As most of you know, Becky and I have felt God leading us to serve Him as lay ministers, as opposed to vocational ministers. Therefore, I sit here, in my mostly cleaned out office and find that I am caught between two overwhelming emotions: hope and sorrow. As I think about it, pray about it and seek God in this time, I realize that both are good and healthy emotions, ones that are encouraged in Scripture.
Romans 5:3-5 states: “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
I look at this time in my family’s life and I see some suffering coming in the form of mourning. Our relationship with you, the family of Garland Church is changing. For some of the individual relationships, they will truly cease, others will simply change in description alone while many will be somewhere in between. This is an obvious reason to mourn, but it is not necessarily bad.
When it comes to the hope that I feel and am promised in this passage, I think about the God we serve. He is such a great Guy, don’t you think? His plans are far greater than our own. When I think specifically about the relationships here, I know that He has others in store for the youth and children’s ministries that far surpass Becky and me. He has plans that I could never even start to understand. When I think about my family’s life, I have hope because I know that God has and will take care of us.
For all of our married life, Becky and I have claimed “Great is Thy Faithfulness” as our theme song. He always has been. We have never missed a payment, always had a roof over our head and never gone to bed hungry (I have even added some pregnancy weight that just won’t go away by itself…). So, I have hope that whatever the journey God is taking us on, He will be faithful.
I know that God’s faithfulness isn’t just for my family; He is ready for you to see His faithfulness, so rely on this hope and know that God is ready to pour out His love into your hearts.
As for my family and I, I want to say “Thank You” for representing Christ in our lives. We have loved serving you, worshipping with you and calling you “family.” Our love for you will always be in abundance.
Humbled by His grace,
Matthew g Prior
1 comment:
You are my blessing.
Post a Comment