Crazy January Days

I chuckled when I noticed that my last blog entry was about a "Sermonless Sunday". That was two weeks ago. Since then I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to check my email much less sit down and blog about something. There have been a few issues that have demanded a lot of my time and countless hours on the phone sorting through decisions that needed to be made.

Looking back on things, I realize now that some of it was poor planning on my part, but mostly is was the simple difficulty of decision-making in a church. In the business world it is fairly easy to call a meeting and get everyone around a table to discuss something. If more information is needed then someone is assigned to gather it and the meeting is adjorned for a few hours and then everyone gets back together again. Decisions can be reached fairly quickly and everyone involved hears everything.

In a church setting like our where people travel for miles to get to church it is more difficult to gather people for a meeting. Sometimes that means trying to reach a decision through phone calls rather than face-to-face meetings. Trying to reach consensus about something by means of a dozen phone calls back and forth takes time and energy, particularly if you find yourself at the hub of all of the activity. What could take two or three thirty minute meetings in the business world winds up being several hours of phone calls stretched over a couple of days. It carries with it the danger of someone being out of the loop or misunderstood. Its the nature of the process can sometimes be the stressful for me rather than the actual "issues" involved.

Sometimes during periods like this I can lose perspective. I was reminded of this during my devotional time yesterday. I was reading Luke 8:22-25. Jesus told his disciples that they were going to go to the other side of the lake. He then climbed in the boat and promptly fell asleep. As they were crossing, a squall came down the lake. Water was pouring in the boat and the disciples, some whom were professional fishermen, were terrified that they were going to capsize. They woke Jesus up. Jesus stood up, told the wind to die down, and then asked them where their faith was.

It suddenly dawned on me that the disciples were placing their confidence in their apparent circumstances rather than in God. Think about it. The creator of the universe had just told them that they were going to the other side of the lake. He was with them in the boat. What was going to keep that from happening? A squall? I don't think so!

It's a good thing to remember when things get crazy hard. If you are following God you can be certain that you will reach your destination, even if an occassional squall comes up. In fact, it is seeing the power of God in the midst of the squall that fills us with awe and wonder about this Jesus that we are following.