There are many people whose testimonies include miraculous answers to prayer, dramatic reversals of fortune, healings, deliverances, and surprising victories over and against impossible odds. Paul’s story includes many of these kinds of experiences, and I my prayer is that each of our own stories would include more and more of them too. I also believe that when these kinds of experiences happen we are right to share them with one another and celebrate them together.
And yet, most of the time our prayers are not answered with miracles, and for most of us our stories involve precious few if any miracles of our own. But this should not discourage us, because what we see in Paul’s words to Timothy is that the life of faith centered on Jesus rests on something far deeper than the sort of miracles which are at best only signs and samples of God’s goodness and love. Paul’s faith, and the faith that he helped to nurture in Timothy, and which has been nurtured in the lives of faithful people for generations, rests on nothing less than God’s ultimate plan and purpose for the life of the whole world which has been revealed and as good as achieved in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
What kept Paul from being discouraged during what was not only the lowest point but ultimately the closing chapter of his apostolic ministry, was not the miracles he had witnessed during his life but his faith in what God had achieved in Jesus long before Paul had even come to believe; his faith that in Jesus God has overcome sin and death so that in the end, not even death can separate us from the goodness and love of God.
I hope you can join us this Sunday as we share and celebrate all that God has done and is doing in our lives together.
Youth Update
Parents of children in Sunday School, please remember to go downstairs to pick up your child just as the music team is receiving their communion.
Sunday School
- Nov.13/16 – 1 person needed
- Nov. 20/16 – 1 person needed
Nursery
- Dec.11/16
- Dec.18/16
Singers are wanted to participate in the choir. There will be two practices Sun. Oct. 30 at 1:00pm and Sun. Nov 20 at 1:00pm
If you are interested in participating, please contact Glenna Geer at 832-5338.