Monthly Archives: February 2021

Greater the darkness; more visible the victory.

Points Along The Journey - Living A Missional Life, Studies in Listening to God, , , , , ,

I know people who have gone through great tragedy and experienced dark days. Businesses fail. Homes are taken. Children (or spouses) stray. Partners betray. What felt secure evaporates in a brief moment. And dark times and deep questions often follow.

And you might ask, Why bring this up? Because we all face those dark nights of the soul.

How you and I as Christ-followers respond in the darkness, and especially how we take one step at a time toward God’s grace and purposes in that darkness, has a great impact on people. We give hope to others when we pursue King Jesus and keep loving and serving others when our days are dark.

When Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, he announced it as the hour “when the power of darkness reigns.” (Luke 22:53). And for the next three days, the darkness crescendoed around the city of Jerusalem and across the heavenlies.

And heaven’s greatest coup came in the deepest darkness. What was usurped for millennia by the Conniver in the Garden of Eden was reclaimed for good in the dark hours in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus is acquainted with the darkness; He does His best work when people need hope and salvation. And that’s when He does His best work in and through you and me.

This week, Renovation Vineyard Church begin our journey through the dark days of Jesus’ Passion as we move through the hours just before Easter Sunday and His unmatched triumph over the enemy and the grave.

Trusting His Victory in the Darkness – Pastor Rick

Unsettled Can Be Good for You

One Day Diary, ,

We are moving…once again. Susan counted 27 different places we’ve lived (homes, flats, camper trailers). No yurts or cave…so far. As can happen, closing dates shift and rain delays moving dates, and we are living as nomads. For now, we have suitcases and a borrowed bed, and we are surrounded by life’s flotsam and jetsam.

All this unsettledness leaves me longing for home.

We are twelve months into a pandemic that has transformed how we do life. Mask up, double mask up, careful with what we touch, keep our distance, drive through and eat in the car, get swabbed at the first cough or sneeze, and avoid groups at all cost. That means no concerts, no conferences, and for many no church worship, no funerals, no weddings, no school.

There, again, that unsettled feeling. Nomads in a strange land. Hanging out in our tents.

The Bible names us “sojourners” – travelers passing through. The word means “to stay a day among others.” That means we are not home yet – we are “on-the-way-ers.” Could there be a better image of seeking and serving God? As lovers of God and lovers of people, we pass through lives and give love and hope as if they represent the God we serve, as “sojourners.”

Maybe my unsettledness is a nudge that I’m not home, but today I get to sojourn – I get to be with people, make memories, give hope, laugh, cry, and give what I am to others as an “on-the-way-er.”

Here’s to new places and keeping a bit of unsettledness as we get settled.

Sojourning with you – Rick