A Grateful Heart, by Trudy Eshuis

Yesterday, it was raining all day, and I was home all by myself.  I turned on the TV at one point as there was a news program on.  I watched for about 3 minutes, before snapping it back off.  The subject at hand was actually a good one, but it made me laugh to think it was actual news.  Here’s what the discussion was about, in the brief time I saw it:

Someone did a study.  Some college, some smart people, did a study on finding out the habits of Happy People.  What they found out is that people who are the HAPPIEST are people who count their blessings, even when life is hard. 

My first thought was, “I wonder how much money they spent on this study!”  But then, I started thinking that gratitude is a good thing to promote, and I should be thankful to hear it on a national news show!

I also realized that I should be thankful that I ALREADY KNEW THAT!  People who are followers of Jesus should be firmly aware of how much they have to be grateful for.  God’s blessings are abundant, and if we are meditating on His Goodness, Holiness, Grace, Love, Faithfulness, Wisdom, Forgiveness and Power, we can’t help but count our blessings!  And the thing that flows from gratitude, is quite naturally JOY! 

Does that mean we walk around with a smile and a “who cares” attitude?  Does it mean we don’t mourn or feel sadness or pain or get frustrated?  Of course not.  It means (and the study corroborates this) that people who count their blessings are happy in spite of their situation. 

I remember once as a child riding with my aunt and uncle to a family Thanksgiving celebration.  My uncle, probably trying to give us kids something to do in the car, asked us to make 2 lists on paper.  One side was a list of all the things we were thankful for (counting our blessings) and the other was a list of things that made us unhappy.  He said, (and he was right!) “your list of blessings will ALWAYS be longer than the list of things you don’t like about your life.” 

Try it yourself.  Make a list of your blessings.  Keep adding to it and remember this: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3: 22-23) 

After reflecting on your blessings, pray this prayer, by G. K. Chesterton:

“Thou hast given so much to me,

Give one thing more

 – a grateful heart;

Not thankful when it pleaseth me,

As if Thy blessings had spare days,

But such a heart whose pulse may be

Thy praise.”

Pastor Bill’s Blurb for 04/28/2020

This is going to be just a fun blurb. It’s time we all lighten up a little.

The following paragraph has 16 books of the Bible hidden in it. They don’t always start with a capital letter and some of them are hidden in more than one word. So now it is up to you to find those 16 books of the Bible that are hidden in the paragraph below and write them down and email your answers to me at: billfernhout@gmail.com .

One thing, don’t Google this because that will spoil it. So now here is the little paragraph, so get to work and find the 16 books of the Bible!

     I once made a remark about the hidden books of the Bible (merely a fluke). It kept people looking so hard for the facts and for others it was a revelation. Some were in a jam, especially since the names of the books were not capitalized, but the truth finally struck home to numbers of readers. To others it was a real job. We want it to be a most fascinating few moments for you. Yes, there will be some easy ones to spot. Others may require judges to help them. I will quickly admit it usually takes a minister to find one of them, and there will be loud lamentations when it is found. A little lady says she brews a cup of tea so she can concentrate better. See how well you can compete. Relax now. There really are sixteen names of books of the Bible in this story.

     So that’s it, gather the family and solve this thing. Have a great week. God bless you.

PB

Self-Sufficient? by Becky Cook

I always thought of myself as a self-sufficient person. I can do it by myself, I don’t need people around to be content. I can go for walks alone, I enjoy working alone, whether it is cleaning the church in the quiet and solitude of a Saturday morning, late Friday evening or Sunday afternoon or in my day job. I enjoy being alone. “Have-audio-book-and-earbuds-no-problem” is my motto.

But I have to be honest, these last few weeks have been very hard. I miss Tuesday night Coffee Break (even though I don’t think we ever have coffee.)  I miss the group of ladies who challenge me to do my Bible study and keep me centered in the Word. The rabbit trails we sometimes go down, the fun banter we have and the attributes Rita so much loves. I miss the group of people (women and man) that have given me the desire to do cardio drumming 3 days a week because they have so much enthusiasm! They really seem to enjoy themselves, and they have grown so much in a short time. They also give me so much more than they will ever know. I miss needing a reason to clean the church. With very few people here there really isn’t a lot to clean. I miss picking on John I. and punching Dan T. every Sunday. I miss looking over the pews to see who is sitting in “their” spot and who is sitting someplace else. (Can you believe that some people will sit anywhere?!) I miss seeing the faces of the children as they leave for children’s worship. But most of all I miss worshiping with all of you!

I know Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” But when Tom and I tune in to YouTube each week at 9:30, even though we are at church (because we don’t have internet at home) it’s not the same. It just doesn’t feel like worship should be. At first there wasn’t any music but that soon changed and that helped a bit, but singing with just Tom isn’t the same. I really miss the sound of all your voices singing. This past Sunday was extra hard. How can you sing “My Friends May You Grow in Grace” without your friends? As the piano started to play, all I could see was all of you crossing the aisles and holding hands, lifting them up together, singing “to God be the glory now and forever. Now and forever. Amen,” and I couldn’t sing.

I wake up every morning wondering if this is just a dream and then wonder what day it is. I can’t wait till the day we can all worship together again. When that day comes I hope we just sing. (Nothing against your preaching Pastor Tom and Pastor Bill). I hope we sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” because God is faithful. “O Praise the Name” because we missed Easter together and that is another song where you all join in singing loudly, “O praise the name of the Lord our God, O praise his name for ever more for endless days we will sing his praise, O Lord O lord our God!” We should sing “What a Friend” because He has been our friend through these trials and isolation. “My Lighthouse” would be good because He is the “peace in the troubled sea” and He “shines in the darkness to bring us safe to shore.” And because through this time in life God’s been good to my soul we should sing, “Sing Wherever I go!” I really could go on but if you are like me, reading anything long on a cell phone is difficult. So I’ll leave you with some words from Matt Maher: “Because He lives I can face tomorrow, because He lives every fear is gone. I know He holds my life, my future in His hands.” (“Because He lives”) We should close with “All the people said Amen.”

AMEN!

I guess I’m not as content to be alone as I thought.

 Missing you all!

 Becky

Patience is a Virtue

by John Slenk

We have all heard the age old quotation, “Patience is a Virtue.” How many of us still use that quote today?  It seems we now live in a society that disdains patience, and prefers a “hot and now” mentality of getting things quickly, and if that doesn’t happen, we often become disgruntled.

 I’ve been thinking about the art of patience lately since the corona virus has swept over the world making many of us home bound with very little interaction with family and friends or worship. Severe loneliness sets in especially for those who live alone.  All of us are becoming antsy and wondering when this will end. We probably aren’t thinking too much about asking God to give us patience to endure it.

Romans 8: 25 says, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

So how does this patience and waiting for the Lord thing have a practical application in our daily lives? Most of you know I serve on our Pastor Search Team. We often pray for the Holy Spirit’s leading us to the pastor of His choosing and to prepare the heart and mind of that person He has selected for us. Then follows something like this, “Father, give us the patience to wait on You through this difficult process, Amen.” And I barely get the Amen out, and my mind continues praying, “Father give me the patience to wait on You, but I won’t care a bit if You speed things up a little,” and my patience evaporates that quickly. Sound familiar?

In Proverbs 16:32 Solomon begins this verse by saying, “Better a patient man than a warrior.”

I believe that I can best illustrate what patience and waiting for the Lord truly look like by relating a personal loss that occurred in our lives approximately three years ago.  My youngest brother Ted, who we all dearly loved, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. During the last three months of his life as the cancer quickly ravaged his body, Ted and I had many intimate conversations together which included searching the scriptures. During these talks I began to marvel how at peace he was with what was happening to him. Not once did he ever complain about pain or dying and leaving his family, especially his young grandchildren, which is what I was thinking about.  He would periodically say to me “Johnny, my journey is shorter than yours, but our destination is the same”. In everything he truly demonstrated God given patience with his lot in life, and waited on the Lord for what was in store for him, his eternal home.

One of Ted’s favorite verses in the Bible was Isaiah 40:31. It now holds significant importance in my life as well. I think of it every day. It reads as follows: “But those who (hope or) wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” While writing Ted’s obituary through tears, I included this passage as a reminder to all who read it that even in the middle of life’s storms, like severe illness, catastrophes of all kinds, the death of a loved one, or even Covid 19, when it seems like everything around us is falling apart, we can still be at peace. If we remain in Christ we will not be overcome. Our lives will not be perfect, but our peace can be.

Wait on the Lord today, and patiently await what He has in store for you.

May He bless you and grant you His peace, today and always. 

Pastor Bill's Blurb 04/16/2020

    Today I really don’t have a specific blurb to send out to all of you. However, I have been given a copy of a beautiful and very meaningful prayer that was sent out to all the CRC churches in our denomination. This prayer was written by Rev. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. in March 2020, during and regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. There are times when we just don’t know how or what to pray. I find this prayer to be not only beautiful but also very meaningful.

 “Gracious God, Champion of the Universe, we so often fluff ourselves up. 

Aren’t we the only creatures who compose masterpieces of music and art?

Don’t we govern ourselves, enrich ourselves, promote ourselves?

Can’t we dunk basketballs, bat baseballs, spike volleyballs?

Aren’t some of us masters of comic irony? 

Other creatures don’t practice rocket science.  We do.

And yet.  Here we are, frightened by a thing so small it can’t be seen under most microscopes.  It’s not even an animal or a plant.  It’s a virus, a mere parasite, dependent on our own living cells to replicate. 

And yet it has shuttered our schools,

cancelled our flights,

and emptied our churches.

It has consumed the attention of our leading scientists,

wrenched our politics out of shape,

dominated our conversations,

and scared the daylights out of us.

We don’t want to get sick.  And we don’t want to die.

We are afraid, O God.  Afraid of a microorganism.  Afraid of each other. 

Great and quiet source of peace, quiet our fears. 

We are wary, uncertain, strung tight.  Quiet our fears. 

We have no idea what the future will bring but we do know you will be in our future to hold us there. 

We cannot quiet ourselves, O God. 

We cannot comfort ourselves,

cannot heal ourselves,

cannot help ourselves.

All we can do is wash our hands and keep our distance.  Our rocket science is no good to us for this threat.  O God, great and quiet source of peace, quiet us, your anxious ones, and let us cling for comfort to your suffering Son, Jesus Christ.  Gather us under his wings.  Remind us that he suffers with us, but he’s also the Great Physician. 

In him, let us not be afraid. 

Please, let us not be afraid.  Amen.”

God bless all of you!  Pastor Bill

Pastor Bill's Blurb For Maundy Thursday

     Today is what is known as Maundy Thursday. On the night before His crucifixion Jesus and His disciples met together in the upper room to share in the Passover Feast. It was during this time together with His disciples that Jesus showed them, and us, two remarkable things to remember Him by.

     The first one was The Lord’s Supper or what we now call Holy Communion. That is what you I will share in tomorrow on Good Friday. After sharing in the Lord’s Supper Jesus did another remarkable thing. He filled a basin with water and put a towel around his waist and washed His disciples’ feet. He made Himself to be a humble lowly servant. In those days a servant who was a foot washer was considered to be the lowest form of servants ever. Later on Jesus says in John 13: 34-35 “A new command I give you; love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The word Maundy comes from the Latin pertaining to the commandments, hence the reference to Jesus’ New Commandment of Love.  So now we often remember this event of foot washing as a way of showing each other and the world how much we love each other and our neighbors. I think it would be wonderful thing if we could get together and have a foot washing ceremony on this Maundy Thursday. But sorry to say, we are living at a time during this Corona Virus thing when we are not allowed to even touch each other let alone wash each other’s feet.

     Perhaps what Jesus is telling us now is that there may be different ways in which we could be foot washers. Now during this time would be a great time to practice servanthood –so that they may see Jesus. Yesterday an elderly man told me that should he get really sick he would not want to be revived or have a ventilator used on him. He would rather save that ventilator for someone much younger than him who might have a family to care of. Could that be true foot washing? I know someone who makes sure that an elderly couple is supplied with groceries and their daily medications. Could be true foot washing? Not long ago Joanie (my wife) went to Costco and noticed that a lady had just grabbed the last case of toilet paper from the shelf. A rather disappointed lady was standing next to her and what the lady with the toilet paper did was split the case open and gave the disappointed lady half of the rolls and even paid for them. Could that be a true foot washing? I know someone who cooks a meal for a hard working nurse so that she doesn’t have to worry about making a meal for her family after a long and scary day of working at the hospital. Could that be true foot washing? I could cite many more foot washings going on during this scary and stressful pandemic time. Do you think that perhaps God is giving us golden opportunities to be foot washers to each other and to our neighbors during this time of fear and stress? How about we go and wash some feet----so that they may see Jesus.

"HE humbled Himself!” - FOCUS ON JESUS

I’m overwhelmed when I think about how Jesus Christ “disrupted” the norm of His day.   Paul captures it so well in these words to the church at Philippi:

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!”                                       Philippians 2:5-8 NIV

Hmmmmm . . . “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

Sounds like a tall order in a world that seems driven by the mindset “Watch out for yourself.”   After all, isn’t it our default to think of ourselves first?  When events of the world unfold our first thought is often:  How will this affect me?  Watching out for ourselves is sort of like breathing, it just happens!

Paul lives in a world of “watch out for yourself.”   So do we!  Not much has changed in regards to that reality over the past 2000+ years.   Yet Paul’s word to those following Jesus was quite simple, and at the same time very profound: “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”  

Jesus flips our societal systems on their head as he speaks it out in Matthew 10:39, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Early in His ministry, He invites his followers to a life lived for more than ourselves, and that is the life that He lives.  Jesus’ life is an example for us as to what that life looks like as “ . . . he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.”

What’s so powerful about the perspective of a servant is that he or she lays aside their own agendas, preferences, anxieties, and instead sacrificially loves and honors others through their words and actions.  Yes! That’s the life that Jesus lived as He trusted in the love of the Father and chose to love us even at great cost to Himself.  “ . . . He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

As we prepare for communion as a part of our online “Good Friday” service, take some time to think about how God has generously loved you in your greatest time of need, even when you didn’t deserve it.    Invite the Holy Spirit to do some heart surgery.  “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10).

Ask God to bring someone to mind who you can serve with the kind of love that He showed us in sending His Son so that we might have life.  It’s that kind of love that Jesus showed us as He “humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” Not for Himself, but for us!   How can you . . . how can we reflect the generous selfless love of Jesus to those around us?  

“He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  Micah 6:8 

Know that as a child of God, you are made in his image and filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.  Let that confidence in who you are in Him allow you to boldly serve those around you.

Love “all-y’all!”   

Pastor Tom . . .  

My Hiding Place

You know those blank books people use for journaling?  I have one that was given to me quite a few years ago (decades maybe?) that I do not use for journaling, but I do use to save quotes I like.  One of my very favorites is by Corrie tenBoom, who was a survivor of a concentration camp in Germany during World War II. She says this: “Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”

Having read “The Hiding Place” multiple times over the course of my life, (and I just started reading it again!) I am always struck by the story of how a very ordinary person was used in such extraordinary ways.  Corrie was in her fifties when her adventures began, and up to that point was a repairer of clocks in her father’s clock shop in the Netherlands.  She never imagined the plans God had for her, the pain and the loss she would experience.  Nor, the miracles that would take place before her eyes because she was willing to be used by God for His purposes.

How had God prepared her so perfectly for the adventures and horrors that were her experience?  By placing her exactly in a family that was steeped in God’s Word.  A family that was faithful in prayer and service to others.  Even by placing that family in an extremely old, crooked house that was perfect for hiding Jews because of its odd mishmash of levels and rooms! 

Every time I read that quote, I feel the peace of knowing that nothing, NOTHING happens to us by mere chance.  God has perfectly orchestrated each detail of our lives to prepare us for His plan for us.  Psalm 139 says, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (vs. 16.)  So, does that mean God knew what our world would be facing right now?  Yes!  Verse 5 of that Psalm says, “You hem me in – behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

Our feeble minds can’t imagine how God can know what’s behind and before us.  We can’t imagine how He might use this time of separation to mold us, to change us, to push us, and to quiet us.  And since the knowledge of His plan is “too lofty for me to attain,” I will rely not on my mind or my will, but on God’s word, which holds this promise: “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” (Psalm 32: 7) 

Today, remember that God has prepared us for this moment in time, and He is using this time to prepare us “for the future that only He can see.”  I will rest in that peace, and know that I, too, am hiding in Him.