Pastor’s Desk for
October 2005
Greetings,
There’s a definite chill in the air tonight. It must be Autumn… Autumn makes me think of our struggles to make it through this life. Much has to be done before Winter settles over the land. Personally, I’ve been getting my wood stacked. Soon I’ll be digging the potatoes. Marlene has been harvesting what vegetables remain and putting them up for the months ahead.
Life is, indeed a struggle and one of the issues we often find ourselves struggling with are our bad habits. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the harder you try to overcome a bad habit, the more difficult it is to accomplish? It’s one of those odd things of life that no one has really been able to explain. Yet it happens again and again in our lives. The Apostle Paul obviously experienced this, for in his letter to the Romans, he wrote the following words:
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:15, 18b-19 NIV)
Well, I was sitting here thinking upon this passage when a well known poem came into my head:
Don't Quit
“When things go wrong as they
sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't quit….”
In thinking about the struggles we face with this perspective in mind, I was reminded of another letter from Paul, this one to the Philippians:
“…but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12b-14)
So let’s face it, life is a struggle. The good news is, of course, that we do not struggle alone. We have an advocate who walks the miles with us, always ready to pick us up when we stumble. That’s what life is about, getting up again when we stumble. Let us all continue to “press on toward the goal…” It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth the effort.
Pastor Thom
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August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005