God doesn't waste anything. Every experience that
He gives us is a chance for us to grow closer to Him, to experience more of Him
and to hold tightly to Him. That's what I've been learning.
Yesterday Bruce accepted the call to become the
pastor of the church we've been working at for the last three years. Six months
ago our pastor announced his plans to retire/resign by the end of June. He's
served faithfully for 29 years. He leaves quite a legacy.
Six months ago when we began earnestly seeking God
regarding our purpose in this town God began to make it clear to us that Bruce
was to submit a resume for the pastorate. He had pastored before for 14 years
and we began wondering if that was what God was preparing us for now.With lots
of nervous energy and midnight prayers Bruce and I committed to take this one
small step towards what we believed God was asking us to do. What we
learned...small steps can be hard steps too. But, God doesn't waste anything.
For four months the search committee met, sorted through resumes, checked
references, narrowed down the list of many to a list of a few, and in that
waiting, we learned a lot about ourselves, each other and God.
To make a very long 5 month story much shorter,
I'll just tell you that yesterday Bruce accepted the call to become the next pastor
of our church...the church where as a sixteen year old young man he came to
know Christ, the church he surrendered to ministry at, the church that
supported us in our very young ministry days in SE Texas.
There's lots of very cool details that I'll be
blogging about at a later date, but I know some of you didn't even know this
was in the making and I wanted to let you know sooner rather than later....God
hasn't wasted our last three years ...he wastes nothing. We've grown in ways
that we didn't even know we needed to, we've learned to serve God and love
people in a way that was refreshing and rewarding and risky and in the end, we
hope has brought honor to God. And we know we've got lots more learning and
growing and stretching ahead. Hopefully I'll hold tight to what I've come to
know as Truth.
Someone told me last night when she walked through the line to greet us
after church "I like this, I like this a lot". Yes, me too.
1 comment:
This is interesting, because in my head I thought he already was the pastor of your church. I think the Lord must've put in my head what's been in His heart for awhile. I love how the Lord simply reveals His plan at the appropriate hour. I appreciate how you and Bruce have walked before the Lord in this. May His leadership and Lordship in your lives continue in every hour.
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