Monday Morning Musings ...

Yesterday was an outstanding day. God is always present, but sometimes his presence is more dominating than others. That is on us more than on him, often we are not prepared, at times we are not open to God's move among us, there are a lot of reasons that God's presence doesn't dominate all of our services. But yesterday he certain was here, he was working and his presence was evident to everyone.

We participated well as we sang, people seemed to be engaged during the time of prayer and they were very intent during the message. It was a very good day.

My sermon was entitled "Handfuls of Hope" from Isaiah 40:27-31. I brought a small glass jar half full of nickels, dimes and quarters up to the platform. Then I called up a boy who is in 2nd or 3rd grade. I told him he could put a hand in the jar and grab as my coins as he could and that all the coins that he grabbed and could pull out of the jar would his to keep. The look on his face when I called him to come up on the platform was priceless and then when I explained what I wanted him to do he had another great look. He got a bunch of money out of the illustration. I then told of the coin dig our kids used to do with their Uncle Jim and how I now do that with my grandkids on occasion. I told that the problem was that the kids always touch more coins than they can lift out of the jar and though they love getting the money they are frustrated by the coins that fall back into the jar. I then when on to say that I believe many of us view the things of God in much the same way. We feel there is a limited amount available and we get frustrated by what we perceive as the things that escape our grasp. But the truth is there are handfuls of hope and grace available. In fact it is overflowing and overwhelming because God's supply is endless.

I said that hope is a choice and that our choice is influenced by some realizations. The realization that God is always available to you, that God's strength (all of it) is available to you and that choosing to live in God's will is the most hopeful place in which you can ever exist. So choose the hope that God provides. The spirit was working and though I didn't initially give any kind of invitation a young man came to the altar and then many others did as well.

The evening service was a great time of discussion that went deeper in the area of hope. I left them with the challenge of finding someone with whom to share this hope this week.

A big bonus was that a cousin of mine had been visiting with us over the weekend and we had a great time together and then Sunday afternoon my wife went and got our youngest grandson who is staying with us all week!

Here hoping that you make the choice of God's hope and find someone else with whom to share the hope.