MAY 7, 2006 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
ACTS 4:5-12; PSALM 23; I JOHN 3:16-24; JOHN 10:11-18
Our Eyes Are On You
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The phone rang, and a pain-wracked voice said, Scott, can you come over? Claudia miscarried our baby last night…and…we don’t know what to do…
So I went, and we mourned, and we prayed, and we cried,
and we talked together about hopes that had died.
Then we planned a funeral and said good bye
to their beautiful dream that never knew life.
And, strangely, the pain that so defined that dark night
Eventually…became…bearable in the sight of God’s light.
A while ago we heard from a friend who is a pastor. She had just received a call to a new congregation and was trying to make the right decision. The new call promised some pleasing possibilities:
-it looked like a match for her spiritual gifts;
-it promised good prospects for the profession of her spouse;
-the city seemed well-suited for hospitals, schools, stores and homes.
Yet the move would also mean saying:
goodbye to a congregation that seemed to be such a good fit;
goodbye to friends that they cared for and family they loved;
goodbye to a place and people, even problems that were familiar…
She simply said, We don’t know what to do…
It was an unusually warm Sunday in March…the sky darkened…the rain fell…the wind howled…and before long, the sirens blew. Of course, we all did what everyone does when that happens --- we went outside to see what we could see!!! But those swirling clouds sent us back inside quickly… then down to the basement…then under the pool table… then they put us literally in the dark… After the tornado had done its worst, up the stairs we climbed into a period of trials and tears, stresses and messes.
That very night it turned cold…so with the city’s power plant destroyed… and just to prove that things can always get worse…the very next day…it snowed! One of our elderly couples was found sitting in their kitchen, the only part of their home not damaged, wrapped in every blanket they owned. Brought to an emergency shelter by their neighbors, they were dazed and confused. With tears in their eyes, they looked at me and said, We don’t know what to do…
I was down in Juneau this last week from Monday until last night – the first three days of the week at a retreat for Lutheran pastors. And we actually did it the right way! Jim Christiansen, a spiritual director in our region, led us through four sessions on the discipline of prayer. Those hours were filled with instances of inspiring spiritual insight. Truly, I felt blessed to spend that much time in prayer and then to share about that experience with my brothers and sisters in ministry.
Then we turned our attention to critical issues facing the Lutheran church in Alaska. That’s when the real work of the week began. Pastors Mike Keys, Larry Jorgenson and Martin Eldred led us through a challenging but fruitful discussion about the problems we’re facing, the causes behind them, and the resources we may have to help. To say the least, opinions were pointed, pressures were potent, passions were piqued, and, ultimately, God’s promise to preserve us was at least posed as a possibility...
By the end of those working sessions, we felt tired, torn, somewhat troubled and tempted to turn it all off. Then, our spiritual director led us through a closing time of prayer before we broke camp and headed into town to work at the Synod Assembly.
Jim opened his devotional book to II Chronicles 20:12 and started to read: (quote) We do not know what to do…and that’s as far as he got, because all of us pastors broke out in laughter – not because it was funny, but because that is exactly how we all felt. We do not know what to do… Does anyone know what that verse is about? I didn’t. King Jehoshaphat of Judah, and his little army, are facing an enemy that will overwhelm them. Filled with fear and trembling and consternation, he prays to the Lord and ends with this sentence: we do not know what to do…but our eyes are on you.
I wish I would have memorized that verse way back when. It wouldn’t have been appropriate right away, but at a point, it would have been good to share with our friends who were mourning their miscarriage.
-I can imagine praying with them, we do not know what to do, but
our eyes are on you.
-I can imagine praying these words with my friend who was agonizing
over a new call, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
-And I can imagine praying with those who were so confused after the
tornado, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
-And, finally, I can imagine praying with you, and you with me, when life throws us a curve, Lord, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. Amen.