their camp ministry going strong and reaching many children with the love
of Jesus.
Back Pack Giveaway #sameteam
On Sunday August 20th
we partnered with Pastor Michael and team from Kingdom Life, RL and her team
from Freedom House and the Healing Center to give away 200 "back to school" back packs
filled with pencil crayons, notebooks, erasers, glue sticks and BBQ at Willow and Dawson Rd! We met people, discovered their story and for
me it was so eye-opening to learn that in just one apartment complex, there
were 20 families all from Nepal living there.
