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Finding the Way Home
The eNewsletter Archive
Below is the archived version of Marshall Hayden's eNewesletter "Finding the Way Home." If you would like to be added to to mailing list, please send a blank email to evangelism-subscribe@worthingtoncc.org.
You may also view our archived articles here.
August 2009
Yesterday was one of those days! One of those good days! And this is being written on a Tuesday. Which means that yesterday was Monday! Fancy that! Sundays can be a strange combination of exhilaration, satisfaction, frustration, exhaustion, and some confusion. On Monday those of us who have invested so completely in Sunday can be weary – you might even say "wiped out." But not yesterday.
You've had great days like that! For a while I drove around running church errands, Zimbabwe Christian college errands, and family errands. And I found myself singing and whistling (not that big a surprise to some of you). In staff meeting we enjoyed expressing support for each other, and laid some plans for the road ahead. We prayed for our team members who were off to enjoy some vacation time. Our good intern, Michael Harris, and I laid plans for talking about important things during the next two weeks. One-year old grandson Jake was at our house for the first of three days. And when I got home Judy had done the heavy lifting. I got to play with him in the back yard, match wits with him (to see if my barricade could keep him from scaling the stairs when we weren't right there beside him – at this writing I'm still ahead), sing songs along with the musical drum, and wave "hi" and "goodbye" several times. We ate kid food for dinner. How can you beat that?
But there are some days, some weeks, and some seasons, when life doesn't seem so sweet. People are hurting, make mistakes (sometimes big ones), look for help wrestling with knotty questions, misunderstand each other, or understand each other all too well. And they have more problems than we can match up with solutions. The erstwhile helper's head hurts, and gut hurts. Not many songs come to mind. At that moment it is hard to think that "this too shall pass." Maybe it won't! It's hard to see any sunshine for the fog. Self doubt creeps in. "I could have done better. Why am I so thick?"
The title of a book by James Dobson points us in the right direction. Emotions; Can You Trust Them?" The answer is mostly no! Some emotions can contribute energy. We'll take that, even when the energy may be pretty short-lived. But emotions can sap energy too. And the truth of the situation, event, or decision usually lies "over there," somewhere apart from the emotion. A little "out of the body" experience might very well do us good, if we can separate ourselves from the moment in order to get some perspective.
Three assurances come to mind. Two come from the pen of the apostle Paul, as he writes to Rome ahead of his arrival there as a prisoner. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28)." "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39)." And one comes from the letter to the scattered Hebrew Christians. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8)."
So, we can enjoy the yesterdays, and not be too badly shaken by the other days.
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