Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
Dear Disciple of Christ,
So, can I ask, “where did your life come from”? I’m not referring to the miraculous gift from God, giving each of us an estimated 30 trillion human cells (each one fed by blood) and the 38 trillion bacterial cells that help us in getting nutrition. I’m talking about the lifestyle that you live? At times I’ve been asked how I decided to become a minister and what it was like growing up in my home. Many pastors have children who become pastors (my father, however, was a boiler room mechanic, or “stationary engineer” as my mother taught me to say). We did not have Bible study at home. I had no relatives that were pastors. I didn’t have a particular pastor who spoke with me about it.
What did I have? I guess I’d call it a Life of Faith. Quoting Paul, we knew, “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” Our family went to church every Sunday and at church we heard the Word each week. And every special service… you know, Easter and Christmas. Lots of times our family was the only family on a snowy Christmas morning (and it’s been that way for my entire ministry). And faith? “It comes… as we hear”. There was never a discussion or argument about going to worship on Sunday. My sister and I didn’t feel forced; it was what we did (she became a music major who used her talents as a church organist for many years even to this day). It was like our parents had considered the value of worship for themselves and “passed that perspective on to us. We didn’t “do” church at home but we “were church there”.
My parents lived by faith. They needed to as life was not easy. They were separated by WW 2 right after they were married. It took faith for them to trust the Lord when my dad’s liberty ship was sunk by a submarine the day after the war “ended”. They needed faith as my mother “miscarried” her first baby, had my sister and myself and then miscarried her last child. Worship around the Word was crucial, not to be missed any more than we would skip a meal at the Johnson house. I remember to this day my mother coming into my bedroom at the end of the day and saying the Lord’s prayer with me (as she had done with my sister). So, we were able to “minister” to Gramp in the loss of his wife and minister to each other when Gramp died yers later.
So where is the Word and the Faith and the Lord your life? God, knowing us as he does, set up our gathering with Him to be a weekly event gathering around Word and sacrament. It’s not that we don’t reflect on His will and ways each day, but God seemed to feel it would be best for us to stop focusing on our work and our efforts and our plans to give Him the opportunity to show us His work and ways and plans for us and creation. “So remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. Rest from your labors and look at mine,” God said (and says!). Would we dare to suggest we know better, that it would be better for us to ignore that Word of the Lord (some have tried that only to find themselves wandering from the Lord and faith itself)?
You may know that when I’m on vacation, I still set aside Sunday as that day of rest from my efforts to consider His loving efforts for me and all of us. That means I led worship with the Word each week. Twice each vacation we worshiped with other vacationers at the garden pool in Bahamas. It may mean that, at times, my wife and I gathered with the Word in our room and read and considered and prayed. It is simply what we do. It is a rhythm for life and it has served us well to rest in Him and in His Word weekly.
1) Do you have any rhythms in your life? Any that are God-pleasing?
2) Do you believe that the more the Word impacts your life the better?
Peace and rhythm,
Pastor Johnson