March 18, 2009
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God's Doing or Man's Undoing?
Its been way too long but no excuses, you already know that!
Some random, off the cuff, thoughts:
Through an unrelated web search I ended up at Patrick's site and enjoyed reading some of his poetry which is always enjoyable and inspiring. Anyways, that got me here and I decided I needed to update, if not for your edification at least for my reading pleasure in the future.
As I've alluded to in the past I work for the Army Corps of Engineers as a Project Engineer with our maintenance people, though my title is actually Electrical Engineer. Every year (Oct. - Sept.) starts out looking like there won't be much work but always ends up with at least enough to keep me relatively busy. Through some quirk of fate this year has proven to be almost overwhelming and I have had as many as three crews out working at the dams at our lakes at one time as well as trying to plan for two or three other upcoming jobs. I sometimes feel quite inadequate to be doing this work let alone this much but God is always there to pick me up and bless me with some co-operative fellow Engineers as well as work crews. I actually have to pinch myself sometimes to remind myself that this is all real as I doubt I could find a better job to suit my preferences for work. My boss works in the city while my office is at a field site, which is a bonus, but recently I've been spending nearly all my time in the field with the work crews so I actually get paid to go out to places that others visit! God is Good!
(I suddenly have writer's block....)
Church you ask? I'm still not sure about our Saturday night service but I'm hanging in there hoping that even if I don't appreciate it I might be able to at least add something to it by leading worship. Prior to this church I always lead worship alone with my guitar and for a while with a piano accompaniest but arriving at the place we worship now I was suddenly thrust into a quite good worship band as an acoustic guitar player. Over the years this band has all disappeared leaving me all alone again with my guitar. So I went from not wanting to be in a worship band, to being in a great one, to being alone again. This isn't so much a problem to me but the ups and down of it all can get confusing. The service also went from a gathering of about 150 people in the sanctuary to a coffeehouse gathering of about 12-15 people in the church social hall. That's kind of confusing also as the kind of service we had in the sanctuary that dried up is now all the rage at many other churches in the area. God's doing or man's undoing?
That is a good segue into wondering why do we, as people, seem to hang around when all seems well with our situation but pack up and leave when things don't seem all that well? Do we fail with the things we attempt to do for God because we can't last through the testing that always comes to affirm our faith and abilities?
The monthly coffeehouse we've been doing in Erie has seemed to peak already with about 15-20 people also, with about 5-7 of them being us people whom travel there from here. I enjoy going just to spend time with my great friend, the Pastor there, and get to worship through song with him, but I often wonder why somethings just seem to take off while others fall flat. God's doing or man's undoing?
Maybe being unsatisfied with our Church situation is God's way of getting some of us to pay attention and start to seek Him more...
Where is all the Godly Spirit-Filled teaching?
Well I have other things to opine on but do not wish to write the great American novel tonight so I will close!
Be Blessed!
God IS Good!
Go Ahead: Say It! Believe It! Confess It!
You're Invited!!
Comments (2)
Good to hear from you. Your job sounds so ideal - being out in God's world. When I was a litt;e gor;pir fa,o;u often went camping. I loved going up into the mountains so much. When I discovered that the park rangers lived there year aound, I decided I should marry a ranger when I grew up (if I were growing up today I would become a ranger!).
I cannot help but think that these difficult ecomonic times are a gift from God to draw people back to Him. I attend a church that has been running about 1200 people on a Sunday, Last year tt was more like 1100 a Sunday and now we are at about 1000 a Sunday. It seems puzzling - the church has great music, great preaching, it is very loving and doesn't feel like some big, impersonal church. There is a lot of out reach - nursing homes, a bus ministry (it is an inner city church), a camp, two youth conferences, a VBS that attracts hundreds of kids. What are we doing or not doing? Or is God sifting the people? I just know these are challenging times, and peole need God as much as ever.
Take care and God bless you.
Carol
Nice to see you posting. I'm glad all is well.
Comments are closed.