Seasons by Jesse Jorgensen

Psalm 1 says the following about a person who is blessed by God:

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not
wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”

One of the most meaningful things to me,
from this verse, is that the tree goes through fruitless seasons. As I read this I can remember many times when I have felt absolutely useless. I remember one time in particular, when I really felt like I had no visible way to accomplish the dreams that I felt God had put into me. It was truly a very miserable time. This verse was something that I clung to. It helped me to hang on and trust that God was working. It helped me to embrace the season of waiting, even as miserable as it was. Not that I came to enjoy it or anything or anything like that, but I came to endure, and eventually God did bring new seasons.

Even since this particular season that I’ve described, I have continued to go through others
like it. I anticipate that there will be many more to come. But, the good news is that seasons are okay! We don’t have to add to our misery by getting down on ourselves for not bearing fruit in a time like this. It’s the way things go for trees, and when we trust God we too will go through them. Another interesting thing about this verse is that is says, “In all that he does, he prospers.” Wait, what about the season when he doesn’t bear fruit? How does he prosper then? Apparently, there is a way.

When I graduated from College one of my professors let each of his students pick one of his paintings as a gift. I chose one called, “The Pruned Vine”. And as you may have guessed, it depicts a vine that has been pruned. It looks dead: cold, and twisted, and dead. I like this painting because it reminds me that there are seasons to life. Just like the vine we go through fruitless times in order to make us more fruitful when the time for harvest comes.

Even in the times of waiting we can prosper. We can choose to endure well, lean into the Lord and let the roots of the lessons that he is teaching us grow deep. The next season will come. When we find ourselves being unfruitful, it may be that the Lord is pruning us. Let’s embrace these seasons as such, and when the correct season comes we will bear fruit.

The Founder of Apple and His Formative Core by Pastor Gregg Donnelly

When I read a book review and find it to be rather intriguing, I try to read the book first before I might buy it. As you probably guessed, I am very thankful for libraries because sometimes the review is better than the book itself.

Just a few days ago, I read an interesting review of Walter Isaacson’s book, “Steve Jobs.” Because I was facing a communigram deadline, I will highlight from Gordon MacDonald’s review of the book.

Steve Jobs was born to an unmarried couple who chose to give him up for adoption. The newborn child came to the home of a working class couple, Paul and Clara Jobs of San Francisco, who lavished great love and care on him.

Paul Jobs was a man of exceptional mechanical and carpentry skill. When Steve was old enough, father and son began to tinker with cars, build furniture, and repair things around the house. In their time together, the father planted a powerful work ethic in his son. All work he learned,

was to be marked with excellence. When they painted a fence together, Steve learned that the unexposed side was to be treated with the same thoroughness as the visible side.

When he began to attend school, he became bored very easily. In his boredom, his behavior revealed a “problem child.” He could have easily been labeled a rebellious delinquent and tossed under the academic bus. Fortunately
a discerning teacher saw something in him
and under her guidance, Jobs quickly became productive in academics. It was an amazing turnaround due to her shift in her teaching style! The author writes about a life changing incident when Jobs was 13 years old. “The July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday School and confronted the church’s pastor, “if I raise my finger, will God know which one I’m going to raise even before I do it?”

“The pastor answers, “Yes, God knows everything.”
“Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, “Well, does God know about this and what’s going to happen to those children?”
“Steve, I know you don’t understand, but yes, God knows about that.”
The pastor’s answer was not sufficient for the young teen’s intellect and Jobs left unsatisfied. According to the author, Jobs walked away from church that day and never returned. For the pastor, that brief conversation was likely a forgettable moment. Yet it was a turning point that would point Steve Jobs toward eastern philosophy.

Proverbs 25:11 comes to mind: “a word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” In my conversations over the years how often have I spoke words without the “aptly” tag?
Who knows when a spoken word moves another toward the right path...or the wrong direction? How careful are we with our words? How careful are we with the young and the easily influenced? Think of the formative years of Steve Jobs: a birth mother, a loving father, a wise teacher, an undiscerning pastor?

Since his death last summer at age 56, many Steve Jobs’ quotes have surfaced. I close with one that stuck with me:, “if you live each day as if it is your last day---someday you will be right” That is good advice for all of us!!!

Don't Forget to Remember, by Pastor Gregg Donnelly

I was driving our daughter Katie to school sometime ago and we both spotted it at the same time: a rainbow. I generally connect a rainbow following rain, not snow (ever heard of a snowbows?) The rainbow was God's reminder that He would never again destroy the world using water as the agent. (Genesis 9:12-16)

Sometime take a concordance and look up the words, "remember", "remembrances," and its other derivatives. What an emphasis on remembering! Memories that are not constantly refreshed will quickly recede. The lesson of the book of Deuteronomy can be summed up in a single work: REMEMBER. Learn from the past; recall God's faithfulness in former times for issues of today; don't duplicate the errors of previous generations. For 40 years God provided manna and prevented clothes from wearing out in order to show His people He could be trusted. But the sad lesson from Mr. Sinai (the golden calf incident) and Kadesh Barnea (sending out the 12 spies) is that we can so quickly forget what we should continually remember. When God's people forget what God has done, there will be trouble brewing ahead. Moses who was not going to enter the Promised Land delivered his series of sermons before his death (this is the Book of Deuteronomy) and repeatedly said, "REMEMBER!" He repeatedly reminded the people of the danger of making God's goodness a basis for their personal pride.

"Remember how the Lord..." (8:2)
"Remember that God gives you..." (8:18)
"If you ever forget..." (8:19)
"Don't forget how you..." (9:7)
Remember that you were slaves..." (15:15)
Whether you are in a valley right now or enjoying a mountaintop experience - or anything in between - don't forget to remember!

The Tools of Worship by Jesse Jorgensen

Imagine going to the dentist for a routine teeth cleaing. You go into the back room, sit down in that funny armchair and look up into the bright light. The dentist walks in and asks you nice questions as he prepares for the cleaning. Then he sits down next to you and calls for his assistant to bring out his tools. Soon, the assistant appears carrying a tray of instruments, as she approaches you catch a glimpse of them. There are 3 screwdrivers, a calculator and a can of WD-40. "Wait a second," you say to yourself, "that can't be right." Hopefully, this dentist would be just as worried as you are! Aside from what the patient would feel, a dentist without the tools he is trained to use would find himself or herself awkward and frustrated.

Sometimes, we feel like that dentist when we worship. We all have different worship tools that we have been trained to use, find comfortable or prefer more than others. These tools could be a number of different things ranging from a certain song choice or musical style to specific postures in worship, or even the order of a worship service. We get to be very comfortable and very good at using certain tools and if we are given a different set of tools we can feel frustrated just like that dentist would. However, if the tools we are given really are biblical and really are effective responses of worship (unlike the screw drivers, a calculator and WD-40 would be for a teeth cleaning) then we can learn to use these tools and benefit from them.

There are a handful of Hebrew and Greek words that have to do with worship. One such Greek word is proskuneo, which means to prostrate ones's self, or kiss towards, in order to pay homage and reverance. Proskuneo is the word translated as "worship" in Revelation 4:10, which says, "the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne..." Therefore, an example of this might be when we sing songs full of adoration. In this instance we could say that we are worshipping with an attitude of proskuneo and during these times it would be fitting to bow down in reverence.

A Hebrew word, yadah, is translated as the English word "praise" in Psalm 67:3 says, "Let the peoples praise You O God; Let all the peoples praise You." This same word is translated as "give thanks' in such places as Psalm 9:1 which says, "I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders." The definition of yadah has to do with throwing or casting, thanksfiving, laud and praise. Worshipping in an attitude of yadah might be conducive to praising God with loud instruments or boisterous singing.

One last Hebrew word we will look at is abad. It is translated into the English word "worship" in such places as Exodus 3:12 where God says to Moses, "when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain." the definition of abad has to do with working and laboring as servants. Our whole live are to be in service to God and we are to honor Him with our work. This means that even church workdays are an act of worship. In fact some people seem to be wired in such a way that they experience worshipful moments more often during a church workday than they might during a candlelight service!

Biblical worship has room for many different expressions. Each generation and culture seems to find its own unique expressions or proskuneo, yadah and abad. No matter what style of expression, let's understand that biblical worship is deeper than music and broader than style. It is an everyday lifestyle! Though awkward at first, we can learn to appreciate each other's preferences and worship together in love and unity. The body of Christ is so diverse, and that is a beautiful thing.

Let's make room in our toolboxes for more tools! Director of Music and Worship Jesse Jorgensen

What's Your Excuse?

Have you ever thought “what would it be like if God had given up on His children after they failed Him just one time?”
• Abraham would have never fathered Isaac (Gn. 16)
• Moses would never have become Israel’s deliverer (Ex. 3 & 4)
• Jonah would have never made his way to Nineveh (Jonah 1:3)
• Mark (John) would have never written the Gospel of Mark (Acts 13:13)
That list could go for a considerable length---and doesn’t it represent our personal lives at times? We may be keenly aware of our past failures but God is equally aware of our future potential. When God has a great job to do, He begins with a person who knows he serves a great God.
Sometimes it takes longer to prepare the worker of God than it does to do the work of God. Moses was a son of Pharaoh’s daughter in Egypt for 40 years and then became a desert shepherd in Midian for 40 years. Finally, at age 80, the Lord called him to return to Egypt, deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and bring them back to the Promised Land.
Moses presented a series of four excuses why he was not the man for the job:
1) “Who am I to do such a job as this?” Ex. 3:11
2) “Suppose I go…what would I say to them?” Ex. 3:13
3) “What if they don’t believe me?” Ex. 4:1
4) “I have never been eloquent; I am slow of speech” Ex. 4:10
As someone has said, “there seldom has been a man who was both good at making excuses and good at anything else.”
But the Lord countered each excuse and Moses did become the great deliverer of Israel. Fast forward to February 2011. Is there anything the Lord had laid on your heart for 2011 and you started well in January? Have those God ordained goals been scratched by saying, “yeah, but;” “well it is different now, my thinking has changed;” “I need a second opinion;” “I just cannot do it anymore!”
Failure is not final; when God is in this, it can be the back door to success. When you read about “famous failures” in the Bible, what does that encourage you to do…today? God will bless you as you go and do it in the strength He gives to those who seek Him and His ways.