I want to share something really cool from yesterday. To place this in context, it has been one heck of a week. My attitude was way subpar and I wasn't struggling so much as flat sinning in my prickly pear demeanor. Dave wasn't doing much better. I had only been praying sporadically and was distracted often last week. Definitely not winning any church planter's wife awards if you know what I mean. I'm not sharing that to down myself...it's just honestly where I was this past week so you can catch this next thing that happened. I forced myself to go to service...really. I had to make myself get ready and leave the house and not grumble the entire way out loud. I wish I didn't grumble in my mind so much, but I'm not that amazing. So there we were....the church planter and his wife, irritated, grumbly, and discontented walking razor blades as we entered the building. I set up communion which started me thinking about the gospel, but I was still a ways off from grabbing hold of it like I needed to. Service starts. We sing our songs and after that part, I walk the kids back up the isles to go to the nursery and I stop for a second and look back at the group. Three of our members were not present last night. We are a small group. Seven or eight people on a normal Sunday and when I looked up to the front it was five turned heads and Dave facing them. It sunk my little heart. This has been so hard that after all the work and time and effort only five heads were there. I know the truth. We are working, not for some number of people, but to be obedient to God. We desire for people to know God. That is what is asked of us. I know that, but being open with you guys...my heart dropped a bit seeing that last night. Sometimes there are days like that, you know. Have you ever felt that drop? I headed downstairs and revamped my striving for better thinking....right thinking sieved through a gospel filter. These eight people are amazing individuals. Better than fifty people in pews who don't care. These people sacrifice and share the gospel here. They're my people! After service was over, I headed back upstairs and there sat Alex and his oldest daughter in the fifth pew back. His two younger daughters were playing with Jack. Alex is a man Dave met the first months after we moved. They became friends. It took eight more months to get them to actually come over for dinner and six more months for his wife to finally go have dinner out with me. It's been insanely difficult to persevere during that time with no responses and cancelations or silence. Dave has felt drawn to Alex for a while and had decided to keep pursuing him. I was really surprised to see him. Dave told me in the van later that after I had taken the kiddos out of the sanctuary, the others prayed together before the sermon which was what we do. But, they had prayed for Alex specifically. He showed up right after. It lifted my drooping heart...not because he finally came. But because our church prayed for him and he came! God is working. He is working just as fervently in people when it seems fruitless and discouraging and the time is lengthy as He is when there are many turning to Him and we get to see hundreds of heads facing forward from the back of the room. God is working. And we got a chance to see a small part of that as a body of believers praying together. It wasn't about me or Dave or any one person...our church family was together and that answered prayer was shared with all of us. Even me, down in the nursery got to be a part of that blessing. Our small motley crew really needed that moment of seeing God work as we are working together. It was great. It encouraged me and it reminded me not to be a person without hope. Even when our week isn't great and we've chosen badly...God is still God. Even the days I'm a great big ball of ugly sin. It's not a cause and effect gospel we trust in...that we do life and ministry well and God blesses. It's the gospel of effect. Jesus enacts His mercy and grace on us when we cannot do anything well and He doesn't stop doing that for us. He knew Dave and I were knee deep in a grimy disastrous failure of a week and He still encouraged and answered prayer and gave us hope. We don't have to be all peaches and cream Christian for God to be God and do the things He says He will do. Living in the effects of the gospel completely changes the cause side of things. I get it switched around way too often and it's me believing a lie. So, guys, if your having a rough week and feel like a huge failure. Remember it is God in us that produces the good. If you feel like your spinning your wheels. I'm right there with you. Remember God in us will prevail. He will rescue you where you are. He will encourage your spirit. He will not leave you alone there in that place. "Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." -Romans 5:2 He isn't based off of our goodness. We are based off of His. I hope you guys have a week where God is proving that truth to you. Remember it.
